Mike Clark. Agent X. The Ambassador. He’s one of the most pivotal, most essential figures in electronic music history, holding down the underground for Detroit house music before such a thing existed.

In that time he’s worn a number of guises. Clark was part of one of the early DJ groups in the era of preand proto-house history. He caught on at backyard parties and on the radio thanks to assists from legendary Detroit DJs Ken Collier and The Electrifying Mojo. After building relationships with DJs like Chicago’s Hot Mix 5, he was versed in the skills of hotmixing, scratching and turntablism until he was dazzled by the first appearance of a drum machine at the club. Later he would form “Members of the House” with Mike Banks, learning the art of production and the much darker art of promotion along the way. Architect of the Beatdown sound, Clark was also key to the legendary Detroit club Motor and the Agave residency with partners Norm Talley and Delano Smith.

To put it simply: if you had to reconstruct the history of Detroit’s electronic music scene from the memories of just one person, you could do a lot of world-building from the experiences of Mike Clark.

Remarkably — and this is where we turn things up a notch — Clark’s latest tracks are among the best he’s ever done. That’s a big claim with discography that includes productions on Underground Resistance, Third Ear, Restless Soul, Planet E and more. Two 2024 releases from the Soul Clap mothership — “Where You Get Your Funk From,” on the EFUNK Detroit Volume III compilation, and “I Don’t Know Why” featuring Paul Hill and released in December — were joined by “In The House Club” featuring Dr. Tinglefingers, released on black wax by Shadow Pressings with a remix by Jimpster. 

I spoke to Mike for this first ever 5 Mag profile with him, from his upbringing in Detroit, the early days of DJ culture, the connections between Chicago House and Detroit Techno and the artificial distinctions that split them apart. Our conversations were several hours long, and a lot of it was not just a fascinating story of one man but likely of some historical importance as well. Forgive the length — this was a long time coming.

Coming from the Midwest, do you think you get more shit done in the Winter? I’ve heard people claim the weather drives people in the Midwest inside and makes us more productive.

No question, when it’s cold out that’s the best thing to do. You just clamp down and do what you need to do, except here you have do that for the next four months. Me, even though I was born in January, I’m a sandals-and-sun type of dude. I get mad at people in Florida and California because to me they’re wasting the sun and the palm trees all around them.

I’m pretty sure that if I lived in somewhere tropical I’d get less done.

Not me, my studio would be in my pocket. Nowadays I got this MPC Live that I use and dude, I take that everywhere I need to be. I can make tracks in the car.

Have you actually made tracks in the car?

Yeah, I have actually. That’s why I opted to buy it. I was coming from Chicago. You know the Deeper Waters crew? We were with DJ Holographic to do a party you have there, one of the festivals I think. They just bought an MPC Live and were like, why don’t you check it out? So I was in the car figuring that bitch out and by the time we made it there, I had two or three tracks. I was like, I HAVE to have one of these!

So let’s go deep. Were you were born in Detroit or did you move there when you were young?

Not exactly, I was born in Highland Park Hospital in Highland Park. I was raised in a house on a street called Tuxedo, which was a very popular street amongst a lot of Motown people. The whole north end of Highland Park area was like “the Motown breeding ground.” My father used to say that he grew up with Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. Meanwhile, my mother went to school with Aretha Franklin. The ironic part was I grew up all knee-deep in it and had no inkling what was going down. My family was listening to Motown the whole time and watching Motown on TV but I had no clue they lived around the corner and down the street. I even met some of them, but at a young age, everybody kind of looks alike and you just kind of generalize. Like for awhile I thought that Diana Ross was living across the street, but it wasn’t. She just looked like a Diana Ross type, you know, big eyelashes and trippy hair.

What was life like for you then?

I grew up in the late ’60s, after the riots. Unfortunately I got to see the downfall of my neighborhood. We moved out right in ’69 or ’70. I started elementary school at 7 Mile Greenfield in the Northwest area. It was very multicultural at the time. I mean it was the ’70s, so I want to say it was a white neighborhood, but it was far from limited to that. I lived across the street from an Indian couple and there was a couple from Korea, from Vietnam… It became more of a Black neighborhood by the time I was in third grade. It was still a good neighborhood, but by the time I was in the fifth and going into the sixth grade, I remember a lot more people that were moving in that were more, I guess, criminal-minded. They were coming from different parts of East side but all different places, and it just kept getting worse and worse. By the time I was in high school a lot of my friends moved out, but a lot of us grew up and became part of what the neighborhood was starting to be all about, you know. It was one of the places that Pony Down, which is a drug organization, infiltrated. By the time I was 11 or 12 years old, one of my friend’s sisters was dating one of the ringleaders, I believe, and he started recruiting all the young cats over there to start selling drugs. I lost a lot of friends.

