Gene Farris
GENE: Farris Wheel's been going on since 1998, so that was when I was still in Chicago. We're still around, and that longevity is something I'm proud of. We're still doing vinyl, too. Obviously we've gone digital along with everyone else, but we still offer vinyl to our customers and consumers. Staying in the game was tough but I plan on being around for awhile.
We have a lot of awesome stuff coming out right now. Bryan Jones did a record for us that came out a little while ago, Dutchmasters EP, Funky Transport's "Shake It" with the Derrick Carter remixes. We just dropped The Soul Sessions EP which is three guys from Holland that do really deep, warm and soulful House Music. The EP's gotten a lot of good reviews and licensing offers from Spain, Germany and from France as well. Now we have the Visions of the Future record - I don't know if you remember that one from back in the day. It did really well and we did some remixes with Roy Davis, Jr. and Fabio Bacchini [see review in this issue -Ed.] We have another Funky Transport record coming out after that with a Brett Johnson remix, and something from Greenskeepers with a Derrick Carter remix.
5: Is House Music any different as you hear it in Chicago as it was four years earlier? What do you think of some of the general trends?
GENE: For Chicago House Music artists - myself included - I strongly believe that we have to innovate. Chicago's always been known for its innovation in music. Everybody right now is on the West Coast tip. I love it - I've released things on OM and labels like that and I love them. But at the same time, I think Chicago has to find its own sound again and stop attempting to copy that West Coast sound. Derrick Carter's been making that sound on his own for years, way before OM even existed - but a lot of the newer guys are kind of mimicking it. I feel we need to refine our sound.
Stacy Kidd - I take my hat off to him. He's always stuck to his guns and kept that Chicago sound going. Also people like Paul Johnson. Then there's Glenn Underground and Boo Williams - that's the deep sound of Chicago, the deep soulful sound. And Green Velvet of course. I take my hat off to Caj and all of these guys because those are the true "Chicago sound" people. Not to take anything away from new producers - I love every single one of our artists. I just think that some of the newer guys are moving in a West Coast direction and I really would like them to see the city that they're in and the innovation they have right in their own backyard.
5: What about the business of music? When Farris Wheel began, it must have been entirely based on vinyl.
GENE: With the way the industry is going, we're going to have to step up. Vinyl's going to be gone soon - that's the reality of the way things go. Within the next 10 to 15 years, there won't be vinyl, but God willing I hope there's still House Music! We're a small industry - much smaller than Hip-Hop, meaning we don't have two billion consumers. We have to be an industry that steps up and supports our artists, buys tracks online to the artists and labels that deserve the money.
5: There's really not a mechanism for House Music consumers outside of club patronage, though. Back in the 1990s, I'd say "Who's the hot DJ? Gene Farris? Let me pick up one of his mixes." So I'm buying your mix, the DJ is buying the records. Now, those mixes are free and that whole ecology of the business is ruined.
GENE: That's the thing. It's the only way. You can do mix compilations with all of your own music and sell it, or you can do mix CDs or put them on the internet and give 'em away, which I do. You can go to farriswheel-recordings.com and hear live mixes from shows all the time. That's the new way.
Unfortunately, we're losing the art of the album. Half of the tracks that I've downloaded through iTunes, I don't know what the covers look like. I've never seen them. I couldn't tell you.
5: Something that a lot of folks seem to have forgotten about the 1990s were the raves. You played so many and even threw a couple that I remember.
GENE: The raves were when I really had a chance to broaden my audience. When I was originally playing at the Powerhouse, it was mostly a black crowd. Playing at a lot of the raves like I did, I was able to broaden my audience to the Hispanic kids and the Asian kids and the White kids. It propelled me to where I am today, where all kinds of people in Chicago know who I am, not just the northside but the southsiders too. I take a lot of pride in that. It shows I definitely earned my stripes.
And also, don't forget the loft parties. There was some overlap but they were really two different scenes. The loft parties were where underground House really was. There was myself, Légo, Diz, Julio Bishop, DJ Traxx, Jevon Jackson, Matty, Mystic Bill, Frique, Davey Dave - we were doing raves as well as underground loft parties. Some of them aren't around anymore but they were legends in the loft scene. You had a lot of people who were magnificent DJs - are still magnificent DJs - and had a hardcore following in the loft scene.
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