Midwest Techno Originals

Sometime in 1995, I called Mike Dearborn and his mother answered the phone. She told me he was at school (college). Since this was in the days prior to cell phones being cheap, his mother had to take a message and have him call me back. She then grilled me, asking me [...]

This is a picture of a pre-Grizzly Adams looking Tommie Sunshine taken at his first (or second) rave gig in Minneapolis in 1994. (I’m standing a couple of people to the left in the unedited version of that picture). We were playing to about 400 people in the “Chill” room of a rave [...]

Before Technics 1200’s, Disco, The Garage, The Music Box, The Warehouse, and The Power Plant nightclubs, there was Lil’ Louis (not to be confused with Little or Lil’ Louie Vega from Masters At Work who he later collaborated with).
Marvin Louis Burns was born in Chicago. His father was guitarist Bobby Sims, who recorded for [...]

I am a huge Gene Hunt fan. Also for whatever reason, the trainspotters in the 90s must not have been paying attention when I played his records because it seems I was the only one playing his cuts during any given DJ set. Often two or three tracks in a set. The [...]

This track by Steve Poindexter could very well be thee track that birthed a whole generation of Ghetto House artists. Again, this track has the Casio RZ-1 drum machine in it. As a matter of fact, this track may have been made with ONLY the drum machine. The Casio RZ-1 has [...]

Ron Maney hails from the southside of Chicago, where he honed his Techno producing skills and went on to put out a bunch of kick-ass techno tracks on Dutch label Djax which was a big pusher of Chicago & Detroit techno. I always loved DJ Skull’s minimal jackin’ style beats with a little Hard [...]

“Old friends” is right! Fuzz Face is DJ ESP from Minneapolis & DJ Hyperactive from Chicago (now in L.A.). Together these guys put out some of my favorite Acid House tracks in the mid nineties. I had the pleasure to tour with these guys when we were doing the Communique World Tour in [...]