Back From the Chi

As the rain drops slowly fall from the ceiling into the bucket beside my chair, I type these words, and I hesitate to share the details of what happened on September 3rd, 2022, also known as day two of Arc Music Festival, in Chicago Illinois.

What many people don’t understand about being a writer is that when you write something, especially about a memory, that thought doesn’t come back once you put it onto paper. Sure, you remember it, but it’s just not the same.

It starts with the creation of the idea in my mind, an epiphany. Then it carries down my spine, across my shoulder, through my arm, into my fingers, and finally out onto the keyboard, which then reflects back to me on the computer screen. The literal manifestation of your thoughts, and yet once you share them you realize they are no longer yours anymore.

That’s why I am reluctant with this one. I don’t wish to share that day with you because I don’t want to let it go, and yet that is the point of the things you love, I suppose. Letting them go every day, and hoping with all your heart they come back.

As we all know, though, often times, the things you love, never come back. In fact, its’ the things and people you love the most that you will lose the most, and they are usually gone forever once they’re gone, aren’t they? Which is a bit heartbreaking, but in this case I don’t think it has to be.

The beauty of what I write is that as I share the moments I’ve had, they then become our moments, and for that instant we are together.

Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, however we’re feeling. As you read my words now, know that as you follow them, we are together, and since we can share that connection once, we can always go back to it again.

Day 2 is a day I’ll wish I can always go back to. Here’s why.

The day started slow for us, but then again I think that was the case for everybody. Day One went as hard as any night I’ve ever experienced, and I will forever hold that first day as an example of how hard Techno fam can really go sometimes.

We ended up not going to sleep until maybe 9am for no other reason than we just didn’t want the fun to end, which happens a lot in this life. So, because of that, we started the day behind.

Although, not in the way where you get frustrated and upset, but rather in the way, where you just say, fuck it, we’ll be there when we’re there.

Something I feel we’ve lost over the years is our ability to just roll with it, and I’m so grateful for the fact that we returned to that with Arc this year. We did what we wanted, when we wanted, for as long as we wanted, and that was something we stopped doing for a while.

We took our time this year, and found ourselves getting in line just in time to catch the end of Enrico Sanguinlini getting the Grid going early with his one of a kind Italian Techno Sound. We have always been huge fans of Enrico, and hearing him take over the mainstage was a great feeling we were able to have all weekend long.

As lovers of House and Techno I can’t deny the fact that going to most major Electronic Music Festivals these days means we don’t spend a lot of time at the main stage, which I end up regretting since at a lot of them, especially the Insomniac ones, the main stage is amazing and an experience all by itself.

And I’m not here to complain about EDM, or what is played there because I understand why they exist, and I don’t have any energy to criticize them. That’s why we have boutique festivals like Arc and Movement. Smaller festivals designed more for us that prove as an alternative, not a competition.

I truly believe there is room for both types of festivals. My weekend in Chicago helped remind me of that fact.

After Enrico we remained at the Grid to hear another Italian Techno titan, a real favorite of ours, Joseph Capriati. We had not seen Capriati live since before the quarantine, and I believe it goes without saying that it was tough for him just like it was tough for all of us.

But that’s why Arc was so beautiful. It was a chance for us to celebrate that we’re all still here. And we’re all still together. Not everybody can say that. Not everybody made it to Chicago this time. We can’t ever forget that one.

I can still remember how it felt when he dropped that bass for the first time in the way only he can. Sometimes he plays house and its fun and interesting, but this wasn’t one of those times. This time he played techno, and it was heavy, and as powerful as the sunlight that was shining on us all day long.

He had that same smile, and the music was banging. Just absolutely banging. I loved every minute of what that DJ played. Living up to everything I expected, and I believe, exceeding it as well.

Even Carl Cox, who was closing the stage later that night, hung around, and took pictures with the crowd, and enjoyed Jospeh’s set as much as anybody.

It was a sign of what I’d see throughout the day and the weekend. This wasn’t just a celebration and a reunion for us on the dancefloor, but also one for the DJ’s as well. They’re all so on the go all the time, and yet so little do they see one another.

Chicago was an excuse for us all to stop and enjoy the music, the love, and this life together. We take that and each other so for granted sometimes, don’t we?

After enjoying the moment with Capriati as much as we could we decided to head over to the Expansions stage to hear the unique and captivating Ricardo Villalobos, who, true to form, was late.

Nobody was surprised, but also not upset either. You could feel everybody just chilling and going with it. Especially because, sure enough, after about half an hour there he was, in all his glory.

Swaying, and moving with the beat as if he were a ballroom dancer, clearly already having a better time than everybody, and playing a style of music you know only he plays. Music I found to be subtle and quite amazingly beautiful.

His control of the percussions and his ability to keep you captivated while working deliberately towards the next beat are impressive to experience in the daylight of Chicago.

He clearly loved the setting and gave us an hour of cool, Latin, minimal, almost tribal house, that would lead perfectly into the two DJ’s who came next. And let me tell you, these are the DJ’s we were waiting for.

Mark Farina and Derrick Carter have separately, been two DJ’s I have loved since I first discovered House Music over twenty years ago, and they are without a doubt the two biggest reasons I went to Chicago this year in the first place.

I’ve seen them both before, but never together. Never doing a b2b. I had dreamed of what a b2b between the two Chicago natives would sound like, and even after I heard it, I struggle to explain what it really was.

