RITUAL HABITUAL Rehab powered through 2008.
Photo: Matthew Reeves/Darkroomdemons.com
Electronic dance music snuck in to the center of youth culture this year. The likes of Justice, LCD Soundsystem and Simian Mobile Disco sowed the seeds of a dance revolution with music in 2007 and bore fruit in 2008 with the young people in purple jeans coming out to dance. Like a gateway drug to the wider, more diverse dance culture, Daft Punk and its followers have served a mighty purpose.
Locally, this revolution can be seen in the street-level club scene, which has blossomed to the benefit of young DJs, promoters, touring acts and the ADD partyer. Whether it was We Are the Weekend’s consistently frisky Rehab night (now a year old), or the techno and electro guests at Debonair Social Club, there were more happenings with low cover on the Near West. Locally honed talents such as Willy Joy and Zebo are getting tipped for national notice.
Chicago’s club-rap attack continues—2009 will be Kid Sister’s make-or-break year for mainstream hip-hop exposure, and even our lesser-known acts maintain furious touring schedules. But the city also sports maturing acts in other dance subgenres like the future-global-bass music of DJ C and Zulu. In 2009, we’re looking at the electro-rock of Prairie Cartel, dance-pop of Hey Champ and the indie-bounce of He Say, She Say to generate some heat nationally.
It’s been a good year for places to go. Smaller Chicago venues are hosting more sets from electro, house and nu-disco DJs. Those crunked-out party sets that predominated a few years ago are rarer these days. Bottle-service joints are still raging downtown—Sub 51 opened this year with table reservations required. But the trend in 2008 was toward more intimate spaces and DJ-optional neighborhood bars filling a niche—Humboldt Park’s Cat’s Meow opened to program house and Brazilian DJ nights, while River North’s Angels & Kings has a lock on emo-rockers discovering the indie-electro scene. The Burlington might have a Wisconsin-hunting-lodge theme, but it became the preferred spot for many local DJs to let their hair down. Chances are the new low-key Bar DeVille will follow suit.
As we noted in past year-end columns, the deep roots of dance music are playing well these days. Disco is no longer a dirty word but often a code word for digging out the deepest, kookiest dance music of bygone clubbing eras. The Special Disco Version DJs, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and his drummer cohort Pat Mahoney, played one of our favorite sets of the year at Smart Bar. And around town, disco nights proliferated. Last week, we profiled one of the best, Disco Unusual Social Club.
Every genre had its essential single of the year, from the Bob Sinclar house staple “What a Wonderful World” to MSTRKRFT’s electro-banger “Bounce,” and of course, M.I.A.’s 2007 holdover “Paper Planes,” an anthemic comedown. The oddest tune was minimal techno track “I’m in Love with a German Film Star” from photographer Sam Taylor-Wood—evidence that 2008 was the year when everyone decided dance music was their game.
For our top ten DJ mixes and electronic/dance albums of the year, go to timeoutchicago.com/clubs.