When you’re going from elementary to junior high school, a lot of young cats are at that time where they test the testosterone out. So there’s a lot of fighting and trying to prove yourself. I got caught up in it. We didn’t really have a gang, but we had a neighborhood that we protected ourselves. There were some gangs that came in and we fought against and in one of them that I got caught up in, somebody got killed. It was one of my friends. They came down on everybody who’s involved. Some people went to juvie. They sent me to another school district, which was actually the district that that gang was at. So it wasn’t good for me, not at all. I got there and first day I’m running home like, what the fuck?

But here’s how everything started coming to one. While I’m there, I meet this young lady who knows what’s going on as far as this gang chasing after me. She actually saves me. She lets me know who the people are that are coming after me and she takes me to her house, which is like right across the street, but on the next block from where the school is at. I would go to her house to avoid getting jumped. This young lady who saved my life and that shit, we kept a strong friendship and — you know that group Dames Brown?

Yeah, of course.

Her name is Lisa Cunningham, better known as LeRae Starr. That’s her.

Wow.

Yeah, we have this incredible history. So certain things are inevitable. One day I’m on 7 Mile at the bus stop, confident that I can’t get fucked with, and I was very wrong. They were out on the hunt, spotted me and without getting into the details of it they beat the shit out of me right there at the bus stop. And that triggered some more shit, because my family, once that happened — it’s like “Oh no they ain’t trying to kill your son…”

Now they want to retaliate, so this big family war was about to start. And this is where it gets really interesting. While my family was tracking down these people who tried to, you know, hurt me seriously, I’m at a family reunion that summer. My grandfather introduced me to my cousins. One of the family members, I find out that he lives over there. So naturally I’m like, oh thank God, I got a family member over there, and I tell him what’s going on. I’m like, man, these cats from your school are chasing me home all the time and blah blah blah blah blah, and I don’t really have a lifeline. I got one person, but it’s a she, so I need backup.

And I explained to him that the leader of the gang that’s the dude we gotta look for. And then guess what? I find out that my cousin is that dude, the leader of the gang.

So I’m explaining to him how he’s chasing after me and all his boys, you know, and I mean, I couldn’t make this shit up, man. I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me.

He’s like, “That’s you?”

We’re shaking hands and granddad is looking at us smiling, and this guy’s been my fucking nemesis for the past couple of years.

So a truce was made and he made sure his cats didn’t fuck with me no more because I was in his territory, so to speak, and that opened up this whole new door because now I ain’t gotta worry about getting fucked with. Now I can kind of breathe. That got me into more artistic things because obviously, where I was going with all my friends wasn’t working out — the whole gang dumb shit. So my father put me in a martial arts school. I think I was in the seventh grade, and that was the beginning of my martial arts career.

Meanwhile, you know, dancing was big at that time. It was before breakdancing, so it was pop locking and all that kind of stuff. I ended up getting really into that and got into it to a point where I’m doing it with groups and we’re performing at bars and on stage at schools.

And that’s how music came into focus.

Yeah. This was before house music. It was what we called the Detroit progressive, but it was, you know, the early ’80-’81-’82 dance music. Dancing brought me to the clubs and while I was still young, 14 or 15, I was going with my older brother who was five years older than me so I was accepted. I start paying more attention to what the DJs was doing. The music never failed to grab me. Every time I went there, it sounded different each time, you know? Even if it was the same record, it sounded different.

I was kind of obsessive about it and going to all the little record stores over in the neighborhood, finding these crazy little tracks that sounded cool and putting them together. It was the early years but I met some of my neighbors who were into it. I met Mike Huckaby along the way doing a backyard party and found out he was like 4 or 5 blocks from me. And I used to get records from Ken Collier, who’s our godfather, so to speak — our elder. I met Norm Talley and some other guys along the way, we all used to buy records from him and we all lived in the neighborhood, so we all eventually, you know, became boys and got cool.

I started off as a DJ that was doing backyard parties and basement parties. That led to cabarets, which were more professional gigs. And then the clubs. Mind you this is the early period, so this is when belt drive and directive drive turntables were out. This is before turntablism, this is before 1200s. So your whole frame of mind was not where it is today at all. It was just pleasing the crowd, getting paid, doing your thing. There was no personality or thoughts behind it.

