This is a Chicago kind of book. It was written by a native Chicagoan about a thing from Chicago that became universal but remains, in its heart, an unmistakably Chicago thing.
Marguerite L. Harrold‘s Chicago House Music: Culture and Community is one of the finest books written about this subject — broadly speaking, the emergence of house music from Chicago, and an inside view of how it persevered in a sometimes barren and sometimes hostile environment. It’s a book you can give to someone that knows nothing about house music or Chicago’s role in its creation and they’ll come out the other side with the expertise of a scholar.
The Warehouse was named not by the creator of the club or the DJ that played there but by its patrons. ‘[The Warehouse] was named by the community it served,’ Harrold writes. ‘That’s such a Chicago thing.’
Not that they’ll sound like one. Neither does Harrold, and I mean that in the best possible sense. In Chicago House Music, Harrold dispenses with the dense language of academia and tells a tale in highly charged prose that is sometimes poetic and almost always intoxicating. Harrold’s closeness to the subject is a welcome change and an obvious strength. There’s the frequent use of “we,” not “they”: these are not the dry observations of an anthropologist on the clock (or even a Mixmag journalist on assignment from London) but the field notes of a direct participant. “Some people go to church,” Harrold wrote in a 2020 article published in the Chicago Review. “I go to the disco. I was baptized by Chicago house music back in 1983. Yes, I am a heathen, in the purest sense.”
Chicago house history, Harrold warns, is not a straight line. It loops back, takes wide turns and fractures into splinters that race to catch up with each other. Harrold addresses this in the first part of the book with a timeline of events, which leads the audience to observe that in history as in life, many things are happening at the same time. It begins in 1947, with the opening of the first recognizable “discothèque” called the Whisky à Gogo in Paris, and provides an incredibly robust chronicle of both pop culture and the more esoteric milestones. Displayed on the page, the release of the Roland TR-808, Madonna’s “Vogue” and the opening night of Smartbar are given equal weight. It’s not entirely clear which is the most important — the answer would have been very different in 1995 than it is today — which is, I think, the point.
Harrold’s timeline places Chicago house music in the proper context, noting social events such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement, Stonewall and the Black Arts Movements that had an impact in the Black and queer community where Chicago house was born. “Chicago house is not a spectator sport,” Harrold notes, and “community” is not a euphemism for a small core of movers, shakers and future fixtures in the VIP. The Warehouse was named not by the creator of the club or the DJ that played there but by its patrons. “Like the essence of the party and the message in the music,” Harrold writes, “[The Warehouse] was named by the community it served.
“That’s such a Chicago thing.”
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The timeline leads to a narrative, which makes up the meat of the book and the heart of the story. Here individuals rather than broad social movements loom large — sometimes larger than life, particularly now that so many have passed on. A large part of house music history could be actually be told through the friendship of just two people: Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan. The future residents of The Warehouse and the Paradise Garage first met when they were 11th grade. One morning they emerged from a nightclub they were far too young to enter and, feeling hungry, swiped a stack of donuts from a delivery truck. Frisked by the cops, they were dropped off at juvenile camp in the South Bronx where they were assigned a parole officer: a hip young man who had also been at the club that night named Robert Williams. Nicky Siano would introduce Larry to the Continental Baths; Larry would get Frankie a gig there and Robert would later bring the latter out to Chicago to a club which, as we know, the people named The Warehouse.
This is an incredibly consequential book, a single text that can act as both a primer for the unaware and a disco bible for those who saw the inside of The Warehouse before it became a law firm or Medusa’s before it was leveled for condos.
It’s all connected, and Harrold connects these dots splendidly and with a boundless knowledge of the subject. Often when I hear an author repeat a well-known anecdote from Chicago house history, I find myself wanting to interject with some needed context: “Yes, but…” Harrold pre-empts nearly every one of my “Yes, but…” objections. It was like trying to dodge a mirror. Harrold doesn’t just get the main argument right, but also the footnotes.
5 Mag Issue 215
Out August 2024
NEW FUTURISM: This was originally published in 5 Mag Issue #215 featuring Rick Wade on AI, art and the future of making music, Tilman, James Chance, Chicago house history, Cajmere and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right away!
The third section of the book is made up of interviews with several people who I think you can consider (like Harrold) keen observers as well as participants in the scene. Among them are Eric Williams of The Silver Room, DJ Lady D, 5 Mag owner Czboogie (who was kind enough to mention me) and Avery R. Young, poet laureate of Chicago, artist, music producer and, it should be known, a highly underrated vocalist on some really stomping house tracks. These subjects also underline one of the enduring accomplishments in Chicago House Music: Culture and Community in drawing attention to the role women played in the Chicago house scene from the very start. Just as Black and queer artists created house music and were always present if often neglected by outside observers, the same is true of women. There are probably more women DJs today than at any time in the past, but Harrold repeatedly turns up women artists, DJs, promoters and tastemakers, many from before my time and which I had never heard of. Chicago House Music makes a strong argument that, actually, they were always there — just frequently overlooked, underrated or intentionally erased.
This is an incredibly consequential book. It’s a single text that can act as both a primer for the unaware and a disco bible for those who saw the inside of The Warehouse before it became a law firm or Medusa’s before it was leveled for condos. Give it to the first and they’ll be able to better embrace a culture that will love you back, no matter your sins. Give it to an old head and there will be a few things they didn’t know and many more they’ve forgotten. Give it to anyone and they’ll become inspired.
Chicago House Music: Culture & Community by Marguerite L. Harrold is out now from Belt Publishing.
[…] 5 Mag Book Club: A People’s History of Chicago House. In the poetic and robust Chicago House Music: Culture and Community, Marguerite L. Harrold […]
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