It's a Fuckheadfull Life, pt. 1

Date: 11/30/06
Location: Spot 6
Price: Free
Things I missed to be there: The Groodies, The Reptoids and The Machine Media DJs at the Empty Bottle
Reason I went: I forgot that I was supposed to be DJing at the botle until I was already buttfuck up North. Oops.


It's Wednesday in Chicago, which means it's time for the Freeform Shuffle at Spot 6, a free weekly program of DJs and bands hosted by DJ Demchuk and Mister Fuckhead.


The name is kinda generic and very redundant, which makes it almost perfect. Freeform comes from a radio format where the DJs are allowed (and often encouraged) to play music from any genre. The Wizard (WZRD 88.3fm) is currently the only radio station in Chicago that utilizes a Freeform format. The term shuffle was invented for the function on cd players which would allow you to hear songs at random, an option which was not possible in any previous medium. The term has only recently come into vogue as MP3 players allow music listeners to carry their whole music library with them. The point of the show is that all the music is coming from a different place. One DJ might play trance, while another might play hiphop or funk or noise, or all of the above, with a jazz band closing the night, and so on.

The first DJs of the night were Icon (of the videogame dance combo Icon/Prix) and Rotten Milk (of the whatever duo Rotten Milk vs. Bubblegum Shitface). Icon kept it danceabley low key mixing up hiphop and IDM while Rotten Milk went for the booty jams, Miami Bass, mashups and little slices of guiltypleasure-style 90s house.

Then came He Not In. He Not In is a little bit of a lot of things. Sometimes they're a band, sometimes they're a DJ collective. They run Noisy Neighbor Tuesdays at Bar Vertigo and kill it around Wicker Park. Sometimes they have dancers, and sometimes they have explosions. I haven't seen it but I've heard that sometimes they have stilts. As a band they blend Post-Punk and House, and work their asses off trying to get their friends to dance. Halfway through their set, DJ Madrid showed up with a whole posse of crosseyed honeys and losers. By the time He Not In were finishing up (with a fantastic cover of "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog") they'd one over most of the newcomers, but they were only able to get their friends to dance.

...Not that getting hipster whitefolks to dance to rock music at a Wrigleyville bar isn't a great feat, in and of itself...

...it's just that these particular hipster whitefolk were the kind who reeeally reaaally wanted to dance...

....they just gave em a reason...

the last performer of the night was DJ Madrid, probly the most legit of all the DJs who've come through the Shuffle so far, and probly the only one with deeper crates than Rotten Milk's. I don't even know how to describe his set, so Ill sum it up in two songs. 1. He played a remix of "Sexyback" that took out all of the cool Timbaland parts, just leaving Justin Timberlake chanting over some drumnbass and 2. He mixed Ram Jam's "Black Betty" with some electro. Perfectl. r he had an electro remix of "Black Betty" which may very well be the coolest thing I've ever heard.



[Disclaimer: I work with Dan and Icon at WZRD, I work with Fuckhead at WLUW, Rotten Milk and He Not In have both DJed house parties I've thrown...everyone is tainted but DJ Madrid. Here's a video by He Not In]