One thing that was important: going back to junior high school, the mother of this girl I was kickin’ it with worked for a radio station called WGPR. They had a celebrity DJ on there. His name was Electrifying Mojo. You may have heard the name before. He came to my school and did an appearance. And because it was through my girl’s mother, I was blessed to have met him. He was kind enough to let me know — you know, whenever I want, I can just call him at the radio station and he wished me a happy whatever. I took him on that offer! I would hit him up from time to time on the radio station while he was doing the show.

So, going back to the reason why I’m bringing that up, a couple years later, I’m spinnin’, I’m DJing, I’m getting my shit on, I’m getting my confidence. I hit Mojo up to let him know that I’ve been spinning lately and I made a mixtape if you’d like to hear it. He listened to it and he put it on the radio that night. And that started my radio station career.

At this point I’m just a young buck in high school but I’m spinnin’ at bars, a couple of clubs and now I’m doing his radio station. The game started to change. It’s still before house music, but the 1200s came out. The DJ game is stepped up. Scratching and tricks become more of a preference because it’s more easy to manipulate. Before only the few and the proud DJs would scratch on belt drives, if you know what that sounds like… But more radio stations got with it, and I was on all those as well. I was able to do WJLV, WGPR and WDRQ all at the same time as far as weekly. That started my career as the DJ I am now.

While in high school, I went to Chicago and I met the Hot Mix 5 crew. My girl went to go visit a cousin in Chicago and took me with her. I met the Hot Mix 5, Jesse Velez (rest in peace) and a couple of other people. I developed a relationship with them. Remember this is before house music, so we’re all just DJs and there’s no traveling, there’s no special guest-type shit going on. Everything is just kinda local. They were surprised to meet someone from Detroit who knew who they were. Because of that, I started going back and forth to Chicago. I met everybody. When I say “everybody,” I can go down the line: Maurice Joshua, Terry Baldwin, Farley, Matt Warren — I can keep going, but the point is that during that period I just tried to meet everybody. I would go back and forth to hang out with them guys and even play with them.

What was going on in Detroit at the time? In these stories the cities often feel separated, so these little connections are fascinating.

All this travel to Chicago obviously carried on to Detroit and parties we did. In Detroit I was in this DJ group called Direct Drive. There were other groups that you probably know about. One in particular stood out: Deep Space. That was Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Blake Baxter — you know, the whole crew from back in the day.

There was a DJ contest between my group, Direct Drive, and their group, Deep Space. This was a very defining moment. Juan was already in Cybotron, and he brought a drum machine to the DJ contest. We didn’t know what the fuck it was. We were just getting our turntablism on — it was all about cutting and scratching. Machines, musical equipment? That had nothing to do with what we were doing. So when he connected the 909 drum machine to the mixer, we didn’t even know what it was. It was just this bone-colored thing with some orange dots and numbers running across it. I thought it was a recorder or something.

The contest begins and we’re doing our thing, cutting and scratching, acting like the Hot Mix 5 crew, doing what we do. And I knew Deep Space weren’t turntablists. So I was really confused as to why they wanted to challenge us and seemed so confident about it. It made no sense to me.

They came in, they put a couple of records on, and then Eddie Fowlkes presses play on the drum machine. It was louder than the records, so at first it was sounding kinda fucked up. We thought he was blowing the system, we didn’t know what it was.

But once he turned the volume down and he started hitting those little buttons… the world changed. We’re staring — “What the fuck is that and how did he do that with the needle off?” He had our attention. It was like cavemen looking at fire.

So as you probably know through documentaries, that was the beginning of the drum machine revolution. Once we saw that, everybody wanted one. So as the tale goes, Derrick and them start selling drum machines to everybody, eventually they got busted but that’s a whole other story. But anyway, they take that drum machine and Derrick sells it to Craig Loftis and Frankie Knuckles, and they take it to The Warehouse, and I’m pretty sure you know all of the history from there.

Right, that’s basically where most stories start.

You know, a lot of people ask me about the whole history of this shit. That’s the story that if you want to know how it all began — I don’t think you can go past that. Once that drum machine crossed I-94 over to you guys, hey, house music was born. That’s where it’s at.

Contests were a big part of this in the early days. Almost every other plugger that Mario Luna has saved from those days is about a DJ contest. Paul Johnson used to trash talk, saying he’d show up to any contest, play from his competitor’s crate and beat them with their own records. And there’s the famous story of Steve “Silk” Hurley, the original “Jackmaster,” who was initially not thought of as a great DJ, showing up to a contest at a place called Sauer’s completely transformed and blew everyone away. It was a big deal.

