Mike Dunn Interview
by Terry Matthew | Published May 2008 | Features Archives

YOU HEAR IT, AND within a split second you know the man that made it. Mike Dunn's tracks are justifiably called "classics" - from "God Made Me Phunky" to "Let It Be House" and the underground (and up until now, usually bootlegged) "Phreaky MF". Yet few know everything he's done - pick a Chicago classic from the 1990s at random, and if Mike didn't have a hand in it, he's probably worked with the artist or producer at another time.

And after several years away from House Music, Mike Dunn is back with a vengeance. With the rate that he's putting out music these days, you could say he's only making up for lost time...

MIKE DUNN: Around '83, '84 - just after graduating from high school. Tyree Cooper, Hugo H. and myself used to play park district parties, little house parties and at Ogden Park and The Visitation. My first really big gig was at this place called St. Stephen's that we used to play every week with "King" George Moore. We named it The Courtyard, on 64th and Peoria. It was in the 'hood, but we had a big crowd. We were bringing it to the kids that couldn't get out of the neighborhood to the Music Box or the PowerPlant. Tyree Cooper was doing the bigger gigs - all the hotel parties, The Congress, The Bismark, all of those - and Hugo was doing WKKC (Friday Nite Audio with Pink House). We were sort of the big neighborhood jocks.

5: Were you the only ones we would know today that came out of Englewood?

MIKE: Well, there was me, Tyree, Brian Frazier, Pierre, Reggie Hall... Basically, those names there are some of the guys that are still doing it today.

5: You mentioned before to me that, coming out of Englewood, some of the other guys seemed a little more "preppy" than you were.

MIKE: Yeah. Steve [Poindexter], Pharris, John Hunt and all of them... Gucci Promotions, Armando, Terry Hunter, Brian Harris, the Chicago Bad Boys, Gene Hunt - they wouldn't let me play at their regular gigs at first. I think I was a little too ghetto and too 'hood for 'em, you know? [laughs]

But seriously, I was one of the first cats bringing two reel-to-reels and spinning with them at the parties. I was bringing out two Pioneer 707s, doing the Hummingbird, Jacks, The Courtyard, etc. I'd bring a drum machine, too. I would make tracks right then as the party was going. Way before my guys Daft Punk and all of them were doing live gigs, I was doing that at the basement parties - just bringing drum machines and doing everything live. A lot of my early tracks came from me doing them at the party when the party was going on. I'd save it in memory and bringing it home and polish it up. But then I listen to it now and it's like, damn... didn't use enough cleaner!

See, before there was a Farley for me, there was a Leonard Rroy. A lot of people credit Farley and rightfully so, but my introduction was Leonard "Remix" Rroy. I used to go and get tapes from him - Leonard didn't even know my name. I remember it clear as day. I would sit in Greg and Otto Hines' basement in amazement. Leonard was the trick master back then. He would do shit with turntables that you'd say, "How the fuck is he doing that?"

When Leonard speaks about his history in House Music, I feel him. He wasn't downtown in a central location. He was in the 'hood, down on 89th. He still had a packed house, though. He was my first true "DJ god". Then came Farley, then came Ron, then came Frankie. I didn't party at the Plant. Hugo H. would always try to get me to go. Me? From Englewood? "Nah... there's a bunch of gay people down there!" I was very ignorant back then. Now I have a lot of friends who live the alternative lifestyle, but back then, when I was 21 or 22, I had the 'phobia. I was on that gangbanging trip! After going and seeing Frankie beat the breaks off a system, you couldn't keep me from it! "I've been missing all this? No way!"

Sometimes sitting on the cars outside of the Music Box was even better than being in the club. What a lot of people don't know is that we sometimes didn't even go in the party - we just went down there to hang out on the cars all night! Please, tell the story correctly: there was a party outside the Box just as happenin' as inside. Somebody had some sounds with a Ron Hardy tape, and we'd be smokin' weed, sniffin' rush and some doin' acid, partying outside... It was great.

5: A lot of folks started DJing and took that next step to producer, but you were acting as engineer or producer on a lot of early tracks way back in the day.

MIKE: I was brought up in music. My mom (aka "Dadah" as I call her because as a baby I couldn't say "Momma") used to take me to the record store with her when I was young all the time. My father had all of the best equipment - Bose 901 speakers, a Revox reel-to-reel and thousands of records. We're living in the projects but we have top-of-the-line equipment - Crown amps, and all of that. Music has always been a part of me. When I used to live in the Robert Taylor Homes at 4331, my mom used to take me up under the El tracks on 43rd and we'd listen to all the new releases that week. She'd ask, "Hey, have you got the disco version of that? Do you have the long version of that?" I really started to fall in love with music then.

There was also a guy named Rico that lived under us in the projects and he had two turntables and a mixer. My father just had one turntable. I got so smooth on the reel-to-reel that I could make it seem like the record was fading out into the next one. But when I saw Rico, it made me really want to gravitate to being a club DJ. It wasn't even mixing back then - just one record fading out while the other one was fading in.

I've always had that love and wanted to know everything about the studio. Most people would just want to get on the drum machine and start beatin' it. I wanted to know why it did what it did, how it did it, the circuitry part.

I remember my grandmother bought me a record player for Christmas one year. I took it apart, and she went crazy! She called my dad, "I just bought him this record player and he took it all apart!" I took it apart just to see how everything worked. Now, all my friends - Maurice Joshua, Herb Brasko, Pierre - when they need troubleshooting, they call me. Everybody that knows me knows I read my manuals back and forth, forth and back. Every day, I read a section of my manuals.

For the engineering part, I was engineering everybody's stuff that was coming over to the house. From Armando to Hula... I would sit there and engineer Marshall Jefferson's sessions. I just wanted to be involved in everything. That's why I've always told the newer cats that are coming up under me to learn their equipment. Gil "Skatta" Carpenter, who is on my new EP on Defected - I told him when he came into the studio to learn the equipment first. Learn why it does what it does. That way when you're working in the studio, you don't just play around.

5: Do you think that's gone now that someone can buy mass-produced software and call themselves a producer?

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