I can even recall right before they played, how they were up there with Villalobos, and even Honey Dijon had showed up early to say hello. They were all up there hugging, and celebrating, taking pictures together, and enjoying this one moment they’d have under the Chicago Sunset with House Music from all around the world surrounding them.

Then it started playing, and it felt like this set was the set I was waiting my entire life for. I’ve struggled a lot to try and describe exactly what to say about this exact moment mainly because it took me so long to have it. How can I truly describe something I’ve worked my entire life for? Will my words ever do it justice?

No. But they don’t have to. All my words need to do is tell you that for nearly two hours I heard a mix of the jazzy trippy sound that Farina invented and the Funky Soulful sound that Carter created mashed together so perfectly that it made a new sound. It was both of them and something completely new all at once.

There were A’ Capellas on top of songs, and songs, layered on top of other songs. And three songs playing at once. And one DJ focusing on the track, while the other focused on the words. And then there were times where one of them would flip the crossfader in that old school house way I remember so well. Or maybe scratch a little. Just to make sure you were listening, but also to show just how in control of the beat they really were.

Even a friend of ours, who is from Chicago, and had seen them both so many times, he just considered them locals, could not believe the sound they were pulling off.
So funky. So powerful. So loud. So real. So House.

There was even a moment where we left to go see Carl Cox at the Grid, and halfway there we simply turned back. And it wasn’t that Carl wasn’t going off at the mainstage, because he was. It’s just simply that we had seen Carl a few times before, but what was going on with Farina and Carter would never happen again, for her and I, at least.

This was our one and only chance to see these DJ’s, in this setting, and we took it. Not missing a moment.

We even found a spot towards the end where we sat together on a chair swing and laughed as we marveled at the moment. How did we get here?

How? After all these years of struggling, and sacrificing, and believing in nothing but the music and each other, How did I get here?

It was at this moment, as the love of my life sat at my side under the Chicago stars, in the middle of a beautiful park, I realized those words just weren’t in my head anymore.

Without even noticing, Honey Dijon started playing the last set of the night. The last one I wish to write about at least. And what did she start with?

An A’ Capella, of course. I mean, this is Chicago.

But it wasn’t just anybody singing. It was David Byrne, truly one of my favorite artists of all time.

How did she know to play this song at this moment in this way? How?

Because she’s Honey Fucking Dijon, and she’s from Chicago.

“And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack.
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheels of a large automobile.
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house.
With a beautiful wife.
And you may ask yourself,
Well,
How did I get here?”

Of all the moments, and all the DJ’s who have ever given me a moment, I don’t feel any will make me feel the way Honey Dijon made me feel right there. She gave me a moment with a song, and a place, and a person that I will never forget. And she gave me it without even knowing I was out there.

House is eternal. House is love. House is everywhere.

And as he repeatedly whaled into the night while jazz trumpets slowly built behind his voice, David again, said over and over.
“Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.”

For all my life the Talking Heads have been a major inspiration for my own art. True intellectual artists who are telling you something while you are feeling it. I followed David Byrne’s words out onto the road that led me to that moment, and in that moment Honey Dijon repeated those very words back to me.

“Same as it ever was.”

There were other DJ’s I saw that night, and other moments I had, but looking back, I see so clearly they all come second to that one. The moment Carter and Farina finished and Dijon began. It’s one I don’t think I ever thought I’d have, and yet, because of belief, and love, and commitment, there I was. There we all were.

The music eventually ended and we walked slowly towards the exit thinking only one thing. That was the night we were waiting for. That was Chicago.

For whatever reason we must’ve seen this night coming, as I’ll admit to you we had no plans for an afterparty for this one. And don’t get me wrong, Chicago was as alive with House music as ever, so we had many options to choose from.

Derrick Carter and Villalobos were playing Cermak Hall, while Get Real and Gene Ferris took over Radius; Farina was playing somewhere in the city with Mike Dunn, and Honey Dijon was playing the legendary basement of Metro, known to us all as Smartbar.

We wanted to go to Smartbar, and when we couldn’t get tickets, we decided to just stay in. For all the parties we made, there’s one thing we have taken for granted over all these years. Our time alone together in the hotel. Enjoying the peace. Enjoying each other.

For so long you just go go go, and you don’t stop to enjoy your love, and that starts to take a toll. For my love and I, after twenty one years, there were just as many missed chances as there were made. This was one where we just wanted to stop. And save ourselves for Sunday.

So instead, we spent all night in bed, listening to the music of a DJ from New Mexico, who very much had a part not just in our knowledge of House, but also of Chicago.

I met Reverend Mitton when I was sixteen, and from that moment on it seems I was learning from him without realizing it. I suppose DJ’s are the teachers, and the dancers are their students. In our classroom we studied House Music, and the Rev will always be a master when it comes to house.

Because of that I wanted him to be a part of that night. I wanted him to know that even though he wasn’t there, as the sounds of House filled the streets of Chicago, and there were people dancing everywhere, at least one speaker in the whole city played the sounds of New Mexico. The sounds of the Rev. I feel we owed him and our home that.

I’d want them to know that even if they weren’t physically there, they were there in our hearts, and in our hearts, is where House Music lives.

Sometime in the morning we fell asleep in each other’s arms as the overcast slowly crept back in above the skyscrapers outside our window, and all I kept thinking was one simple fact.

House Music is set the beat of my heart. And never in my life had my heart felt so full.

There was nothing left to do but sleep and prepare for our final night in Chicago.

Together.

So we did.