The Silver Room Block Party!!! Eric Williams shares the origin story with Lori Branch!!

Introduction

0:00You're tuned in to the Vintage House Show, home to the original stories of the history of house music, as told by the legends, pioneers, and icons. Hosted by Kevin Mega McFall, Lori Branch, and Lauren Lowry.

0:18Alright, here we are again. What's up everybody? It's DJ Lori Branch with the Vintage House crew, and I am so excited. We have a special guest tonight, such an amazing human being, humanitarian, businessman, he does it all, Mr. Eric Williams in the house. That's right, yay!

0:37So I'm going to, we're going live in all kinds of places, but we'll get started by saying thank you again.

Eric Williams Background

0:44Thank you. For being here, making the trek up to Evanston from Hyde Park. You know, Hyde Park's one of my favorite neighborhoods. I love Hyde Park. I was, like, 15, 16 when I really discovered it. Like, I had been to the Museum of Science and Industry as a kid, and I grew up way south in Morgan Park. And so, you know, back then, this was, I was a 70s, 80s kid. We just kind of stayed in our neighborhoods. Right, right. Except we would venture out, you know, here and there. And I had, like, a boyfriend. I met this guy at Kenwood High School.

1:15I was at Lindblom, but my girlfriend, she was dating this guy at Kenwood, and she was like, we should go to Kenwood and just hang out. Right, right. It's like, what do you mean? My kids just went over to Hyde Park, Kenwood, just to hang out. Right, right. And it was like, what is this, what is this magical place by the lake?

Hyde Park Neighborhood

1:32Yeah, yeah. This diversity in the university, and I just, I fell in love with the neighborhood. But, so, thanks for making the trek. No worries. So, Eric Williams is the owner of Silver Room, the Bronzeville Winery. And coming up, the Silver Room Block Party, Block System, what is it called? It's just called the Sound System Block Party. It's always been called that, actually. It has always been called that. The Silver Room presents the 19th Annual Sound System Block Party. It's happening Saturday, July 18th at the Salt Shed, which I love that place. I spend there once a month throughout the summer.

2:03Oh, cool. In the treetop. The treetop, okay, cool, cool. With the Good Girls crew. So, I love that space.

Silver Room Block Party

2:09But, before we get into that, I do want to talk about it, because I know that's probably top of mind, is that it's happening in two weeks, two and a half weeks. And so, we want to honor that, and we'll get into sort of the history of that. But, I wanted to talk a little bit about you, if that's okay. Sure, okay. So, you are a Harvey and Robbins native. Is that right? You did some research, yes. I was born and Harvey raised in Robbins. Okay. Tell me about that. Wow. So, Robbins is, for those of you who don't know, is just a little south of Chicago.

2:40Yes. It's funny. I say Robbins. People don't know Robbins. Oh, yeah. I have relatives who grew up there. Yeah. It's okay. So, you know. Yeah. So, they had chickens. Yeah. It's like Mississippi. So, we actually lived across the street from a Kiki Palmer. Really? Did she grow up in Robbins? We lived here on Keillor. Okay. She lived, we lived 137 South Keillor. She lived 137 South Keillor. Oh, wow. So, her mother and her aunt, they're twins, Sharon and Karen. Okay. And they were friends with my sister.

3:11But, yeah. But, Kiki Palmer is from the same place. Wow. Dwayne Wade, of course, is from Robbins. Wow. So, you know, a few other people.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

3:18But, yeah. Do they ever come through your stuff? Dwayne Wade came to Brunswick Winery. I met Kiki Palmer in L.A. And I'm like, I knew her address. Yes. And she's like, how do you know my address? I said, I'm from Robbins. She was so excited. People from Robbins are very proud. I'm sure. Very, very proud of that little small town. But, yeah. So, you know, then I started making my way to the city buying records when I was 8, 15, 14. Yeah. Started DJing. Yeah, 14. When's the first time you remember sort of being in the city? Oh, wow. You know, I went to the city with my parents a couple times.

3:49But what really, I remember going to Imports, et cetera. Really? On Plymouth Court. Okay. Yeah. So, catching the train down at Imports was my, in Loop, Loop Records. That's what I remember going there. But how did you even know to go to those places? Because I just had friends that were DJing. And I'm like, where you got to get your records from? Imports. And they were DJing in Rollins? Yeah. Really? What was happening out there as a teenager? I mean, it was small. It was a little country. But we had the radio in BMX. And I had an older sister. Okay. So, she was going, she told me about Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, because she's like six years older than me.

