Mike Dunn Interview
MIKE: My grandmother (R.I.P.) - or "Big Ma" as we called her - raised me all my teen years growing up. I'd go to church every Sunday, a good boy - doing the bad stuff, sure, but around her being the perfect grandson. So she heard it, her nice boy making this nasty song, and she freaked. So I said I wouldn't put it out on its own as long as she was with us. It actually did come out on a compilation on Hula's Club House label, but nobody got it because Hula did a lot of rap and R+B at the time. Eventually it was bootlegged and became a classic, but was still hard to find.
I think one of the reasons it became a classic is because of the lyrics. I never said the B word, or H, or W or whatever - it was a compliment to the women. The women loved it because it didn't call them every name in the book. I just started performing that song around the middle of 2007. I'd only performed it once before then.
5: Out of all of those tracks - "Phreaky MF", "God Made Me Phunky", "So Let it Be House" - are there any that you just can't hear anymore?
MIKE: Nah, it's not like that. A track may have been out twenty years and you might not want to play it in every set or at all, but I understand how it is. It's like hiring Byron Stingily and he's not gonna sing "Devotion". Steve Hurley: you've got to do "Jack Your Body". Those are the songs that people fell in love with and it takes them back, so I understand but... Man, I listen to myself and I listen to them and my voice sounds like a little boy!
5: Yeah, your voice was a lot higher then!
"For me as a DJ, my main concern is the crowd first. I learned that from seeing Ron Hardy, Farley and Frankie and being at all of those parties back in the day. People ask why those places were so special. It was because they cared about the people first."
--Mike Dunn
MIKE: Yeah, I guess smokin' cigars made my voice a lot deeper! But seriously, those records have a lot of memories for some people. Listening to them, they bring people back to a time and they bring me back to a time, and I wouldn't trade those times for nothing.
5: You've done a lot of stuff that people don't know about - like I just happened to find an old bio for Ron Carroll from years back, and saw that you, Ron and Byron Stingily were "Deep Soul Productions" and did half of Byron's album. You don't throw your name all over just for the sake of it - come to think of it, half the time you don't even use your full name.
MIKE: Yeah, it's either MD or an alias. That's always been me. I come from the old school and what was taught to me was that the person behind it, the one you don't see... is usually the richest person! [laughs]
But yeah, I love putting other people on and helping them put their dreams and ideas out. I could tell you I did this and that and so on... But I can just say for the person reading this magazine that I've done a lot of things people would say, "What? You did that?" But I won't take away from another person's shine. People who are close to me know what I've done and what I've been involved with in terms of stuff that doesn't have my name on it. Maybe when you all do a "Dirt" issue we'll bring it all out. [laughs]
5: Speaking of dirt, you were around in that era when Trax and DJ International were huge. A lot of people still have raw emotions about business deals gone wrong in those days.
MIKE: A lot of people who say they got screwed by Trax or DJ International just look like the oldest people now... They let it get to them and it becomes their whole life. You have to move on. We didn't get a lot of money but we were able to stay in the game and piggyback off of that and get gigs and travel the world without having to join the army or something like that.
Like I said, I wouldn't trade those times for nothing. Every day at DJ International wasn't a bad day. Every day at Trax wasn't a bad day. People will say, "Ah, Larry screwed us!" or "Rocky screwed us!" But there were times I saw Rocky write artists $10,000 checks. I only dealt with Larry a few times (well, other than going out in back and stealing records out of the garbage!) I dealt more with Rocky. He may have had some bad business discussions, but he was a good person. Some didn't get paid some of the time, and we didn't get paid what we felt like we should have gotten paid, but nobody put out a record and didn't get anything. Not unless there was some third party stuff going on... like if you were an artist and Rocky paid the producer but they didn't pay you. Rocky kept me in the game - period!
It was Tyree that introduced me to DJ International. I'd seen the success of "I Fear the Night" and I couldn't believe that record was doing as well as it was doing. Back in the day we used to hang out on Rush Street, and people were playing their stereos, playing WBMX and you heard that song everywhere.
