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Glenn Underground makes Bell Bottom music for the class of '96. The man GU talks about Larry Heard, Disco and God, and takes his disco revenge on Emma Warren.

"I got this name from my friends. They would ask me how DEEEP my house music was, and I would say that it was under the ground."

Glenn Underground's voice is a revelation. At times he comes across like a just-got-out-of-bed Barry White on smack, other times he takes on a sing song timbre before he melts away to a liquid thunder at the end of his sentences. He's full of frequent "huh's?" and melodious "thunks" of verbal expression. His accent hints at the deep south; slow and fat. In fact he was born in 1972 and brought up in Chicago's Southside, a place that the guidebooks advise you to avoid, and where house music was born. He moves UP to emphasize and DOWWNNN when things get serious, which they do on a number of occasions. Pre-interview, someone answers the phone chez Underground.

Could I speak to Glenn Underground?

"ASLEEP!" came the roaring answer.At 24, GU is the epitome of the belief that in the beginning there was disco, and disco beget house. House, of course had many brothers and cousins; close relations including gospel and jazz, but the big daddy was disco, and Underground knows this more than anyone. "It started with DISCO first" he whispers. "It started with us WAY back in the seventies." Everything about him refers to it. First exhibit is his haircut, closely followed by the consciously seventies cover of his new 'Atmosfear' album on Peacefrog; the new era dance floor disco he makes and plays with old spar Boo Williams; his explanation of his sound as 'bell bottom music' and his heavily bootlegged cover of disco's essence, 'I Feel Love'.

In the UK, disco will always have slightly "spangly" resonances; of bad suits and sad all-in-ones, of cheesy Bee Gees soft focus camera work and funny shaped collars on Kids TV. But in Chicago disco was a vibrant, a colourful phenomenon. Like dominos falling, or like a big bang, Disco was the eruption that caused ripples which fed all subsequent dance music.

It's not that Glenn is living in the past, 'cuz Glenn was a baby five in '77, having fun, and riding on big wheels at home. Even though, like many of his compadres, he was behind the decks when he was ten or eleven, he didn't experience the initial disco scene first hand. But, "I knew about the music," he says. "If we didn't have disco we wouldn't have house."

He tells a story about a mass record-burning some years ago, saying that disco instigated political ripplings in Chicago.

"They blew up over a 100,000 disco records in Kaminsky Park. Who? These CRAZY white executives saying that disco was DEAD. They said disco was dead so they burnt the records. They don't know it's the hottest selling records, it sells almost more than R&B music. Executives of these rock and roll groups petitioned it. It happened! I wish I was there, 'cuz they would have had to BLOW me up as well. I love my classics."

Picture the scene: GU, tall and righteous throwing himself onto a pile of disco vinyl searching for the classic records whilst a group of bemused straight-backed suits stand and gawk. It shows the strength and sense of history that the city has with disco that his whole persona is so flavoured with the sights and sounds of a twenty-year old music.

One of Underground's uncles was a DJ. He played at family parties and Underground watched him intently. One day, he had a go on the decks.

"The first time I did it I had almost virtually mastered handling records. I looked at it like this: I'm black, I got too much rhythm, so I caught the record and threw it in, and it landed in on time. I learnt all the basic tricks." His parents had a lot of records. "I got a lot of records from my mother, in fact, I still have a lot of her classic sounds, Earth, Wind and Fire cuts. I have a lot of that stuff from my Mom. My whole family is musically inclined."

DJ'ing and clandestine attendance at Chicago's whirlwind of marathon parties was only a small step away. He'd sneak to the parties, then go straight to school. He tells me how good these parties were. Wild, screaming parties that lasted all day and all night and all day, that left an indelible mark on all who were there. What he says next explains more than a thousand flowery descriptions of Lil Louis' Firehouse parties, or Ron Hardy's Music Box parties, or Frankie Knuckles Gallery 21 parties.

"If you would have grown up in Chicago you'd be talking about memories every day of your life, because Chicago partied harder than any other place on earth."
"That's what made house music so strong", he says later.

Whilst post-dance culture has had major cultural implications in Europe, it is still a meta-minority in the United States, and it's politics are hidden deep within the whole culture. Whilst techno has it's occasional overtly political moments - the Riot EP, or Robert Hood's Nighttime World, which describes the experience of a Black man in America, house seems to remain fixated at the dance floor or staring out to the stars. We inadvertently stumble into the political ramifications that pervaded house culture.

"Back in Chicago in the past the crime rate was low because everyone was in a party. The crriiimmme rate was low! You know, in this state they like to keep us Black people locked up. They hated it because they were going out of business 'cuz we were partying."

Underground says he finds Europe free'er than the United States.

"They treat us good when we come over there", he says. "Over here all they want to do is make us the majority in the prison houses. But we always found a way of releasing ourselves through music. From jazz all the way up to now. From blues all the way up to house music. We always found a way to come together."

click for full size picture Boo Williams is Underground's long standing friend and DJ'ing partner. They knew each other from the parties, and now share both a house and a partnership in Strictly Jaz Productions.

"We're room-mates", says Underground. "When I first met Boo he was knocking someone on his back." He's chuckling at the thought. "Now it takes a lot to offend him."

Together, behind the decks, they whip up a disco flame thrower of a night, slamming one hot stepping slab after another.

"Me 'n Boo, we like to play clubs 'cuz in clubs you can play disco and you can play new house. I don't think clubs in Europe really get into classics though", he muses. "Stuff like Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, Thelma Houston. That stuff you can only play in Chicago!"