Right. You remember Steve and Farley were roommates and that whole story? I remember when all that shit took place, man. I knew Jesse Velez who had died by that time. It was real brief, you know. I don’t know if it was mafia related, but it was some people who were owed money and were coming after him and his family, if I’m not mistaken, and he kind of sacrificed himself for his family. It was very sad. But I met Matt Warren through him and we became boys and he was coming back and forth to Detroit. I brought Julian Perez here. I always brought Steve. I brought Steve whenever I opened up a new club here in Detroit. I would always break it in with Jesse Saunders first and then Steve Hurley. Farley was hard to get at that time, I was able to get Farley a couple of times, but he had so much going on.

When Underground Resistance started I was already talking with Steve, who was doing ID Records, and we would always dialogue to check on each other’s progress. You know, “We got this distribution company and these people over here,” that kind of stuff. The good old days: everybody who was selling records was making money hand over fist. Everybody was able to afford offices and cats were making deals. It was before the great major record label war, which made it more of a struggle, but it was cool.

What was that? I’ve never heard it called that.

The major label war? Well it’s not a very publicized situation. You have to trace it back to the independent thing, when new [house music] labels were selling records out the trunk and all that kind of stuff. That was horrible blow to the major labels. They were usually the ones that were running everything. But we created our own genre, and we’re coming from the Midwest — Detroit and Chicago — not New York and California.

New Jack Swing and rap and things of that nature were the major label thing. And after they started signing house artists, there was a 100% chance they would be shelved. If they had Michael Jackson or Jeffrey Osborne about to come out on the label, and that’s scheduled to come out around the same time as your record, they’re gonna trump over you because you’re part of this new sound that just came out and they’re mainstays. A lot of artists felt like that: we’re purposely being signed to be put out of the way.

So at that point, especially in the house world, we stopped dealing with major labels. We start thinking independent – ly. The funny thing about being independent is that you realized it was not that hard. It was just a little money to get it mastered, a little money to get it pressed up, and as long as you have somebody who can do all that shit, you could spend 200 to 300 bucks and you got a record. Once that mentality spread across Chicago and Detroit everybody had labels and we start popping shit out, you know, and that was when the war started.

If you recall it when internet came out, at first you paid for internet, but the music was free. Napster came out and all of the internet facilities where you can just grab music for free. I’m not quoting anything, but this is just what I witnessed. It was free and it didn’t have to be, but the people in charge, all the companies and corporations, made it that way.

If you made a track in the studio, you paid for studio time, you paid these musicians to do your shit, you paid all this money to get it mastered and all this kind of stuff. And then you throw it out there, and you wanna go digital because that’s a new thing. But the moment you throw it out there online, it gets picked up for free by every – body. For us as artists, we went from making $3+ for pressing up a record to, you know, $0.0-something cents on a digital download. There’s no in between.

Then you go a step further and you start looking at the DJ equipment, you look at the music equipment. All the stuff that’s out nowadays, if you think about it, they’re selling it to consumers. They ain’t really worried about a musician. “ You too can sound like a musician with this professional blah blah blah blah blah.” Sync button and automatic chords and free samples and riffs and selling loops and all the above.

At the end of the day, if you think about it, all of those things dumb down the profession of the musician and the DJ to a point where now cats complain that we barely make money. You have newbies that want to get started that can step into the arena of a profes – sional and not charge and get in there and get work. You’re dealing with a system that is going against itself. You have the amateurs versus the pros on the same platform competing against each other, which never made sense to me.

We try to sell records on Bandcamp just to make a couple of dollars a day. If not, we get a few cents on the dollar from Traxsource and Beatport or we go to specialized stores that sell records cause they don’t really sell like that anymore. The person that put in all the work as the creator gets less — the last part of the portion of every dollar spent.

A lot of people don’t think it’s like that, but I come from where you made records and you got paid forthem. When you look at how that got dumbed down to cents on the dollar, it was a situation that was pushed. I really don’t see the public going from a money-making situation to doing it for free. Everyone loves to make money.

That’s why I call it a war, because no matter how you cut it, the artist is getting the smallest cut of all.

It’s kind of funny because there’s this alternate universe where house music followed the times and rather than studio groups headed by individual producers, they formed bands. That was actually the nature of the very early days, with Ten City, JM Silk, Master C&J, etc. Years later, there aren’t any bands in house music or anywhere else.

