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Urb Next 100
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Willy Joy throws a mean party - his "Fly By Night" hipster clusterfuck turned this Minneapolite-cum-...Willy Joy throws a mean party - his "Fly By Night" hipster clusterfuck turned this Minneapolite-cum-Chicagoan into a known name around the Windy. Joy's got a selective ear that comes from years as a rave DJ, and his remixes and productions are bootylicious mergers of electronic bangers and juke cuts.
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Sharp Darts: The Chicago Way Now that he's been dubbed one to watch, DJ-producer Willy Joy wants to help the next guy in line.
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By Miles Raymer
It's 11 o'clock on a Saturday night and Willy Joy is working one of the mos...
By Miles Raymer
It's 11 o'clock on a Saturday night and Willy Joy is working one of the most simultaneously sweet and difficult gigs in the city: opening for former Kanye West DJ A-Trak. The gig confers some prestige, but the crowd is full of Kanye fans who seem more interested in group beer chugs than dancing. Joy seems intent on getting their attention. He bounces around behind the decks, knocking back drinks and spinning everything from big-club techno to Police remixes, looking for a reaction. Eventually the combination of his selections and his infectious energy gets 'em moving. By the time he drops a heavily tweaked remix of Lil Wayne's "A Milli"—with the song's original loop replaced by a chopped-up sample of Dr. Evil's blackmail scene from Austin Powers—they're downright rowdy.
Joy has inhabited a number of music scenes over the past decade or so—he cut his teeth spinning records at underground raves as a teen in Minneapolis before moving on to clubs in Providence, Boston, and now Chicago—and all of them have influenced his style as a DJ and producer. "At this point a lot of DJs would look at you crazy if you said, 'I'm a something DJ,'" Joy says. "It used to be so accepted that you could say, 'Oh, I spin house,' but now it's like, 'And what else?'"
But even on the post-Diplo landscape, Joy stands out as a particularly omnivorous selector. I can't remember ever having a conversation with any other dance party DJ about the Dutch avant-punk band the Ex, for instance. "I went through phases the same way anyone else does," says Joy, who's 26. "I did the raver into the metalhead into the backpacker to the drum 'n' bass DJ to whatever it is now. A million other people had that exact same progression. I think it's just that I'm more or less grown up at this point in my life and it's enough that I can at least do something interesting with the music I'm into."
For some insight into the breadth of Joy's taste, check out last year's mix tape Fly by Night Vol. 1 (mashit.com/2007/11/19/willy-joy-mixtape), where Pitbull's reggaeton jam "Ay Chico" segues improbably into They Might Be Giants' "Don't Let's Start" and Dirty South MC Petey Pablo and dancehall maniac Elephant Man bookend dour 90s rockers Live. "I'm definitely trying not to be ironic," he notes. "Pretty much everything I play or put on a mix is something that I really like."
Fly by Night shares its name with a party Joy's been promoting since moving to Chicago three years ago from Boston, where he'd burned out "fielding requests from jerks and trying to please middle management" by night and languishing in cubicle hell by day. "I kind of wanted to hit the ground running when I came here," he says, "because I was really fed up in Boston and I had a lot of pent-up energy that I wasn't using, except to watch movies and eat Cheetos at night."
Fly by Night generated a decent amount of buzz with guests like Dude N Nem and Baltimore DJ Dave Nada in its first three months at the Underground Lounge, but turnout was modest. Joy had traded e-mails with local artists like Flosstradamus and Matt Roan before coming to Chicago, but he didn't know enough about the city to understand that the crowd he was trying to attract doesn't really do Wrigleyville. "Tops, a hundred people were there," he says. "But they were really excited."
Joy took the party to Empire Liquors in Wicker Park and then, this spring, to the Debonair Social Club across the street. He spins to a packed house the third Thursday of each month and drew a fairly sizable crowd at this year's Lollapalooza, where he opened the dance stage. He got that gig through Roan, E6, and Zebo, some of the city's best-connected DJs, who were tapped to book local dance talent at the festival.
The fact that Joy made the cut is testament to how he's been embraced by the local underground dance scene. The feeling is mutual: "Chicago to me is the first place that I've lived since I've moved out of my parents' house that actually felt like a home," Joy says. "Providence was cool, Boston was really not cool, but both of them felt like I was just spending time there. The second I got here it felt like a place that I wanted to stay."
