Chicago Nightlife: 2003

The following was a chapter penned for the guidebook UNDERGROUND CHICAGO 2003 –
Clublife
Play your night right, and clubbing in Chicago ought to be a religious experience. This is, after all, the birthplace of house music, named for the beat spun by DJ Frankie Knuckles at the long-defunct, but still legendary, club The Warehouse in the [...]

Jeff Mills, Techno Musician/Futurist

Jeff Mills, one of Detroit’s finest techno DJs, will be spinning at Santos Party House in New York City on Wednesday, September 3. In 2004, I interviewed Mills upon the release of his “Exhibitionist” CD/DVD. Here’s how it all went down.

Run of the Mills
Techno giant Jeff Mills puts the [...]

Designer Clubs

Designer clubs
Rocco Laudizio talks about Sound-Bar and the making of Chicago nightlife
David Schneider

There were hundreds of people on Sound-Bar’s dance floor a couple of Friday nights ago, all off their heads and delirious, belting out the words to Green Velvet’s techno-funk classic “La La Land,” and not one of them [...]

Jumbo Thoughts

Jumbo thoughts
Inside Karl Hyde’s head David Schneider

Sometimes, Karl Hyde just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
No, it’s not that Hyde is off his head. Far from it. Even as a disembodied voice over a telephone line, Underworld’s lyricist/vocalist is a current of creativity, a whirlpool of [...]

Post-post irony eats itself (April 12, 2003)

Post-post-irony eats itself.
Who are The Polyphonic Spree?
The Beatles of “Sgt. Pepper’s” and The Beatles of “Let it Be.” Journey. Elton John. Your church choir. Your children’s choir. Queen. Sesame Street. Oasis. Supergrass. “Jesus Christ Superstar.” “Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The Who. “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” ABBA. A corporate inspirational-poster slogan. [...]

Urban Assault: Eddie Halliwell (January 11, 2004)

A version of this was published as a DJ listing preview in Newcity. –>
“So who’s this guy you’ve dragged me in here to see?”
“Eddie Halliwell. He’s supposed to be absolutely enormous in London right now.”
I expected more cack-handed, commercial-oriented trance.
“What does he spin?”
“UK Hard House.”
And then, O my brothers, did I get gleefully bludgeoned by [...]

DJ Preview Listings: 2003-4

SASHA (airdrawndagger)
You know you’re massive when you’re breaking through your own backlash. Sasha, who first got hooked on house at the Hacienda in 1987, virtually created the genre of UK progressive house with partner-in-crime and global heavyweight John Digweed. But as their residency at New York’s Twilo ended with the club’s collapse in 2001, the [...]

Jumbo Thoughts

umbo thoughts
Inside Karl Hyde’s head David Schneider

Sometimes, Karl Hyde just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
No, it’s not that Hyde is off his head. Far from it. Even as a disembodied voice over a telephone line, Underworld’s lyricist/vocalist is a current of creativity, a whirlpool [...]

Underworld Overwhelming

Underworld overwhelming
An in-depth interview with vocalist Karl Hyde
David Schneider

For the last fifteen years, Underworld’s celestial chords, jackhammer beats and fragmented, stream-of-consciousness lyrics have lifted electronic music beyond numb thumpings, into a gritty and sublime realm few other dance acts have approached. From 1994’s [...]