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And he said it’s that music you play down there at that club. Well I saw it and I asked him what it was. It has a sign in the window that said we play house music. HERE’S A CLIP FROM KNUCKLES’ 2014 LECTURE AT RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY.ĭJ KNUCKLES: I was in the car with a friend of mind going to his house on the south side, and we were at a stoplight and there was a tavern on the corner. PEOPLE STARTED CALLING IT HOUSE MUSIC - AS IN, THE KIND OF MUSIC THEY PLAYED AT THE HOUSE. SARAH: SO WHEN YOU HEAR THE TERM HOUSE MUSIC, THAT’S ACTUALLY REFERRING TO THE WAREHOUSE. SHIRLEY: It’s called house because when we open up the warehouse, people would say are you going to the house tonight? SO THAT’S WHERE HE WOULD DJ AND EXPERIMENT WITH WHAT WE NOW KNOW OF AS HOUSE MUSIC. AND HE WAS FRIENDS WITH ONE OF THE OTHER OWNERS OF THE WAREHOUSE. SARAH: KNUCKLES WAS LIVING IN CHICAGO AT THE TIME. SHIRLEY: it was a new genre of music after disco, which was house. FRANKIE KNUCKLES IS A DJ, OFTEN CALLED “THE GODFATHER OF HOUSE MUSIC.” A TYPE OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC, MADE POPULAR BY KNUCKLES. SHIRLEY: I don't know if you've heard of Frankie Knuckles. SARAH: AND IN THE DJ BOOTH, HISTORY WAS BEING MADE. Here's this big old dance floor, people dancing, and lights going on and off. SHIRLEY: And once you would come through and open up the curtains. SARAH: AND THE MOST IMPORTANT ROOM AT THE WAREHOUSE WAS THE DANCE FLOOR. And then if you want to chat with somebody you have, you know, just a room where you can sit and not, you know, be a part of the music. So when you came in, and you just saw, we even had a coat check, we had rooms where you could sit back and lay back like a lounge area, watch TV. You couldn't really see the dance floor because we had like curtains to block it off. And then you open up the doors, and then you come in and we had everything set up. SHIRLEY: you come into this warehouse and you know, this industrial district.
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SARAH: LIKE A CLUBHOUSE, THE WAREHOUSE WAS MADE UP OF A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT ROOMS. SHIRLEY: …and we turned it inti like a club, you know. ONCE A WEEK - EVERY SATURDAY - IN THE SAME SPACE. SARAH: SO THEY STARTED THROWING THESE PARTIES. Why don't we do this, you know, in Chicago, bring it to Chicago. We were just discussing, you know, we sitting around just you know, chatting like, me and you're chatting now. And just to go party, and lots of parties that were going on, they’d start at midnight and and last til like seven in the morning. SHIRLEY: we would frequent New York at least once a month. SHIRLEY AND HER FRIENDS WERE INSPIRED BY SIMILAR CLUBS THEY HAD BEEN TO IN NEW YORK. AND SINCE IT WOULD JUST BE MUSIC AND DANCING, NO BAR, THEY COULD STAY OPEN WELL PAST WHEN OTHER CLUBS HAD TO CLOSE. SARAH: THE IDEA WAS TO FIND A SPACE WHERE THEY COULD THROW QUEER DANCE PARTIES EVERY WEEKEND. Gay guys and women, we kinda formed the group and we opened up this after hours club called The Warehouse … SHIRLEY: And so me and again, some of the friends I've met along the way. SARAH: SHE FOUND A BIG GROUP OF QUEER FRIENDS - PEOPLE SHE MET OUT AT THE BARS, THROUGH THEIR PARTNERS, AND THEIR PARTNERS PARTNERS. SHIRLEY: what appealed to me was that you can be free, you know, you want your own kind so to speak. SARAH: FROM THERE, SHIRLEY BECAME ENGRAINED IN LGBT NIGHTLIFE IN CHICAGO. SHIRLEY: What gave me is the first gay bar was like, Whoa, you know? They're, you know, I was like, made me feel like oh, there are people here that feel the way I was thinking okay. THIS WAS THE EARLY 1970s, CHICAGO, AND SHIRLEY WAS 30 YEARS OLD. SARAH: SHIRLEY J DIDN’T REALIZE SHE WAS GAY UNTIL SHE WENT TO HER FIRST GAY BAR.