It's a good time to be here, with people all over the world taking their cues from artists like Flosstradamus and Million Dollar Mano, who've stayed in Chicago and are happy to turn the spotlight on their friends. Though he hasn't toured much and has barely any product, Willy Joy was included in a 2007 Urb feature on the Chicago scene and then made the magazine's 2008 "Next 100" list. "Everyone in the scene here is supportive, and we're all working towards more or less the same goal, but it's not as cutthroat as it is in other places," he says. "I think for the most part we're legitimately happy to see people do well, and the people who do well are trying to look back and help more people."
Currently Joy and fellow Fly by Night fixtures Capcom—DJ duo Dylan Reiff, who went to middle school with Joy, and Carlos Mercado—have a limited-run vinyl EP called Fly by Night: The Prequel for sale at Turntablelab.com. Joy is also contributing a track to Zebo's upcoming record, where he'll be featured alongside the likes of Bird Peterson, Dave Nada, and Tittsworth. Then he'll start work in earnest on his first full-length of original material. His goal for the next year or so is to "step my production game up in general," specifically in collaboration with locals who aren't so well known outside the city, like foulmouthed party rapper Mic Terror. "There's so many people doing so much cool stuff here," he says. "It hurts as much as it helps, but it wouldn't be Chicago any other way. There's a bunch of people that, thinking about it, I should probably call up, but then again I'd much rather listen to Mic Terror rap about sex again."
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Making A Scene
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Willy Joy of Flybynight had been a DJ and producer for the better part of a decade, and when he retu...Willy Joy of Flybynight had been a DJ and producer for the better part of a decade, and when he returned to his native Midwest from Boston about two years ago, he brought cutting-edge hip-hop talent to Chicago. "I had this idea for a monthly party, just showcasing myself and DJ friends like Capcom—DJs and artists who were essential or going to be essential," Joy says. In less than a year, Flybynight has quickly become a key player in the underground hip-hop dance-party scene.
Party philosophy "In general, it's a dance party first and foremost—fun, progressive new music," Joy says. "We're trying to isolate the new hot sounds while maintaining a good dance party."
Who's there? A young, trendy crowd that digs obscure hip-hop, plus rock dudes and hipster club kids populate these parties. "We want to meet everyone, hang out, have drinks, dance around and have fun," Joy says, while stressing that his party is less "sceney" than similar bashes. "No one's there to be seen or cares what they are wearing."
Sounds like "We focus on the music first and everything else second," Joy says. While Flybynight is based in a rap and hip-hop aesthetic, it's more about mixing styles. Live acts have ranged from the Cool Kids to funk band Miss Fairchild. DJs spin rap, pop, house and techno.
A night to remember Dude 'N Nem, the juke outfit from Chicago's South Side responsible for the hit single "Watch My Feet," played what Joy deems "a legendary show" last year at Underground Lounge, complete with footworkin' dancers onstage.
Next up This month, Flybynight Records issues a vinyl 12-inch featuring Joy, Capcom and New York producer Handshake, with Chicago rapper Vyle making a cameo.
Check it out Empire Liquors (1566 N Milwaukee Ave, 773-278-1600) hosts Joy's parties every third Thursday of the month, usually featuring a DJ and live act.
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Juke All Night, Play All Day
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They call Chicago the "City Of Big Shoulders," but when it comes to hip-hop, the only thing clinging...They call Chicago the "City Of Big Shoulders," but when it comes to hip-hop, the only thing clinging to the Windy's brawny frame has been a big ol' chip. Despite a legendary house scene and recent nesting of noteworthy indie-rockers, Chicago's rap artists have only to gaze up at the loosely connected and hard-road successes of Common, Twista, Lupe Fiasco and obvious golden boy Kanye West, who's made passable attempts to raise all of them up at one point or another. The only overnight celebrities made seem to have been Daft Punk as far as 'Ye's concerned, so what's really to blame for this long-standing disconnect? Self-hindering over-competitiveness, maybe? Perhaps that unshakable Second City complex radiating from big brother New York? Whatever the reason, thankfully things are changing for this blue-collar crossroads city, often called Haterville by even its own players. There's indeed something brewing deep within the city's bowels, and it's not due to compounded years of "red hots," gyros and Giordano's. Nope—Chicago's dusting off and popping its collective collar, and in true Gangland fashion, it's being anything but quiet about it.