4:24Okay. So, really from her. So, I was listening to the radio, but she was talking about the club. Yes. And I had some friends who were going to the parties, too. Okay. Okay. So, you were getting a little osmosis and you heard, you know, I have to say, BMX was sort of the great equalizer. You know, they took a lot of what was happening here and sort of packaged it. Yeah. Condensed it and made it accessible to everyone. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, it was, you know, sometimes that era gets a little bit of, I don't know, a little flack because purists like us are like, you know, they were playing three minutes of the song and it's like, well, it's a radio, you know.

BMX and Radio

5:02Yeah, exactly. You can't play a car for 20 minutes, you can't play a 12-minute mix. Right, right, right, right. So, I give them all credit, you know, Farley and all those guys, you know, who were part of the Hot Mix 5 and Steve, Sir Curley and Miggity Maestro, all those guys. And many of whom didn't get paid a dime, you know, to do it. I mean, serious. It was pretty serious.

5:25Ralphie Rosario talks about that. I don't know if you saw the documentary on WTTW. No. So, Barbara Allen, who was a producer of WTTW, she produced her own, as part of the Chicago series, Chicago story series on WTTW, she did one on house music. And she interviewed Ralphie Rosario, she interviewed us, she interviewed a lot of folks. But it's a great documentary, I highly recommend it, you can actually just, you know, it's on WTTW, Chicago stories, about house music.

5:56But he talks about WBMX, Ralph Rosario, and he was like, I was just so excited. He's like, we didn't get paid a dime. That's crazy. You know? Because they brought a lot of attention to that station. Dude, they are. I mean, they were, they made the station, basically. You know, I think that station was probably dying before that. Sure, yeah. You know, so, anyway, I know that you are a respecter of artists, and so we'll get into that. But you also went to a university, you went to Northern and then University of Illinois.

6:27So what made, what made you switch? I went to Northern because my sister went there. There was no other reason why, and I had a scholarship. Well, that helps. So I got free ride, because it's like, if you major in business, you can go to Northern for free. Wow. In DeKalb. And at the time, again, this is 88. I just went to school. I'd never even been there. I just moved in. I never went to visit. And I went to Northern. I hated it. Did not, I hate to use the word hate, but I did not like it at all. You didn't like it. But I met Jamie. I met Jamie in Northern. Oh, nice. I met Wood Harris in Northern.

6:58Okay. So some good things came from it. It had its purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm still good friends to this day. But then after three years, I had, I was into music. I was DJing. Yeah. And I wanted to come back to the city. And so I moved back in 90, 1991, moved back to the city. And I just was having a good time. I transferred to UIC. I did really well in school. And I was, I think I needed the energy of the city. And DeKalb was just whack. No, DeKalb is not the energy of the city. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I remember this, I had a friend, one of my buddies from Lindblom went to Northern.

7:30And so we went there to party for the weekend. And we were like, this is not, it's okay. But it was like, not what we were used to warehouse. But at the same time, though, you had a lot of people from the city who were coming up to DeKalb. That's true. Like us. Y'all could just stay. We were coming. Right, right. So I'm like, this is, I want an experience that was different than, I'm like, I can just stay in the city for this. You know, actually the better parts of the city. So I came back. We had a good weekend, though. I think I have one of my rare pictures of like hanging out at a party was at Northern. Right, right, right. We were like in somebody's dorm room, like hanging out.

8:02I got a little 18-year-old picture there. Right, right, right. That's so sweet. And so you did go into finance.

Finance and Business

8:07So you saw yourself as a business person. What was that decision like? Well, my father owned, my father owned a bar in Robbins called Manny's Blue Room. Nice. And so Manny's Blue Room, everybody heard of Manny's. Yeah, okay. It was like a legendary spot. So Herb Kent was one of his first DJs. Get out. And so, you know, I grew up around that. It was like stepping music was a big thing. And then also to a part of music, my uncle played bass with Sun Ra. So Sun Ra used to come to the house all the time, too. So I think those were like my two entries to music was through jazz and through my father's bar.

8:42But so him being self-employed, it wasn't a big deal for me. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to open up a nightclub. I was inspired by Frankie and Uncle. I'm like, I'm going to open up a nightclub. And so I wanted to go make some money. That was my plan at age 16. Let me go make some money in finance and make some money to go buy a nightclub. Okay. So I went to finance. Okay. And I got my degree in the Series 7, Series 63, da-da-da-da. But meanwhile, so I transferred to UIC. Okay. I had to make money. And so I was going down to Maxwell Street.

9:13Why did you have to make money? To live. Okay. You know, to pay for school. Well, when I transferred to UIC, I had to pay for a little bit of school. And just to survive, you know. I worked at Taco Bell for five years, which is funny. That's like my longest job I've ever had besides Silver Room was Taco Bell. So I worked there from like age 16 to like 21, something like that.

