Seminal moments in the spirituality of my Beats appreciation / understanding:
- In the early '80s in Dixmoor, Illinois, just outside the southside of Chicago (though it might have been 1979, because I was in the 6th grade) friends and I walked past a house that had a "House party" going on inside with Farley Jackmaster Funk playing records. It was late afternoon / evening (not at night). And was considerably before the time when my friends and I became obsessed devotees of the legendary WBMX radio Hot Mix 5 house music broadcasts. I distinctly remember this occurrence, walking home from school. (Could it be a remembered fantasy?)
- Early '90s I was a regular at the 3rd (and final) iteration of The Warehouse (was it on Randolph st., off of Halsted?). This is where my initial (club) groove was born, infected: House, rap, electro, soul (unlike my friends I never got to go to the legendary Mendel High School underage house parties - seminal).
- Two years before leaving Chicago for New York City, 1995, I heard Derrick Carter spin at Red Dog in Wicker Park. This is when I truly began to UNDERSTAND house music. I had been a regular of Shelter (where I'd seen a pre-masked Daft Punk DJ that same year), had done the Medusa's juice bar Industrial / House scenes (ie. Ministry / 1,000 Homos) of the late '80s (I went to Medusa's after prom 1985). But this night in '95 Derrick tore it up and I understood the groove / legacy of House music within the context of Chicago / Detroit / queer club / drum 'n bass (all the rage then) continuity.
- (I'd done Miami Winter Institute, the Chicago Boy's town queer house, and the Black south side Deep House scenes by then.)
- (oh yeah, I heard Derrick May DJ in a high school gym in Humboldt Park in 1996. one of dozens of times I experienced him over the next decade.)
- But what I'm trying to get at, why I'm talking here, is because of thousands of moments: UK, San Francisco, Paris, Detroit, Miami. Beats moments. One of the next level experiences was a weird Afrika Bambaataa DJ set at PS1 Warmup (I'm pretty sure this was before MOMA bought PS1), Long Island City, Queens, say early aughts 2000s.
- Baambatta spun a set of early rap, house, "electro", '80s R&B, soul music, "beats", that was masterful and completely brought together the history of beats, club beats, street beats, from the mid-70s up until that time. It was a satori moment.
- (kind of reminded me of a set that Biz Markie spun in the basement of Happy Ending in Chinatown / the Lower East Side around the same time of only 45 records, though the Bambaataa set was more expansive and electronic groove-ish)
- Bambaataa completed my Jedi understaning of beats that fine afternoon. I understood.
- Rewind back to Dixmoor, Illinois, 1982. My friends and I rockin' Planet Rock on the radio in my boy's front yard. This was the beat. this was the beat. Before there was "hip hop", and "techno", house, garage, drum 'n bass.
- RIP Bambaataa, musical beats, lyrical importance
- (there was a lot of fucked up sexual / drug stuff in the scene back in the day. not to judge / diminish.)