The one man band is in now. “I can play keys. I can play drums. I can run through a vocal and sing,” you know. And like you said, it’s not even popular to have a bunch of people in a group. It doesn’t make any form of economical sense because we can barely afford it within ourselves. It’s a dumbed down industry.

Right. People talk about the decline of rock bands, but even in the R&B world, a new artist was likely to be discovered in a group.

I think we said James Brown was doing a one man band thing in the ’60s and that was a time when it was all bands. And then come the ’70s: The Jackson 5 went to The Jacksons to Michael Jackson and then Prince was all about that one man band thing. And if you think about it, that was the beginning that led right to the drum machine revolution because Prince was a LinnDrummer himself, you know.

The LinnDrum is funny, because the controversy around the proliferation of LinnDrums and 808s in pop music has been largely forgotten. Drummers at the time were not pleased.

Oooh yeah. They hated us DJs! Oh my God, I didn’t realize how musicians hate us until I met Mike Banks. It was the precursor of the Underground Resistance days because he’s a musician and upon connecting with him he had a whole band that he was going electronic with. And back then, they did not like us DJs. They hated us because they were used to going to bars with their whole band, and they felt that the DJ took that from them when we stood there and played records. I stepped into that group. Cats were hating on me. I mean, I almost got into fights over that shit.

That was the evolution when we dropped the musicians and kept the singers and that’s how Members of the House came about. And then eventually Mike and Jeff [Mills] got together and Underground Resistance started. We had Happy Records and we created kind of an underground Motown. That was our original goal. We had a bunch of labels of different artists pushing everybody’s tracks within that area. We wanted to create an underground Motown. Then Mike successfully pulled Submerge out. Obviously cats break off and branch off. I myself got a little burnt out. I was doing a lot of stuff — DJing, I was teaching martial arts at this point because I never quit doing martial arts and I also started doing hair out of high school, so I was working in the salon too. I think I just got burnt out for a second. A few things triggered it but they’re not really worth mentioning.

But that was when I got with Mike Banks and decided that instead of playing music, let me learn how to make music. Mike showed me some chords and gave me a drum machine and worked with me. He taught me how to use the mixing board, which I had some experience with but other people just let me play around. I didn’t really know it. Mike showed me how to mix down, the steps in mastering — you know, everything like that. So when I was with them, I got a chance to understand the whole other side of the business. Before I was just a DJ and buying records. After Mike I learned the whole other side of it. So I’m thankful for that.

What year was that when you started producing?

I hooked up with Mike in the late ’80s, like I’m gonna say ’88, something like ’88 or ’89. I met Mike through my brother. My brother and Mike were in that band together. I was telling you he had a musician band, right? My brother was a singer for that band, and that’s how I knew Mike coming up. And when Mike decided to get into the electronic phase of it, I heard a track that he made and that was when I decided to call him and say, yo, you know, why don’t we do some stuff together? And that was pretty much the beginning of this whole production phase. 

So how did you get back into DJing? Because a lot of people fall out of love and never get it back.

I did production for some years and then I quit around — oh, I wanna say ’91 or ’92. It was sort of like what happened to DJing — it got to the point I was kinda frustrated and wasn’t really happy with what was going on at the time with me in the game. So I was like, let me step off this. I was still doing my martial arts and all that shit, but then the DJ bug hit me again. I started the Beatdown Brothers with Norm Talley and Delano Smith. Then I started working at this club called Motors.

Motors is a pretty infamous place, right? I never knew how it started, though.

Well it was interesting cause when it first started it was a Top 40 bar. And it was one of those perfect timing situations. It was in Hamtramck, a city most people didn’t frequent, especially for dance music. A friend of mine worked there as a barback and he wanted me to teach him how to spin. That’s how it started. I was showing him how to spin on their system, and they liked what I was playing and asked me did I want to come play sometimes. That led to an actual residency there and, at some point, I was able to convert the club into a dance club.

The owners were fascinated with the whole situation. When I saw that they were just all about it, I took them to the Winter Music Conference, if you remember that. The Winter Music Conference is something I was a part of since day one. I introduced them to the family, you know, our producers and DJs and our club owners at these other spots. And then that was when we decided to turn that club into that type of situation. For me, they had a good 6 or 7 year run. You know how things they get so popular that they just blow themselves out? It was one of those situations. We had a line wrapped around the corner, a line wrapped around the block.

