Two years ago, 5 Magazine published a tribute to one of Chicago House Music's legendary figures: DJ, producer, promoter, and Warehouse Records label founder Armando Gallop (aka DJ Armando). Including interviews with friends such as Paul Johnson, Mike Dunn, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Terry Hunter, Eric Martin as well as fans, this remains one of the most popular features we've ever done, proving that more than 13 years after his tragic death, Armando remains one of the most influential figures House Music history.

In tribute to Armando's birthday, we're pulling this mix out of our archives. Published in February 2008, Armando's Tales from the Trackside was originally transferred and cleaned up from cassette tape by Rees Urban. As we wrote at the time, "From some of the tracks included here, such as Mike Dunn's 'God Made Me Phunky', we can tentatively date this to approximately 1994 or 1995, though Armando of course had access to classic tracks like these from Mike and other friends well before they appeared in record stores."

The (incomplete) playlist below was compiled by a user at discogs.com, for which many thanks. Label info was filled in to the extent possible by me, and some of it is certainly misleading as many of these classic tracks were released domestically and overseas on different labels (and not always legally). Any corrections or assistance with the missing track IDs would of course be greatly appreciated.

This year's annual tribute event in honor of Armando is this Thursday, February 11th at Betty's Blue Star (1600 W. Grand, 10pm-4am, free) featuring special guests Paul Johnson, Eric Martin and Urban's House resident DJ Rees Urban, with hostess Czarina Mirani from 5 Magazine.

(For the curious, the photo above of a youthful Armando, Felix da House Cat and Mike Dunn is from Volume magazine's compilation Trance Atlantic 2, released October 1995.)

For more mixes, radio shows, podcasts from more of the greatest House Music DJs on the planet, check out past episodes of New Mix Monday, the 5 Magazine Radio Show and everything in one place at our audio archives page.