Chris Gray has had a pretty successful career in House Music. The Mississippi-born producer and remixer moved to Chicago in the early 1990s and was a fixture at Red Dog and other nightlife spots while releasing some sweet beats, including the full length Emotional Distortion LP and the Trippy Fingers EP, both on Track Mode. His music has taken him overseas, allowed him to rub shoulders with some of the giants of the dance music industry and, it seems, given him a good vantage point to describe that segment of Chicago House Music history that hasn't yet found its way into books and DVDs. The 1990s were a fantastically creative time, with the rebirth of the Chicago sound via Cajual and Relief, Dancemania and a dozen other cutting edge labels and the producers and DJs of the Second Wave.
Quite by accident, I stumbled upon a book Chris has written, called Mechanics of Me, offered as a free download on his website. It's a pretty good read.
Who is Chris Gray to write a book about House Music? If that's the first question you asked, you've missed the point entirely. Beginning with Maestro and Chip E.'s The UnUsual Suspects, there's been a groundswell of documentaries about House Music - hardly a month goes by that we aren't asked about a new one. Some focus on the early days in New York, some on Chicago, some on the notion of a "House Music culture".
What you don't often see is simply a personal story - a life in music. At this point, anybody can put out a casting call and interview a few dozen people who made, played or stole a hit record (this is the music industry we're talking about, after all). And with some exceptions, the resulting film will probably be seen by largely the same people who have seen all of the previous ones.
When I interviewed Chip E. about The UnUsual Suspects, he had a devout egalitarian viewpoint toward video:
Well, this has happened, in a way: there's now no shortage of House Music documentaries, but few that are turning over new ground. What they're missing is the story - the personal connection that extends beyond the DJs and the records and the club. House Music history, as a subject, has been done to death. What we need are the compelling personal stories that happen to take place in the context of House Music but are universal enough to be of interest to the rest of the world.
That's why I'm really enjoying this book. It's not just that Chris is a good writer or tells a good tale - it's that this is about a person, not a thing. He tells his own story and you can learn a good deal about House Music in the 1990s when he came on the scene. It's a story about being a young kid that lives and breathes music. And that's what makes this universal. Because while Marge in Peoria might not be able to easily identify with the message of liberation, love and freedom contained in a 4/4 beat, she can definitely understand a young person trying to live out his dream.
Check it out for yourself and tell him what you think: http://chrisgraydeep.com/mechanics.html.
