Trax Records’ 25th Anniversary: One of the key homegrown labels in Chicago house music, Trax celebrates 25 years with a mix of up-and-comers (R.P.M., Capcom) and veteran innovators (Maurice Joshua, Screamin’ Rachael, Jerry Mcallister, Paul Johnson, Gene Hunt), 8 p.m. Saturday at Circuit Nightclub, 3641 N. Halsted, $15; 773-325-2233.

greg@gregkot.com

From Chicago house to international fame with electroclash, Felix Stallings Jr.melds underground grit with new-wave attitude on his latest crossover attempt, “He was King.” It’s not entirely successful, but in a packed club, Da Housecat’s boom-boom-boom should prevail, Boom Boom Room at Green Dolphin Street, 2200 N. Ashland, $10; 773-395-0066.

greg@gregkot.com

Sponsored Link: Amazon's Felix Da Housecat Store

    House music once ruled Chicago nightlife, and it will again this weekend when the five deejays once known as the Hot Mix 5 reunite at House of Blues.

       For anyone out for a weekend night on the town in the early ‘80s, the sound of the Hot Mix 5 was inescapable. The quintet’s mixes blasted from WBMX-FM’s signal tower throughout the city, pouring from open car windows and serving as a soundtrack for countless sultry summer nights.

       The original Hot Mix 5 --- Scott Silz, Kenny Jason, Ralphi Rosario, Farley Keith Williams and Mickey Oliver --- became house-music ambassadors. They also were friendly rivals who worked to outdo one another. Each week they’d hustle to find the freshest track, the one record no one else in Chicago had, and be the first to break it to their audience. Initially, the quintet worked the margins of the dance community after the death of disco; they weaved together R&B discs from the Gap Band, Zapp, Prince and Roger, 12-inch imports from Italy and Germany, and the latest singles from New York City dance imprints West End and Prelude. But soon they became the prime conduit for exposing the innovations in their own backyard --- the house music that deejays were playing at the South Side danceclubs.

       “When I was deejaying at the clubs, I would bring a Casio keyboard out with a small tick-tock drum machine to sync up with the records I was playing,” Jason recalls. “It would step up from there, where deejays were adding drum machines, sequencers and keyboards to the tracks, and eventually making their own records. That’s where house started.”

       These crude rhythm tracks were later embellished with vocalists, and soon the Chicago sound was spreading around the world. Deejays-turned-artists such as Williams (rechristened Farley “Jackmaster” Funk), Jesse Saunders, Steve Hurley and Frankie Knuckles had international hits that ignited the rave scene in Europe. Back in Chicago, the Hot Mix 5 incorporated and began staging live events around town. One night, they packed the UIC Pavilion for a deejay battle, won by Jason, whose prowess on four turntables wowed the audience.

    “We’d bounce around to deejay three, four parties a night,” Silz says. “One night when Farley was playing at the Playground [a South Michigan Avenue danceclub], we had the place so packed, sweat was rolling off the ceiling and body heat was billowing out the second-floor windows like smoke. The guys at the firehouse a half-block away came to take a look to make sure there wasn’t any problem. What they saw was a line of people around the block waiting to get in, and sweat rolling off everyone inside.”

    It was the era when the cult of the deejay dawned. Now, a name deejay can make five figures a night to spin records --- or punch up MP3 files --- at a party anywhere around the world, all expenses paid. Back then, Jason says, the economics were much more modest. “We made a decent living,” he says. “We went from making 25 dollars a night to $200 or $300 a night.”

    Squabbles with WBMX management and sensitive egos led to a splintering of the five. A second wave of deejays was brought in, and the Hot Mix 5 became something of a factory for the house music scene. Hurley, Julian Perez, Frankie Rodriguez, Mario Diaz, Mario Reyes, Mike Wilson, Fast Eddie and Bad Boy Bill all came up through the ranks. Consumers made tapes of the mix shows and showed up at stores on Monday morning to buy the records. Detroit residents such as Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins drove west to catch the Hot Mix broadcasts on their car radios, and were in turn inspired to create the techno music that defined the Motor City’s underground.   

    “Over the years we had our differences,” Silz says of the original five. “But 20-plus years have passed, and a lot of those differences have been put behind us. What’s left is our love of house music.”

    greg@gregkot.com

Hot Mix 5: Saturday and Sunday at House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn; $45-$50; 312-923-2000.