And then the owners got weird. One of the owners bought out the other one. And then after that, he just tried to turn it into a rave club cause raves were the new thing.

That was the demise. Because while he was so busy trying to see how much money he can make, he cut me out when he wanted to see if I would start taking lower pay. Which — no, because I don’t see lower pay when there’s more money to be made. So he fired me and he hired some other people and he kept pushing that envelope to the point where he literally had kids in there, you know, the rave kids. And unfortunately one of the rave kids OD’d and when that happened, they shut down the club.

When that came and went, I was doing other things. I started this thing called Agave. It was Sunday nights at this restaurant. The name of the restaurant was Agave. The DJ group was me, Norm and Delano and we were able to channel the Agave spot as our place of residence. That was another good 6 or 7 year run — line wrapped around the corner, parking lot full, you know. Even celebrities came. We were able to really blow that whole situation out. That was another great blessing.

So you’re doing these things in Detroit, but when did you start to get booked overseas?

I guess I forgot to mention that. Laura Gavoor — who was the manager for me, Derrick, Juan, Kevin, all of us — opened that door up for people to leave town. Juan was one of the first pioneers, obviously. I ended up filling in for him one time. I did a gig in Santiago, Chile when he couldn’t make it. This is like in the early ’90s and when you went to other countries back then, you were the ambassador. They never had a DJ from another country over doing that shit, so it’s a lot of trial and error that was going on and believe you me — I was a part of all of it.

Some of them were great like this one. I remember going to a cornfield and the military police with bullets and guns and shit were checking us out in the cornfield. I was scared shitless. I’d never traveled the country before. And it’s one thing when you go as a tourist, it’s another thing when you come as talent, it’s more personal and you’re not protected like a tourist would be. My reality kicked in at that first gig that landed in the cornfield. I remember they also had me do a pop-up at this record store. That was my first time running across like hundreds of people wanting to meet the DJ. It was overwhelming! You’re used to doing clubs, used to doing bars, but now it’s a whole country where people can’t even speak your language. It was a total mental freakout! Plus at the pop-up, they wanted me to DJ but all the speakers were outside. So I can’t hear shit, all I can hear is my headphones and I was like, are you guys serious?

But I’d been down that road before. I learned how to mix with needles, just hearing the sound coming from the needles. So I did that for them and that was pretty cool. It was pumped up, so when I did the actual DJ show, it was quite fascinating. You don’t really know what to expect and really they don’t know what to expect, but by the time you play, you start understanding each other. Nowadays it’s a whole other ball game. Everybody knows and everybody hears everyone.

That’s an interesting point. Back then you might know someone’s records but have no idea of their sound as a DJ (and it was a time where those could be two different sounds altogether). Or you might only know someone from a mixtape that might be four or five years old.

Yeah, that’s right. South America was great, Asia was great, it’s like they were trying to understand you as a person, but at the same time they’re also trying to learn the music because the music was what fascinated them and what brought you there. You would talk about what motivated you to use these particular instruments and what made you decide to make this type of sound with them. They went into the mentality of it. It was part of the process. And when you think about it, it’s ALL part of the process. You went from DJing and drum machines to playing that shit all together. Then you start making your own tracks and then grab a sampler. You do all that shit, put it together, and then you start making your own shit. And, you know, it’s a process. You’re just going with the flow. Little do you know that you’re learning to become a producer. I was just doing the trendy DJ thing and before I knew it I started making tracks.

I went through a whole period of trying to define who I was. There was Underground Resistance, which was originally a techno group, and you know, I like making techno, but my heart is… Okay, you know, let me rephrase that because this is one thing that needs to be said and this is the historical part:

Chicago House & Detroit techno, originally, were the same thing. As you will probably remember, we were all just making jack tracks and putting music on all that shit, but it was the rest of the world that defined “house” and defined “techno” and separated us. I want to throw that in there because that’s just way important. I grew up on jazz and funk through my family, and that’s where I come from. So when we started making music, I enjoyed making what you want to call “techy” stuff nowadays. But when we first started making it, we were already making heavy, funky baselines and put some chords in and stuff like that. That was our original style. Of course, you know, through history that sound eventually transcended to what other people want to call “techno” now.

But I’m bringing this up is because as I started making music, I was making what we call “techno,” and then eventually as it became more linear and became a “techno” that everybody else knows, I started leaning more into what people want to call “house.” You know, I started getting more into piano chords and Rhodes and started learning how to work with vocals and stuff like that. I had a fantasy of wanting to learn how to produce and play music because of my love for jazz and funk.

