If you lived in Chicago in the 1990s, you couldn't get away from Armando Gallop. As a DJ, producer and promoter, he was everywhere in this town. From his "School Daze" parties at the Hummingbird on 86th and Ashland, to Medusa's and the Warehouse up north, where people from all races came together, he absolutely owned it. Internationally, he was an almost mythical figure: a single name on a slab of vinyl with the sickest beats and a 303 sound that has never been duplicated.

And then one day he was gone. Tragically, Armando was taken away from us at the age of just 26 - usually, an age when a young artist is just getting started.

But in those 26 years, Armando established a staggering legacy. His records - most notably, "Land of Confusion," "151," and "100% of Disin' You" - are classics. He set the model for how parties were promoted. But most of all, his legacy relates to the people he knew and the people he inspired.

You never forget your first love, your first kiss, or the first DJ that got hold of your soul and introduced you to House Music. Armando was the "first" for a whole generation of us that grew up hearing him. And beyond music fans, he broke a lot of doors down for his friends, who like Terry Hunter, Paul Johnson, Mike Dunn and countless others, have gone on to become among the biggest names in House Music. "Armando introduced people to a lot of their 'firsts,'" Terry Hunter said. "For me, it was over and over again. My first record. Ron Trent's first record. Armando took me into a studio for the first time. He was a brother to me. He was my best friend.

"Print this: without Armando, there wouldn't have been any Terry Hunter."

For the last year, I've been gathering stories, names, pictures and all manner of information for a story to pay homage to someone so crucial in the history of House Music. After awhile, I realized that it was hopeless. There was no way to talk to everyone - or even just the 50 or so people of importance - without setting aside years to do it.

Then, Sean Smith called me. Eric Martin throws a party every year close to Armando's birthday in tribute to his friend, and is holding it at Sean's Sunday residency at Betty's Blue Star Lounge this February 10th (see p. 31 for info). The timing seemed right. And this story started to take shape.

It was important, first of all, to let people speak in their own words. That's what this story is - oral history, just people talking. But it's important to remember that with oral history, not everyone agrees with each other - sometimes people remember things wrong, or just see it from a different angle than someone else. But for these drawbacks, I felt it was important to let people share their memories - their Armando, as they remember him - rather than impose my own.

I also didn't want to limit this to a circle of people who were close with Armando. If I've learned anything from Chip E., it's that there's no scene without the 'heads, and you can't hope to get the texture of the times without an Average Joe's view from the dancefloor. Some of them were inspired by Armando to launch their own careers; some are collectors, run music stores, or are simply fans. They're important, and I've tried to include them in this story as well. Any errors in transcription of course are mine.

And in regard to the people I didn't get a chance to talk to - by no means will this story be over when this issue is off the streets. There are literally thousands of people who remember Armando, and I want to talk to them all. And so, with this, we're announcing the beginning of The Armando Project. A special section of our website at 5chicago.com/armando has been created - you can find not only this story there, but the raw transcripts of the interviews with the people I've spoken to so far. The idea is that this will continue to grow, unrestrained by the limits of print, into a massive archive of interviews, photos, flyers and mixes to give respect to a man who wasn't just a giant of a certain kind of music, but a genuinely great human being. If you want to share something, you can get in touch with me at terry@5chicago.com. -Terry Matthew

The Early Years

ERIC MARTIN: "I first met Armando around 1985. We played on the same Little League team together. Paul and I were playing around on the turntables then, but Armando wasn't a DJ yet. We were doing House parties in the neighborhood. Whatever we had as far as equipment, we put together to play neighborhood parties."

PAUL JOHNSON: "I met Armando in '84. I wasn't even DJing then. I was still a breakdancer. I lived around the corner. Armando started to DJ at a skating rink. Michael Airhart and I used to go there skating. But after the skating was over, we started hearing House Music from the DJ. We were like, 'What's this?' That's when we met him and I realized I lived around the corner from him. (Read the full Paul Johnson interview transcript here.)