He tells of seeing Louie Vega spin recently at a club called Liquid.

"I danced all night! I couldn't sit down because everything he played was fly! He told that shit! I had NO idea he could DJ like that. Chicago can play the ass off. That's one thing we perfected when it comes to playing on the turntables."

Underground is an integral part of the Cajual/Relief/Prescription triangle. He's GU for Cajual, making GU Essentials and naughty booties of Donna Summer.

"I was making tracks to play off tapes at rave parties, and I just made it. Cajmere (head of Cajual) wanted it and put it out, and someone bootlegged it. I didn't know that Masters At Work were doing a remix. I wanted to submit mine as a remix, but by the time I found out (about the commissioned remixes) it was too late. I just put it together and the crowd liked it."

It's the CVO hat that comes out when he records for Prescription and Balance, cuts like 'Party Time' and the echoing swooshes and jumbling discordance of 'City People'. It's all backed by the single line of sound that is used to such effect, answered back by occasional boot bass. He's plain old Glenn Underground for outside projects such as his harsh disco for the strong of heart on Force Inc. US, and for various remixing projects.

'Atmosfear' is the latest Underground release and it shines. Ever since the Sceneries Not Songs albums, and Lil Louis' Journey With The Lonely, a deep understanding of the soul of house music has provided the backbone of a stunning house long player. Atmosfear joins in that chant. It's Heard-influenced, warm 'n' jazzy house gear, oscillating dark shadows with infinitely more party spirit than Russ Abbott.

Glenn's step-father was a guitar player, but more important to his musical youth was his uncle who was in a band. Between the ages of seven and eleven, the young Underground would sit and listen as the band rehearsed their sets in his family's house. Then, when they had packed up, and left, he would sneak back in and turn the equipment on. He'd sit at the Fender Rhodes piano and learn how to play. He never got caught. "That's my favourite keyboard," he says. It shows. 'Tribe Of Benjamin', a track appearing on Freezone 3, is a conversation between layers of string soaked house heritage, and gives some vital clues to the inspirations and guiding forces of the man.

House music has relied on religion for sustenance for as long as it's been around. Gospel-influenced players such as Robert Owens, Lil' Louis and Kevin Saunderson are all deeply religious, and all started their careers in churches. Chez Damier wrote on the recent Prescription compilation "As God has said through man, life is rhythm and tone. Rhythm is the pace we follow and tone is the vibration that we as individuals send out into the universe." God, in fact, gets more thanks on album liner notes than anyone else ever.

After all, America is a fundamentally religious country. Religion, and church in Black America has fulfilled a vital role in nurturing house music and its artists. It's something completely different to the politely repressed religious culture here. GU was touched more by the spiritual aspects of Jazz than the uplifting vocal tendencies of gospel, hence he makes referential house music and Inner City test the powers of their lungs.

Then we hit the serious stuff. Underground holds some complex and potentially controversial views on evolution according to the scriptures, but I can't follow his tangents, can't hear him properly, and don't really understand the background and the context of his views. We keep getting stuck. Suffice to say, he's keen on Genesis (the book not the band), and knows the names of all of Noah's sons.

Although he keeps reiterating that he doesn't want to talk about it, shards of his beliefs keep coming out.

"I just do what Christ said, and keep the law. I just keep the laws to the best of my ability. Like the Ten Commandments." We discuss if there are ever any conflicts between his religious beliefs and the stimulant-filled, sexually charged atmosphere of nightclubs. "Women trying to tempt me...I jus' ignore 'em. I go to do my job and leave. I try to stay humble with people and do my job, and I'm cool with everyone. Boo Williams, my boy CB (Lil Louis' younger brother who Underground is working with), we're all on the same level."

Almost as influential as God, is Larry Heard.

"He just make good music and I admire him. Mysteries of Love jus' sound good."

I tell him that Larry Heard's recent Alien album got a fair slugging here, not so much for the musical content so much, but for being a 'concept album', for being about stars and Extra Terrestrial's and Mars. Cynical Englishmen and women just couldn't stomach it. Glenn is affronted.

"Larry Heard is one of the reasons you got house music to this day. He is a BIG factor in House music."

Heard is the obvious forefather of Underground's sound; deep house music, accomplished yet still holding the requisite amount of emotion, and proof that the music, if anything, is getting better. His forthcoming album on London's Defender Records, a collaboration between Underground, Boo Williams and Timothy Jaz (aka Tim Harper) refers back to the hip minimal of jazzy chords and a flowing vibe.

"When you listen to the stuff from Larry Heard, Marshall Jefferson, Frankie Knuckles, Lil Louis, Ron Wilson and Robert Owens, it sounds like the stuff they make in New York today. Larry Heard's 'Beyond The Clouds' sounds like something that came out of New York. The sound of New York is a classical Chicago vibe."

"The only thing New York did was that someone was smart enough to do it in a 48-track studio. I'm not disrespecting them, because I respect New York period, for carrying on the fight for house music. They know where it came from and it came from Chicago. When Chicago fell off the map for a while, New York kept up the struggle." "I live for original house music" he states.

You'd better believe it, because if anyone connects the old school of house with the new and yet to come, it's Underground. He's got a mad baronet, possibly the lowest, slowest voice ever, and he lives for original house music. He is original house music.

Atmosfear is out on Peacefrog, Soul Survivors will come out on Defender Records, and another LP will appear on 'Play It Again Sam.' Also a new GU Essentials on Cajual, and more on Force Inc. US.

©1996 Jockey Slut Magazine.