Going back to when I was with Mike Banks, he taught me all these things. I was able to hone in on that and start learning how to produce folks on my own. I never wanted to try to be the top — the best. That was never my goal but I figured, you know, if I can be in the game and just stay in the game, I’ll be happy. I’m blessed right now. I’m about to turn 58 and still out here working with people — just got tracks out with Jimpster and stuff on Soul Clap and a lot of new stuff that’s coming out with everybody. I count my blessings that I am still out here able to DJ and able to produce on a high scale at this point in time in my life. I thank the ancestors, God and all the above to be able to still be doing this and uphold the quality because, you know, a lot of people, they come and go and fall off and I was able to go and come back from time to time. Right now I’m on an upswing. I’m blessed for that.

You talked a bit about your influences, but when you’re making a Mike Clark track, what does it gotta have? Is there an essential element in your music that you think forms a common thread?

Funk. I came up with Motown, the jazz and funk era, the funk bands like George Clinton, Ohio Players, all that stuff from the ’70s. And the thing that I’ve always liked about it was that funk — the way the base line goes, the claps, the whole feeling, you know, it’s a happy feeling, but it’s a cool feeling.

So when you listen to my music, you can’t really define the rhythm or the sound that brings it, but they have that certain sound. Funk gives you that kind of energy. When I make my records, that’s what I try to capture. I may try to imitate an old record from back then because it gives me that feeling of joy and happiness. I was born in the ’60s, so the ’70s had a strong impression on me. The ’80s was me trying to throw that impression out! And the thing that always just made me feel good was that sound, you know. I grew up dance-wise listening to Martin Circus and all those old progressive records. That’s what I listened to as a kid so naturally, that’s where my nerves are at. My nerves are right in that little area. You get a record that touches that soul, funk and even that jazz feel of the ’70s and it gets me every time.

I really love that disco is back nowadays. There’s so much disco going on. I teeter with it. I made some tracks, I edited some tracks, but I really would love to just make some flat out disco tracks — you know, musicians and all that shit, it’s kind of like a fantasy of mine. 

Are you looking for something different in your records when you DJ? What are you looking for in tracks you play?

I love so much music nowadays. I belong to a record pool and you know I make a lot of my own music and work for a lot of producers as well. A lot of people that I’ve worked with have that same passion for funk and disco so our music has all those elements in it.

At the same time, I also like tracks that got a little tweak to them. You know? Something that’s gonna be a “statement maker.” Sometimes it could just be a linear minimalistic track but it’s just got the perfect elements. Or it could be like an Earth, Wind & Fire track, you know, as long as it has that right sound, it has the right effect, it’ll hit me a certain kind of way. If it hits me a certain kind of way, I’m gonna assume I can send this track out and it’s gonna hit everybody else the same way. And I think that’s how you get your people.

So let’s talk about some of your recent tracks. You released the “In The House Club EP” with Jimpster’s remix on Shadow Pressings, how did that come about?

I was talking to Kerri Chandler and we had this conversation about “swing.” On the drum machine there are two different types of swing. You got the “quantized swing” and then you have another one which some people call “human,” “humanized” or “random.” There are different names for it but it’s the other swing that gives it more of a “human” feel. You can tweak both of them but you can really tweak the human swing.

I was working on this track and I was talking to Kerri at the same time. He asked me about using the human swing to get that “Dilla feel.” I never really thought about getting a Dilla feel. On a house track? I don’t know, I just didn’t think about that.

But when he said it, it sent something through me because as I told you before I knew all those guys — I knew them upon their inception back in the Happy Records days. I said let me see what’s happening here. The record was very straight-forward — you know, a 4 on the floor quantized track — but he had put the whole swing thing in my head — like, dude, you need to put that swing in it so we get that funk, that bump.

I’m like, you know, you’re right, I never really gave it that much attention, but a lot of times with certain tracks you can swing it to give it a different feel. I went in there and switched it. I made that swing so hard that it stuttered. It was straight enough to feel straight, but it was hard enough to feel the stutter — kind of like what I would call the Purdie Shuffle on the drums, if you know the drummer Purdie. So that was the whole thing when I made it and once I had the beats going. That gave me the energy to figure out what I want to do with it. 