"We got into a lot of teenage BS together. One incident that I want to talk about is the best one. 'Move Your Body' came out in 1984 on Trax Records. They used to throw records into their garbage bin - records that had two stickers on there or a misprint, but the record was still okay.

Myself, Armando and Mike Airhart used to drive down to 38th and Morgan, jump in the garbage can and for hours pulled out records. All the same record, Move Your Body.

"Myself, Armando and Mike Airhart used to drive down to 38th and Morgan, where they were, jumped in the garbage can and for hours pulled out records - all the same record, 'Move Your Body'. We filled Armando's trunk up and the last time we got out, the workers from the plant spotted us.

"They yelled, 'What the hell are y'all doin?' and started chasing us down the street. Literally, chasing us! Armando pulled off and left me and Mike in the street, so we're running down the street with a box of records, being chased by a van. We're laughing and crying at the same time. Every 15, 20 seconds, Armando would drive by and yell, 'Go that way! Go east now!' For about 30 minutes this went on. We thought we were going to jail!

"But we did get away. And we still managed to sell some of those records, right out of the trunk! We'd pull up right after school, "Psst, hey, we've got 'Move Your Body'!" Everybody wanted to become DJs at the time, and it was very very difficult to find that record. They only heard it at parties when Farley or Marshall or Pharris would play it.

"I want to put emphasis on how funny this was! From that point on we just all became friends."

FARLEY JACKMASTER FUNK: "I met Armando when I was on WMBX, and I was going through a record shop at Evergreen Plaza called JR Records, where Armando worked. He was just so energetic and just pushed and pushed and pushed. Everybody came to JR's, so he got a chance to meet so many people from the industry.

"Off and on he kept in contact with me, and he'd carry my records to some of my gigs. After awhile, the respect level changed, from him just being a kid to being a very formidable DJ. On a personal level, it changed from him being just a kid to being a friend. We developed a really strong relationship.

"I had a residency at a place called The Playground, and I would let him DJ sometimes there. I'd also put him on the radio on WBMX.

"He kind of kept me on my toes, because I had this new youngblood around me that was so energetic. It couldn't help but to rub off and even inspired me." (Read the full Farley interview transcript here.)

TERRY HUNTER: "We were all good friends. I slept over at his house, and he slept over at mine. I still know his address by heart - 9129 S. Aberdeen. I still know his phone number. Write this down: 779-0865. That goes to show you - I remember that like it's 1988 again. It's been all of these years and I still have those memorized. He was always smiling. I never once saw Armando pick a fight with anyone. Ever. I never saw him angry." (Read the full Terry Hunter interview transcript here.)

MIKE DUNN: "Armando would bring his stuff over to my house or Bam Bam's house and I would get it right. He had a studio set up in his basement on the bar and anyone who came to his house would come down those stairs, records everywhere, with the drum machine, tapedeck, reel-to-reel and all of that in the basement. Basically the closest people that were always over there were Hugo, Pharris, Terry, Me, Joe Louis, Disco Dave... Like I said, Bam Bam lived right around the corner. And that's how 'Land of Confusion' came about." (Read the full Mike Dunn interview transcript here.)

The Tracks

You can drop 'Land of Confusion' at any time, anywhere in the whole world. If you're a House DJ, you can drop it. If you're a techno DJ, you can drop it. No problem. Anytime, anywhere.

PAUL JOHNSON: "I was actually with Armando when he bought his 707. He was the first with one - none of us had anything to make anything with. And this is how business-minded Armando was. Right from the very beginning, for us to make something on his 707, we had to give him records. Say I wanted to make a few tracks on half of a 30 minute tape. He would say, 'Okay, you gotta bring me two copies of "I Fear the Night", In plastic.' I'd have to go find two copies of 'I Fear the Night' just to make simple beats. But it was so brand new that it was fun as hell to us."