You have to remember, if these songs didn't do anything - and some of them didn't - the labels lost. Only when they did well, which the label may have had a lot or even everything to do with - did you hear griping. I didn't understand at the time either, but when I started my own company and was doing the rap thing, I finally got the other side of it. I paid people a lot of dough and it still wasn't enough. It's better to take less of an advance early and get more money later, but we looked at it as, "Damn, let me get my money now!"
The masters are the key to the game. That's it. Every couple of years, I get a check that I'm like, "Where did this come from?"
5: For people of a certain age in Chicago - the party people especially - you're going to be identified for a long time with the Warehouse. For anyone who wasn't here at the time, this was the Warehouse on Randolph.
MIKE: Right, it was on 738 W. Randolph. Frankie opened up the first night which was Halloween. It was supposed to be Joe Smooth and Julian Perez, but they opened up the first night with Frankie so it would solidify their position by calling it the "Warehouse".
I guest DJed one night and Julian was there. Joe was a little abstract and had his moments when he played some disco and then would go into jazzier material. Joe had a following as well, as he used to do SmartBar. Julian went to Rocky and was like, "We need to get Mike Dunn in here." They moved me upstairs and moved Joe downstairs. So I took over the main floor.
Eventually, on all of the black nights - Julian had Fridays which was the B96 night, and that's the only night he wanted to do in that club because he had another club he was doing out in Schaumberg - I took over deciding who would spin at the club. So I hired Armando, I hired Hugo, DJ Cowboy, DJ Emanuel and K-Alexi, but he was playing hip-hop and slo jams. Craig Loftis was my light and sound man. Craig was responsible for the original system.
Originally, there were three partners that owned the Warehouse: Joe Smooth, Julian and Rocky. I got Armando hired there - that was when I started getting on WGCI. I'd do the Riviera on Thursdays and come down to the Warehouse later. I started getting tired of that, so I asked Armando if he wanted to take over Thursdays. So he took over Thursdays, and I took over Saturdays. I would bring Andre and Gene and those guys in as special guests - I tried to give all of my friends a chance to come in and play.
5: What was the atmosphere there like? It was a crucial place but, maybe because it was so recent, people don't talk about it as much.
MIKE: The first two, three years, it was like you didn't even have to go overseas. It was that good. It was what the Box and all of those other clubs had been - that's what it was for the next generation of partyheads coming up. We had some old 'heads coming up, too. In fact, before he passed - and this is totally 110% true - Ron came down to the Warehouse and visited me in the booth. I was about to say his name on the mic, but he ask me not to. Think about this: all of the people who say they knew Ronnie and partied with Ron, and he walked through that crowd and I don't think one person knew that Ron Hardy was there. He said, "I just wanted to come down and see the club and somewhat pass the torch..." I was touched. Ron was coming to see me! He only stayed about four minutes but it was the most moving four minutes of my DJ career. That's when he was really sick. He snuck in and snuck right back out. Many of my days, I lived off that moment... you don't even know.
But the club was just incredible to me. Joe had the downstairs and did very well. When everything was at its peak, it was a beautiful, beautiful time for the Chicago House scene.
5: You stopped doing House Music for a couple of years and the word was you'd gone and done rap. But you were always doing rap, right?
MIKE: I've been doing rap the same amount of time I've been doing House Music. Go back to "Let it Be House" - it was a rap! And I was producing other rap cats the whole time too. I was DJing rap ever since I can remember.
But this is the truth about why I quit doing House. When the Warehouse went down and it moved to the Prop House, I didn't appreciate where they moved the people. It was in the back of the club, before they remodeled. They called it the Prop House because they used to sell props out of there! You'd be back there with props everywhere and I'm DJing on the stairs. Literally, there was no room or anything. The system would pop a fuse, get it back working, pop a fuse, get working again... So me, Jay-Jay and Big Ed (Big Bro) put seven or eight thousand dollars together and tried to move to the place that used to be called The Convent. But the crowd didn't come with us - they stayed at the Prop House. They would rather stay there and party, so I quit. Now it looks like Mike has giving up on the House crowd, but you can equally say the House crowd gave up on Mike. I was doing parties down the road but they still wanted to go there. And in the end, look at what happened. The club totally dissed the people and the music on Saturday night.