Dr. Tinglefingers had sent me that poem we used a few years back. And we had already made a record together with Oliver Dollar, “Dreams for Sale” and I figured, you know, this might be another good one because you get like a nice groove and then you got somebody talking over it. It has a very good feel to it. When I listened to the conversation, I snatched the one part where he says “…in the house club.” I took that, isolated to make that the hook and then I took his words and just kind of spaced them where they would fit into the floor of the record, where the record makes a little sound and then he does little statements and then it goes back to his thing back and forth… That was the formula and when I did it, I played it a lot and I kept listening to it because that’s what I do when I make my records. I’m obviously gonna play it because I want to get the crowd engaged. I want to see how the crowd likes it. That’s what helps me to understand if it’s worth putting out on the market. If you’re dancing to it without me making you, cool, I’m gonna put it out. If not, I’m gonna go back to the lab and work on it.

So with that record, it had just all the simplest ingredients on it where, you know, I knew it should make some kind of noise because it’s not too hard to comprehend. It’s just a good bounce with a nice little sound flowing through it and talk about being “in a house club.”

How did it sell?

I was hoping it was gonna do well and I’m blessed that after connecting with Jimpster and he put it on his hook up, it sold out in two weeks. So I’m very glad with that decision. I’m hoping I can keep this momentum going because I do want to put more stuff out on my label, but I want to first make sure that it’s worthy of putting on my label. Meaning that I know when I put it out, it’s gonna have that proper support. That’s the main reason why a lot of tracks I’ve made recently were from partnering with other people, like with Soul Clap on a couple of ventures, Oliver Dollar, and I’m presently working with, Mark Harris — most people know his brother Quentin Harris. And I got this thing with Jimpster, so it helped me as a producer, as an older cat trying to stay in touch with what’s happening now.

And what about this record with Soul Clap, “I Don’t Know Why”?

It’s a track I did with this guy Paul Hill. He’s a local from Detroit that sings for Parliament Funkadelic and The Dramatics. I’m not sure if you know the story, but The Dramatics were caught up with the police in the riots in Detroit, they made a movie about it. I was DJing at the location where that took place and The Dramatics were performing there and I got a chance to meet Paul. Unbeknownst to me, we were gonna work together. It came about through Amp Fiddler just before he passed away. He spoke to Paul about working with me and I let Paul hear some tracks I was working on. He immediately put lyrics to them. I had no clue you could take a track that was meaning one thing and flip into something totally different like that. Paul’s got those kind of skills. 

So Soul Clap — you may know this, but they have a close affiliation with the P-Funk group. With that being said, I was working with Soul Clap on some tracks. They just put out my song for the music festival, “Where You Get Your Funk From” where I sampled Roy Ayers and George Clinton and just made this cool, funny, funky house track. I did a gig for Soul Clap at TV Bar in Detroit, and while I was playing my new track with Paul on it, I had him on stage so I could let everyone know, yo, this is him singing. The crowd went nuts and Eli and Charlie from Soul Clap saw that and were like “Yo man, what’s going on with this track? Is it open?”

You work with a lot of vocalists, and I know for some people that’s a huge step — from making tracks to writing songs. Was that a big curve for you and is there anything like advice you have for people who are making that step?

Well, I have a policy, which is you know what you do and that’s what you do and you hire everyone else to do what they do. I don’t try to pretend like I can write lyrics. I hire a person that can write lyrics. I don’t pretend to sing, so I’ll make sure I got a singer. I do got a DJ here, so I have a singer come to me and write some stuff and I’ll listen to it. If I can imagine that on a track being played out and it’s gonna do well — that’s kind of like how the formula goes. I don’t step on your toes on how you write. So here’s my track, let’s see what you do with it.

I’m learning more and more about songwriting as I start to understand it more because I’m not trained. Everything was strictly, you know, from the hands and as I explained earlier, it was baby stuff. I watched people and people showed me things and I figured a few other things out myself. My whole goal to keep it fresh and to learn and while I’m learning, keep throwing them out there. If anything I really hope that I’m always able to stay in the audience’s ear.

Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things about electronic music, isn’t it? I was able to see Dizzy Gillespie when I was a teenager, a little before he died. He was still great but he didn’t have the same physical power he did as a young man to blow that trumpet. With electronic music that doesn’t really come into play. You can do the same music at the same pace you did when you were 20 as in your 60s.

It’s true. Alexander Robotnick and all these other cats — they still out here. Tony Humphries, who one of the original club guys — he’s still out here. It’s people like them that lets me know that I still got a chance out here in the later years because they’re still out here doing the damn thing. So as long as folks ain’t prejudiced against my age, I’m gonna be out here doing the damn thing. # # # # #