Dr. Micah Salkind is the Deputy Director of The City of Providence Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Humanities in the Department of American Studies at Brown University. As part of his work, he collaborates with large non-profit cultural institutions as well as emerging artists, designers, and creative entrepreneurs. He also serves on the boards of the Providence Public Library and Community MusicWorks and is an ongoing collaborator with dancers and scholars in Chicago’s Honey Pot Performance collective and Matthew Cumbie Projects’ “Growing Our Own Gardens” initiative.
A DJ, sound designer, and curator, he is the author of Do You Remember House? Chicago’s Queer of Color Undergrounds for which these oral history interviews were collected. The work "historicizes house music, the rhythmically focused electronic dance sound born in the post-industrial maroon spaces of Chicago's queer, black, and Latino social dancers. Working from oral history interviews, archival research, and performance ethnography, it argues that the remediation and adaptation of house by multiple and overlapping crossover communities in its first decade shaped the ways that contemporary Chicago house music producers, DJs, dancers, and promoters re-remember and re-animate house as an archive indexing experiences of queer of colour congregation."
Currently, the audio files and biographical information are available; transcripts will be added when complete.
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Interview with Garrett 'David' Shrigley
Micah Salkind
Garrett David is a producer and DJ residing in Chicago, IL. Co-founder of Queen! at Smart Bar, and a resident DJ there, Shrigley is house buyer for Gramaphone Records, and owns and operates imprint Night Sea Journey with Colin Johnson. He is founder of Chicago-based imprint Stripped & Chewed.
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Interview with George 'Georgie Porgie' Andros
Micah Salkind
Georgie Porgie is a multi-talented international recording star who owns the longest-running dance label in America. Billboard Magazine in 2010 named him as one of the Top 10 Dance artists of the decade. He has had over 25 #1 records in over 18 countries and has sold millions of records throughout his career, producing and remixing for some of music’s most prolific names including Michael Jackson, Spice Girls, Janet Jackson, Crystal Waters, Spice Girls, Mary J. Blige, R. Kelly, Linda Clifford, The Chi-lites feat. Marshal Thompson and Suzanne Palmer. His own productions like “Life Goes On”, “Love Is Gonna Save The Day”, “Sunshine”, and “Can You Feel The Sound.”
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Interview with Harry Cross
Micah Salkind
Harry Cross is a co-founder and resident DJ of the Men’s Room party. Currently he is resident of the Loose Ends party at Smart Bar, the Overly Drumatic rooftop party at the Ace Hotel, and Witch Finger at random warehouses. He is also Friday night resident of Chicago’s Steamworks Bathhouse. Cross’ weekly functions at gay bathhouses and leather bars keep his sound drenched in the sweaty and smoky corners of house, techno, breaks, acid, dub and disco.
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Interview with Jacob Meehan
Micah Salkind
As a Chicagoan, Meehan sent signals behind the broadcasting desk of WLUW 88.7FM, behind the counter at Gramaphone Records, behind the decks at Smart Bar, and behind the scenes as a co-founder of the Men's Room parties. Berlin-based since 2016, he's a resident deejay & the program director of Buttons & an organizing member of WHOLE - United Queer Festival.