For me as a DJ, my main concern is the crowd first. I learned that from seeing Ron Hardy, Farley and Frankie and being at all of those parties back in the day. People ask why those places were so special. It was because they cared about the people first. It's first and foremost the people, and then the sound system, and then how the place looks, and then the bar. Now the bar is first and the sound system is last on the totem pole. You go to some clubs with a crappy sound system and they're not putting any money back into the club or giving anything back to the people. It's just take, take, take.
I've never stopped loving disco and House Music, but I really stopped loving all of the things happening around the music. Things were heading in a harder, more techno direction. I play hard sometimes, but this was hard. Really, 136 bpms is pushing it for me. Right around 124 to 128 bpms is comfortable - that's House to me. And when you're playing classics and disco, you're talking about 96 bpms on up.
With Darrin and Curt at Reynolds on Tuesdays, I like those guys because they listen to my concerns and ideas. They don't just take from the people - they want to give back. In House Music, every little bit helps the cause. It's about the people, giving them nice music, a nice atmosphere, not playing the same seven records every time they come to the club.
Like I played Nirvana the other day and some girl was like, "That guy's trippin!" But if you call yourself old school, how far back do you go? Because at Medusa's, DJ Rush and Armando would play that and the crowd would go nuts, you know what I'm saying?
I don't want you to come to the club every week and hear the same thing, because eventually people will get tired and the crowd will fall off. I want to keep you on your toes. Every week you're going to hear something different... Trust me!
5: So this is your first residency in awhile. Where are you playing at?
MIKE: Right now I'm doing Tuesdays at the New Reynolds (938 E. 75th), and starting in mid-May I'll be doing Thursdays at the Premier in Dolton (300 W. Sibley).
I'll also be playing at the Chosen Few Picnic on July 5th. That's really my big coming back out gig.
5: And you mentioned releases earlier, with both some re-issues, some new remixes of some old classics and a ton of new music coming out.
MIKE: Yeah, on the production side, I have an EP on Defected's 4th Floor Records coming out under the name "Mike Dunn presents the MD X-Spress" called The Congregation EP. Tracks on there are "This Here is House Music", a tune called "Na Na Na Na (I Walk with God)" and "The ER Track" co-produced with Gil "Skatta" Carpenter.
There's also Pressure Cooker '08 on RobSoul out of France with "Phreaky MF" on the same label, and something on DJ Deep's label, Deeply Rooted, with Hugo H. I'm also releasing a Gospel House track on Terry Hunter's T's Box Records with Leslie Moore called "Give All Glory to Him", and I'm working on other singles with my artists Michelle Penn and Ladi Lyke.
5: So you had some pretty incredible success with rap - why come back to House Music again?
MIKE: Coming back, you know when the time is right. I missed the atmosphere so much. The first party I did in France with DJ Deep, I was like, "Ahh... this is home! Okay, you had your fun with the rap stuff, but this is where you belong!"
Through all of the trials and tribulations of the last three or four years, I've just wanted to come out of it as a better and stronger person, as a man and as a father as a friend. It roots you back to what's important. It's not the glitz and the glamour that will make you happy. It's family and a few real friends. I've met a wonderful woman now and I feel like I'm happy with life again. I'll just continue thanking God for his mercy, grace and blessings.
There's just no way around it - I was born to be House!
Mike Dunn is back as the resident DJ at Temptin' Tuesdays at the New Reynolds (938 E. 75th St, 8pm-2am, no cover). You can contact Mike Dunn through his myspace page at myspace.com/therealmikedunn.
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