PARTY ALL THE TIME
"What's going on, Chicago?" Curt Cameruci, aka Autobot, yells into a crackling mic from a shoddy DJ booth at the Wicker Park bar Subterranean. Along with the other half in his wildly popular DJ duo, Flosstradamus, Cameruci and Josh Young (J2K) are playing to a hyped crowd of loyal fans in the upstairs of the venue that's about 50 times bigger than the Town Hall Pub, where their now-infamous first "Floss parties" were held just last year. Autobot smartly drops in a treat for the younger crowd on this 18-and-up Wednesday: A trivial departure from their usual juke-meets-mainstream, rap-meets-electrified-indie-rock tracks, Daft Punk's "One More Time" peels away layers of clothes like it was, well, the First Time. And looking around at the youngsters, maybe it is? A packed house is always to be expected for Flosstradamus, but this isn't the only party popping tonight. Just one neighborhood away, another duo—one of many local acts Floss has helped hoist into the public eye—is tearing it up as well. At Schuba's on the North Side, a slightly older, nearly sold-out crowd is blowing the Cool Kids' minds.
"We thought the show was going to take a big dip," always-colorful rapper/producer Chuck Inglish tells URB a week later over nachos at a local dive after picking up new Jordans just a few minutes earlier. "If we did go up against [Flosstradamus], there would have been no way because everyone goes to their shit. But it looked like a UN meeting in there, it was so diverse."
"There were a lot of people we've never seen," partner Mikey Rocks chimes in with eyes wide (partly for exaggeration and partly because he's 19 years old). "There were dudes there that work at the bank downtown—it was crazy. We didn't even know they were listening."
But folks are listening. And not only that—they are dancing. Grown men in button-downs are heavily nodding their noggins to the Kids' weirdo minimal throwback-rap (think Licensed To Ill-era Beastie Boys meets old-school Slick Rick with a sneaker fetish) until their glasses slide down their noses. Next to them, fashionista fans, grinning ear-to-ear, follow Chuck and Mikey's every move on perhaps their most popular joint, "88": "Do the smurf, do the wop, baseball bat / Rooftop like I'm bringin' '88 back!"
With Mikey in royal-blue skinny jeans that would splinter a toothpick (famously called his "Aquaman" outfit by local rapper Hollywood Holt) and Chuck in his teal Nike windbreaker and huge Cazals with the lenses poked out, there's definitely some '88 being celebrated. But attention-grabbing style aside, something about the Cool Kids' show is so now, and the boys openly thank Floss, who put them on at several of their Town Hall parties. The two rappers even pay tribute on the slow crawl of "Flossin'": "What up Autobot? / Young Josh, holler / I nominate these two DJs for president."
"It's big what those dudes did—bringing that whole double-DJ thing to light and then giving other people a platform to capitalize off what they've done," Chuck says. "I want to have that opportunity some day, too."
If Chicago's popularity keeps growing like this, it will be an unprecedented group effort. And in a very un-Chicago way, J2K and Autobot have no bones about acknowledging the younger Kids' involvement in the burgeoning scene's success.
"When we started doing stuff with them is when we were like, 'Oh shit, something's growing here,'" says Autobot. "A lot of people came through our Town Hall Pub parties and played, and I guess we put them on, but now, guys like the Cool Kids are putting us on, too."
But Floss isn't the only ones throwing parties that become showcases. DJs Willy Joy and yet another DJ duo, Capcom (Dylan Reiff and Carlos Mercado), formed the Fly By Night troupe a year ago, their first parties featuring incredibly underrated Philly-Chicago transplant DJ Major Taylor (who's said to have created Flosstradamus blueprint Hollertronix). The crew's credited in part with bringing the juke sound up from the South Side most memorably when "Watch My Feet" rappers Dude N' Nem juked the hell out of Subterranean in September.
"That's like bringing General Lee to New Jersey," Taylor points out with a laugh and stroke of his wily beard as the crew sits around a table at Hollywood Grill, one of Wicker Park's late-night haunts.
"When we started Fly By Night parties, it took us a while to figure out the right formula," remembers Joy. "To me, what makes Chicago hip-hop so interesting—people like Dude N' Nem and Vyle and Cool Kids—it's not forced. They are open-minded, and they're listening to everything; there are no limitations and expectations. The thing with Common, Twista, Lupe and Kanye is that there's no unifying aesthetic."
"But now, the two biggest contingencies at Chicago parties are ex-backpackers and ex-ravers," adds Reiff, who, true to his weirdly glamorous nerdiness, can also be seen as the surprise guest on the finale for VH1 reality show The Pick-Up Artist. "Those two together kind of explain what's happening right now."