9:32It was a good job anyway. We do what we have to do, right? But when I moved back to the city, I met a guy who was a street vendor. Okay. He was my friend's boyfriend. And so he's like, man, you can make money selling stuff on the streets. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, I sell t-shirts and sunglasses, blah, blah. Then I started hanging out with this guy. And this was on Maxwell Street? Maxwell Street. Okay. Yeah, this is 91. And I started buying Batman t-shirts because Batman had come out, I think, in 89, whatever. And then Bart Simpson t-shirts. And then later on, the Bulls started winning.

10:02We were printing up all kind of bootleg Bulls t-shirts. So I was on the trains. I was down on Rush Street, Scalper Avenue. I was selling peanuts. I was scoffing tickets. I was hustling. And so the guy on Maxwell Street introduced you to this idea that you could be selling these things yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, Maxwell Street is pretty famous for a lot of things, especially back then. It was a little rougher back then. And I remember that's where we got our first Sony IDs. Oh, yeah, everything. You can buy everything at Maxwell Street. It was like a van on the corner.

10:33I think me and a couple of other people, they were like, okay, what age do you want to be? You can buy anything you want. You can get a Maxwell Street. Maxwell Street was a mess. That's kind of where I learned to hustle at. What's up, Celeste? Thanks for watching. That's where I learned to hustle at. DJ Celeste, who's going to be performing at the Sound System Live Party. That's right. That's right. That's right. I'll be there, sis. We were just hanging out this weekend, Celeste and I. She had a great panel discussion.

10:57So, yeah, I think the reason I like to talk about where people get their entrepreneurial spirit is that this is sort of a history story, house music and the dance music, sort of this

House Music Culture

11:11whole culture.

House Music Culture

11:12And it never ceases to amaze me that people come in and say, my mom, my dad, somebody sort of was like laid the foundation for it. Yeah. You know, sort of showed me that it could be done in some way. Yeah, yeah. Well, you don't think it's a big deal. I said he owned a bar. And so, he'd always have a stack of money. He'd come home. His crown royal bags were full of cash. And so, my first job, I worked five years old. I started working with him at five, six years old. I was recycling beer cans.

11:43I was cleaning up and I was making boiled eggs. And I started like just cleaning up and helping him out at the bar. Yeah, at five. That was five years old. Yeah, yeah. So, he didn't make me work, but he kind of made me work. Little baby Eric squashing the cans and cleaning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so I think that's where I got it from was just like seeing him be self-employed. And I remember he used to work at, it was called Western Electric. Okay. I remember that. And he retired from there. And they gave him like this little clock radio. I'll never forget. He was there for like 20 years.

12:14Oh, my goodness. I'll never forget him like just being like looking at this clock radio like, man, I did all this work for this. Yeah. And so, I think that kind of said, I don't want to do that. You know, I don't like to work for myself. I so appreciate that. You know, we, I think we as black people, maybe as Americans, but especially as black people, I can think about this, you know, the sort of the good government job, you know. Oh, yeah. Like get a good. Post office. Yeah, get a good government job and therefore you don't have to worry about your future because you'll be taken care of.

12:45Like if you do well for 30 years in the same job, I don't think that exists anymore though. No, it's different mentality. You know. I mean, you know, my mom was a CPS teacher for literally 40 years. Yeah. And she, that was all she did. She taught school. And then my father worked at this job for 20 years. But that, you know, now you don't, you might work for 40 years, you know. Yeah, my mom was the CPS too. Where'd your mom teach? It's called a Cone, Cone school. Okay. Where was that? A grammar school, 102nd in the state. It was a feeder to Julian.

13:16Interesting. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I grew up in Morgan Park, so I know that area. But my mom. I think it's closed now actually. Is it? Okay. Yeah, I know. Julian. Julian was on my list, but I ended up going to Limbon. Everyone else went to Julian. All my friends. Percy L. Julian. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of my friends. Not the Crown Royal Bank Bags. Yes, Celeste. Mm. The Crown. That's a very vivid image. Those purple bags with the yellow stitching on it, man. I think I got one in my basement somewhere. And it smelled a certain way with the money. I still remember those Crown Royal Bags, man. You should give some of those out at your next thing. Yeah, it's not a bad idea.

13:47You could sell those. I could. And put like a Silver Room logo. Yes. I'm like, oh, okay. I'd buy one just for the hell of it. So you started to DJ. You were a DJ yourself. Mm-hmm. And you were doing that out at Robbins. Mm-hmm. Tell me a little bit about your start in that. Oh, wow. I just love the music. I'll never forget. I was walking to my cousin who used to DJ. And I was walking past his house one day. He was playing beatbox. He was boom, boom, boom, boom. He was scratching the cut. And I was like, I remember looking at him like, how's he doing that?