MIKE DUNN: "All we did was put the music on the reel-to-reel. We had the drums synced up so the drums would always play live. That's why we could never duplicate most of that stuff because we taped it to cassette or whatever and then erased the shit. Back then, we didn't know anything about what it was worth. I mean, these were masters! We were naive as to what the music business was all about. We were just about putting out this great record and, look, my name's on it! All of the other stuff we didn't really care about.

And people now are like, 'Man, you got the masters?' Are you serious?"

KEVIN STARKE: "I've heard a lot of imitators, and I don't think they're bad, but I've never heard anyone put out an acid bassline like Armando did, and 'Land of Confusion' is one of the best acid tracks ever made. There are a lot of guys that try to imitate his style, but I've never heard anyone put out a track with a 303 and make the kind of sounds that he made. House Music started changing in the '90s and people tried to put out edits that sounded like his. You had DJ Pierre and Phuture, and then Armando. That's just my opinion." (Read the full Kevin Starke interview transcript here.)

Land of Confusion (Confusion Mix):

BEAR WHO: "You can drop 'Land of Confusion' at any time, anywhere in the whole world. If you're a House DJ, you can drop it. If you're a techno DJ, you can drop it. No problem. Anytime, anywhere."

PAUL JOHNSON: "I was in the hospital when Armando made 'Land of Confusion' - I had just gotten shot. It was right at the same time. I was shot on May 12, 1987. I was still in rehabilitation, and one of the nurses used to let me slip into the rec room. WBMX would be on until 2 in the morning, and they'd let me sneak in and listen. I was like, 'Y'all don't understand, I'm a DJ, I still want to do it, and I've got to hear what people are playing.'

"So one day I was listening and I heard 'Land of Confusion' and I almost died, man. I never heard anything like that. But I knew something was really familiar from it - it was that damn beat that Armando kept making! I was like... Wait a minute. I think I know this. Oh man, once I got out of the hospital? He had blown up because of that.

"He never would tell us how he got the 303 to run two different sequences at once. We all had a 303, but couldn't run two sequences like he did. So what we did - you're going to laugh at this - we had an 808, a 707, a 909, a 626, a 727, and then we'd have two 303s and we'd make sure we had everything MIDI'ed through and a couple of things that synced. We eventually figured out if we could sync two 303s together, we could get two different sequences going at once. And that's what he was doing. He had two 303s and he never told us!"

Land of Confusion (Dunn 4 Funn remix):

ERIC MARTIN: "He mastered [the sequencing of the 303]. He mastered that. I remember going with him to Bam Bam's house. We were on his label and we used to go down there to record. Bam Bam was a big part of helping Armando break through. That was Bam Bam's Westbrook Records."

Lil Louis came up and wanted to put out this track called 'French Kiss'. I told Armando, 'Nah, nah, nah, that ain't gonna do nothing.' Armando was like, 'This is gonna be huge!' But I was all, 'Nah, nah.'

MIKE DUNN: "A lot of our stuff - all of Armando's stuff, Terry Hunter's stuff - I was the one recording it. We used to do that at Bam Bam's house.

"I had an 808, someone else had a 707... That's how 'Land of Confusion' came about. I originally was putting things together and forgot to erase the tape. The name of that track was originally "Slave for Love". Armando was in Miami at the time.

"I'm giving you the real history - and it's not a dis in any way, because Armando was one of my best friends - but 'Land of Confusion' was a mistake! It was one of the biggest records, but it was actually a mistake! This is how it was made. 'Land of Confusion' was based on the 303. If you take the batteries out for a minute and put them back in, that's the first bassline that will come up. A lot of people weren't there and the story gets fabricated. It's no dis, but that's how it came about. 'Land of Confusion' was a pre-set bassline. Take the batteries out for a second, and it's going to clear all of the memory out. Put 'em back in and all of the pre-sets come back up. That was the first bassline."