Created on a simple studio set-up, ‘Promised Land’ is an early Chicago house gem, pop hit, dancefloor unifier, liberation anthem, and timeless classic that has stood the test of time. Carl Loben caught up with the song’s creator Joe Smooth at ARC Festival in Chicago to discuss how he made it, its extraordinary history, [...]
The recently reissued zine ran for 10 issues from 1989 to 1993, as house "was blowing up." By Elias Leight Thing MagazineCourtesy PhotoIn 1986. In 1986, Simone Bouyer worked a day job in Chicago at the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather while painting in her spare time. “I was having a problem getting [...]
The festival's fifth edition happens August 29-31 at Chicago's Union Park. Chicago’s ARC Music Festival has announced a sprawling 2025 lineup featuring nearly 100 artists. The fifth edition of the house-focused festival will feature performances by Jamie xx, Amelie Lens, Adam Beyer, Richie Hawtin, John Summit, Luciano, Fisher, Blond:ish, Eric Prydz (who will play [...]
To celebrate 40 years of house music, we joined Mike Dunn at Chicago's ARC Music Festival and dived into the story behind his house anthem, ‘God Made Me Phunky’ https://youtu.be/-c9T7vWJN0Q?si=B_gRK_48gkSekpmz Mike Dunn shares the story behind the making of his house classic, 'God Made Me Phunky'. Released in 1994, Dunn explains how the track [...]
Traxman started to make music with the simple aim of making people dance and have a good time. That hasn’t changed, but since he started out in the '80s, Corky Strong’s masterful productions and DJ sets have marked him out as a house music great. He has been at the forefront of three different [...]
Image courtesy of Google House Music and its legendary Black creators from Chicago got the ultimate shout-out to start Black History Month. On Saturday, Feb. 1, Google highlighted the genre with a Doodle on its search engine. “In celebration of Black History Month, today’s music video Doodle, celebrates house music, a genre with roots in Chicago’s [...]
The April 26th event at The Ramova Theater will be the first of its kind in the city. A new electronic music conference is coming to Chicago this spring, a first-of-its-kind event for the city. The aptly-titled Chicago Electronic Music Conference will take place at The Ramova Theatre on April 26th. It's designed [...]
Chicago DJ and producer Elbert Phillips pays tribute to the late, legendary Frankie Knuckles with this extended and thoroughly dope classic tribute mix. This is also an intensely personal mix — Phillips was both a fan and a confidant of Frankie Knuckles, one of a small handful of DJs handpicked by FK to open for him at his own events [...]
Published from 1989-1993, the LGBTQIA+ magazine THING platformed artists like Frankie Knuckles, Larry Heard and Deee-Lite. A new anthology will celebrate the late, great THING, an LGBTQIA+ magazine that operated at the heart of Chicago's house scene in the early '90s. The new, 460-page book compiles all ten issues of THING for [...]
Four decades on from a record that changed the world of dance music forever, Meena Sears speaks to house music scholars, including Jesse Saunders, and traces the evolution of the culture 2024 marks 40 years since the release of Jesse Saunders’ seminal track ‘On & On’. While there is some debate around it, ‘On & On’ is widely considered [...]