14:18So I went down. I was 14. And he was playing a Dominetrix. Okay. Stop, Dominetrix. He mixed it with me. I still remember this. Yes. I was like, I want to learn how to do this. Yes. And he just taught me. I caught on like super quick. Really? And I just, I was it. On wax? Of course. That's all we had back then. I remember the 12 bunch of Dominetrix. It was pink. A pink album cover. And then, so I went home and I didn't have any, I didn't have any music, you know? So my sister had a 45 of Cyndi Lauper time after time.

14:51And so back then it wasn't no, you know, it was belt driven turn tables. Of course. So I just was trying to like learn how to touch it. And I remember just time after time. I was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, time after time. I mean, for like four days in a row. So you got it just right. I learned how to mix after time after time. And I started, she had two copies. And I started like just playing them. And I had, you know, remember we used to hook up like a turntable to the radio? Yes. And I was blending like that. And I had a tape deck. Oh my gosh. With the turntable and the radio.

15:21And I was trying to wait for a song that would come on. And it had the pitch control like this. On the turntable and on the tape deck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I remember I just, and I was obsessed. And my cousin knew Mike Hitman Wilson. Yeah. And so I remember going to his house and he had 1200s. And I was like, man, I got to get these. And so I worked at Taco Bell. Back then they were $3.99 for 1200s. Yeah. I'll never forget. They were $3.99. They're more expensive now. Oh, they're like $1,000 I heard. It's sort of crazy. No, it was crazy.

15:52Like you didn't get used one for $5,000, $6,000. Yeah, but I remember I worked. I was making $3.35 an hour with minimum wage back then. I got the one. And so my father said if you get the one turntable, he would buy me the other one. Oh, wow. And we came downtown and I bought my 1200s. I was like in heaven. Your first 1200s. Man, that's like one of the best things ever in life. It takes a lot. You know, I don't think, I think I was way older when I got my own first 1200s. Like I was using those belt dribbins for a long time. Yeah.

16:22Maybe some time in the 90s. I got my, I think I was 16, 86. Those things were not cheap and they were heavy. Super heavy, yeah. So you're carrying, when we used to have to carry your equipment, I'll, you know, I'm back carrying records because we're doing all these vinyl sets, Celeste. I've been trying to get Celeste to do more vinyl. We're going to do some vinyl together. But I am not carrying those 1200s no more. We have to rent those. 26 pounds. And then you put the, when you put it with the crate, with that carrier, it's 40 pounds.

16:52Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Two of those is 80 pounds. Oh yeah, yeah. To get a casket, it's ridiculous. So let's, let's get into it. Now, did you ever DJ professionally? Like what, what was your sort of career? No, I mean, I was okay. It was just more fun, like it was more like a hobby or artistic expression. I mean, I'm, I was okay actually. I mean, I still play records. I mean, I know music, you know, I just never tried to ascend to a higher level. You know, I just, I, I just, when I was going out, I was, love Frankie.

17:26I love Ron Hardy. Yeah. Do you remember seeing them play first or second time? Yeah. I saw, I saw Ron Hardy actually first, which is most people saw Frankie first. I saw Ron Hardy first. Um, and I remember just, it was just being a wild, everybody was just. Were you at the music box? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which one? Yeah. The one in Michigan now. So I guess like the later one. Early, that was early. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the first one. Um, and I remember just the crowd was different. I remember going to see Frankie. I actually liked the crowd better. I'm like, this is more elegant. To me, it felt more elegant. It was. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so I like Ron Hardy music, but it was too, it was too crazy.

18:01You know, as a young kid, you know, plus I'm from Robin's, so like these gay dudes was like, that was new to me, you know what I mean? I was like, okay, this is cool, but I didn't, it was new. Yeah. And I was like, oh, wow, you know, so that, that, that was the whole thing. Yeah. And Medusa's, I actually like going to Medusa's too. Medusa's is great. I like going to Medusa's. I used to listen to, um, to, uh, Terry Bristol. She's great. The first person I ever heard play hip hop in the club actually was Terry Bristol. So, Terry's great. And you know what? Terry was our first guest. Oh, wow. For this show. Man, she was cool. She was our first, this was the first person I interviewed for this show.

