Jack’s Home On The Web: Chicago House FM

November 13, 2008 12:32 PM
by Michael Maryanoff

Until recently, many people in London probably haven’t put much stock in the city of Chicago, a place not much different than their infamously cold and grey city. It wasn’t until recently that it became a blip on their radar, when a man with a message made a historic drive to the White House. While this might apply to most Londoners, a small but growing number of them have associated a certain Chicagoan and a certain historic structure with a movement of hope and love. That certain Chicagoan is not Barack Obama, but Frankie Knuckles, and that historic structure is the Warehouse, the birthplace of house music, not the White House.

Nowadays house music is being made in studios from Stockholm to Singapore, but no one disputes the root of the movement, and that’s in Chicago. House music has since evolved into countless different forms of dance music, but there are still those that refuse to stray from the soulful, organic sound of Chicago house. If you think that these purists wouldn’t exist far from Chicago, you’d be wrong. There exists a growing Chicago house music about 4,000 miles away from Chicago, in the UK.

With the advent of the internet, one of the most popular ways to spread house music is internet radio, with DJs playing live or pre-recorded sets that can be heard around the world. While there are many radio stations out there claiming to be house music stations, Chicago House FM (CHFM for short) is a bit more rigid with the kind of music it plays, focusing solely on the funky, soulful grooves Chicago house. And Chicago house doesn’t necessarily have to come out of Chicago. According to DJ Camouflage, the founder of the station, London produces a lot of music “worthy of being called Chicago house,” and that what is really important is “the message rather than it being the sound of house that was born out of Chicago.”

The radio station is hosted in London, but they have DJs from all over the UK, Florida, Texas, and even Malta.

What’s at the core of CHFM is the fact that not only are they creating a station where DJs can spin soulful Chicago house music, they have, as DJ Camouflage puts it, “created a community.” This notion really resonates in the chat room, which people can utilize while listening to the shows. Every time a big bassline kicks in, expect to see a barrage of messages proclaiming “choon!” Sometimes the DJs will even chat with the listeners and give shout outs while they are spinning. You might even be tuning in along with some big name producers. “We have had Giom from Bobby and Klein, Kink, Special Interest, Soul Migrants, Sista Stroke, Anhanguer and many more,” says DJ Camouflage.

People are really starting take notice. The Chicago house parties thrown in London are mostly underground, but the sound has been creeping into the most unlikely of places, such as the Ministry of Sound (one of the biggest clubs in the UK, if not the world).

“I have ended up playing Chicago House at some of the most popular and mainstream clubs here and would be playing it amongst other DJ's who all played Electro house or Minimal and I would have a hand full of people ask me what I was playing. I found that there were all these smaller nights everywhere and people who were trying to promote the sound of this house and educating the people much in the same way I was doing it,” says Camouflage. CHFM and Chicago house parties aren’t so much about gaining exposure, but creating a community. As Louis Hughes (another CHFM DJ) puts it, “The rush you get when you connect with a room full of likeminded people is like nothing else I have ever felt!”

Nowadays, with the DJ being such a prominent figure, and so much focus on getting worldwide recognition, CHFM reminds anyone who tunes in what is the core message of house music, a genre which, in Hughes’ opinion, “has lost its way a little with commercialism.” But don’t be mistaken, CHFM sole function isn’t as a firebrand charged with tearing down mainstream house.

“In all music you run into commercialism which needs to happen to promote of course, but so often we witness music genres and artists falling victim to the money and popularity surrounding it, losing focus on the message.” That message can be heard in the soulful messages professed by the divas belting over jazzy piano tracks, and in the DJs speaking directly to those tuned in to CHFM. But what does it all come down to? According to DJ Camouflage, it’s pretty simple: “The one main thing from classic Chicago house, which is LOVE.”