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by Brent Crampton ~ image courtesy of bluntedfunk.com ~ Blunted Funk Recordings is a record company based out of Brooklyn, New York. Their fourth release, “Cowboy Strut Ep,” just came out in September and has caught the attention of Lance DeSardi, Luke McKeehan and Jay Tripwire to name a few. Scottie B is a producer and DJ who has been a part of the deep house community for a decade comes out with his track “Cowboy Strut” which starts off starts off punchy with spacey bleeps. Soon a cool rising melody sets in to break in a deep and penetrating baseline. Once the breakdown hits, an A to B baseline sets in and the kick comes back unannounced to bring the climax of the track with a floating voice stab and spacey quirk sounds. This track definitely has a smooth and refreshing deep tech house sound with a minimal approach. Ethan’s ‘Army of One’ remix of the “Cowboy Strut” picks up the energy a bit from the last track but with the same dark and melodic appeal. To spice things up a bit,...

story & photo by todd ~ It was recently that I was having a conversation with a friend at a club, when I was suddenly and quite unexpectedly sloshed with some liquid or another. A quick glance around provided me with all of the information that I needed to determine what had happened. There was a guy standing nearby talking to a friend of his, who he had just bumped in to, causing the sloshing. There was really nothing that could have been done to prevent it, so I just brushed myself off, accepted his quick apology and went on talking to the person I was talking to. She fed off of that little incident though and immediately starting telling me about how she had already been sloshed so many times out on the dance floor and was getting a little tired of it. She went on to tell me that people were even being rude when she pointed out their obvious error, telling her things like, "Oh, it will be ok. I'm sure that it will wash right out." and "Oh well, it happe...

1st Annual DJ Softball Tournament ~ story & photos by Monkey I finally woke up around 8:30a.m., Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, when I noticed there was a text message on my phone. After only getting about an hour and a half of sleep I sat by the window of Dino’s 3rd story loft near downtown Chicago and talked with a good friend while having a morning smoke. It was peaceful. My partners in crime for the weekend, Jefferson and Dino, were still awake from the night before. The event of the day was the Chicago House Music Association’s First Annual DJ Softball Tournament. I was pretty excited about going because I knew quite a few of the DJs and was prepared to watch them be silly getting their game on. It supposed to start around 11am so I hopped in the shower while Jefferson made some of the coffee I brought up from Kansas City. When I got out of the shower he was out like a light. I tried waking him a few times to no avail. So I poured myself a cup of coffee, grabb...

This month's cover is a photo taken by Monkey while working on the CHMA story in Chicago. She had a pretty good time and got to hang out with some old friends and some really good people. Sherri took the one to the right. There I am again, hanging out with friends & DJ Tony Markham and phocas writer, bPostive at one of the first nights of Origin at Chakra. There was a lot going on this month, and with the addition of a few more photographers, we got out and about even more. This month saw the beginning of a string of headliners in the clubs. There was really too much to really talk about here, without going on and on. I took a side trip out to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. It was a pretty good time. The day I happened to be there was belly-dance weekend or something like that and I got several good photos of that. I also stopped in to see Brian Slater's gallery showing, just a few weeks ago. After all the grief The Stray Cat went through, I can say that...

october 2004 editor note chicago house music association official launch party put a lid on it cowboy strut phlashback general malice svs travis fleetwood charts hardrive charts kaoss aka plan9 charts superstar dj lee charts on decks october 2004 event photos oct.04