Jul. 14, 2004 - Issue #456: Metallica

BPM

Dragging their Knuckles

When a street gets named after someone, it’s usually a community leader, a sports hero or a politician. Musicians rarely get that kind of an honour, but it’s happened—there’s an intersection in New York City dedicated to the late Joey Ramone, after all. But a DJ? Inconceivable, right? Not any more. It’s been announced that the city of Chicago will honour Frankie Knuckles on August 25 with a street dedication as part of their Frankie Knuckles Day celebration. The section of Jefferson Street between Van Buren and Monroe in the Windy City will be renamed “Frankie Knuckles Way”—the former locale of the legendary Warehouse, where Knuckles pioneered the sound we enjoy today as house music. The significance of the event hasn’t escaped Knuckles. “It means I’ve truly arrived,” he says, taking a break from his world tour promoting his latest album, A New Reality. “Not only does the music community recognize me and my efforts over the years but the city itself has officially embraced my craft. And in doing so, it’s giving recognition to all the people past and present the proper respect they have coming to them.” The Grammy-winning DJ and producer must be relishing the moment, especially since it comes as a time when dance music is under attack by federal legislators in America who have introduced draconian laws to stem the tide of drug use in club culture, and from music journalists who have taken great delight in proclaiming the genre as dead. The fact that Knuckles has endured and prospered has to be taken as a sign that house music and its relatives are doing just fine. Knuckles acknowledges that he wasn’t alone in the creation of house music. As a New York City youth inspired by his sister’s jazz records, he soon found himself at art school amid a burgeoning scene that revolved around the Loft—manned by David Mancuso—and the Paradise Garage, where a friend named Larry Levan spun. Levan helped Knuckles land a gig playing music at the Continental Baths club, which led to an invitation to play in Chicago at the Warehouse. At the time, Knuckles was spinning a mixture of Philly soul and R&B, with the latest songs from New York’s underground scene. Or course, no one was calling the sound “house music” yet, but it became a touchstone for other clubs and DJs who were seeking to duplicate the vibe Knuckles was creating at “the ’House.” Of course, the Warehouse wouldn’t last forever, and Knuckles moved on, first starting the Powerplant club, then producing and recording with DJ International. Songs like “Tears” (written with Robert Owens and a young Japanese man named Satoshi Tomiie) became international anthems, and Knuckles’s reputation was further enhanced by remixes for pop stars and his own album work for Virgin. In the last decade, he founded Def Mix Productions with fellow veteran David Morales, and continues to hold down the foundation every week in every club he arrives in. Knuckles wouldn’t want to see the Warehouse rebuilt. “It was a wonderful place that has made its place in history,” he says. “I believe trying to recreate it would do more damage than good. It could never really be recreated. There are too many people that were part of the fabric of this organization that have gone on to greater rewards. The place would not be the same without them.” He also hopes that someday his fellow pioneers will also get their due. “I could see a sound museum being dedicated to Larry Levan,” he says, “equipped with a special music library that would not only consist of his remixes but the music that fueled his persona. So that people would truly understand where the garage sound roots are based. And for David Mancuso I can see a wing at Columbia University or NYU being dedicated to him and all his pioneering efforts, complete with lectures, classes on sound and music appreciation that would hopefully inspire its students to put honest music at the base of their careers in this industry.” V Listen to BPM with David Stone every Saturday at 6pm on CJSR-FM 88.5.

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