18:34That's funny. And I'm so, beat myself up that we didn't record it. Oh, wow. But we do have her, uh, Lauren facilitated, Celeste was there too, uh, facilitated a panel discussion. I don't know, this was about, this was about, I don't know, seven, eight years before she passed, obviously. Right. And so Terry's on that, so we do have her talking about her career, but, uh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she, she was, she was great. I remember going to see her too, because I think I'd started spending maybe a couple years before Terry, and we, you know, Celeste talks about this too, like, there wasn't nobody else doing it. Not what we were doing.

19:06Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I went to Medusa's, and I, and they were like, I was like, that's a girl up there. Like, yeah. It's like 83. A psycho bitch. She's playing with psycho bitch. Yeah, no, I was, but the night I went, I was, I saw Terry, and I was like, wow. She was cold. She was, she was, she was a good DJ. Oh, yeah, she could play. Yeah. Yeah, and no surprise, a lot of women are good DJs. I'm not trying to say that, but I was surprised, I was just surprised to see a woman. Yeah, yeah. Because often that, that's not the case. And there are many lineups, thank God, not yours, where you can have 10 DJs and you will

19:37not see one woman on the lineup. Yeah. These festivals shouldn't go unnamed tonight, but there are many, not just one. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, dudes, okay, I get it, you're running things, but come on, give us a break. So let's get into it. Wicker Park, you, you went from selling some street stuff to, oh, tell me the trajectory

Silver Room History

20:00between Independence thing and Wicker Park. Yeah, so my life was going out to clubs and listening to music. Mike Izabuku was one of my favorites. Loved him. Just, you know, Lil Louis. I would just, I would go to clubs and then during the day I would street pedal. So I was selling t-shirts, sunglasses on the streets. And I think it was 93 or 94, I was at the Blues Fest, never forget. And this guy named Kendall, Kendall Lloyd. I know Kendall very well. Yeah, so literally I was on the street.

20:32Yeah. He told the story. I had a t-shirt, so it was the Blues Fest on the street. He walked past and was like, oh, man, like, you know, what's your name? I'm like, oh, Eric, I'm selling t-shirts. He goes, man, I got a store. Lit X. Lit X. Yeah. He goes, you should take your shirts and sell them in my store. No way. You should sell stuff in my store. Okay. When you're not selling them here. I was like, all right, this is getting pre-cell phone. He gave me the number somehow. I made my way to Wicker Park in Lit X and went down the basement. And, you know, I was selling BDs. I met Howie and Mario and Tina and Eileen, the black lady Eileen.

21:06Yes, all these names. And so I started bringing my stuff down in Lit X. And so if you've been to Lit X back in the day, the silver was mine. I was going back and forth to New York, to Canal Street, buying bootleg jeans. And so I had met, so me and Ron Tripp became really good friends. I met Ron in 91. And so me and Ron started going back and forth to New York a lot. And I was just buying stuff from New York and bringing it back and selling Lit X. And so I did that for, like, probably three years.

21:36I'm sure I bought some. You know, I used to hang out there a lot. And you probably bought something for me, yeah. Because Kendall and Mario and I was in the hip-hop group, He Who Walks Through Ways with Darrow. I was their DJ. We had a, you know, our thing. We lived in Wicker Park. We were just there. Right, right, right, right. Red Dog, that was Estelle's, DJ at Estelle's, Red Dog, Double Door, all those places. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those were our peeps. So I know I bought your stuff. You probably did. I was there all the time. Yeah, but I was in Lit X for probably a couple years, two, three years.

22:10Yeah. And then I found Silver Room down the street. But to this day, it's because of Kendall. He saw me on the street. And, you know, that's my guy. He's a good dude. We were trying to change the world for a minute. Kendall, I don't know if you're watching, but I'll hit you up. He's in Atlanta, right? Did he move back? I don't know, but he chimes in once in a while. Okay, all right, all right. Yeah, see, I remember when he and his wife back then had their little baby. Yeah, we were all a little crew. Man, you're bringing back memories.

22:40Yeah. Wicker Park was the scene. Oh, man, it was a great time. Great time. So you had, you opened up your store in 97. Mm-hmm. And what were you intending to do when you opened it? Like, so what was your vision? Honestly, it was just the intersection of my things I loved. I was a business dude. I was selling stuff on the streets. I also loved music. So I opened the store. I'm like, well, this is a commerce place. I got to make some money. Because the one thing I learned from Lit X is, like, they were all art, no business.

23:10I'm like, this is not sustainable. Y'all down here doing poetry, but y'all ain't making no money. A lot of poetry. You know what I'm saying? This is cool, but, you know, you can't pay the bills, you know. Right. And Kindle was selling books. But, and I started making my money, everybody's selling silver and selling jeans and T-shirts. I'm like, well, I can have this art stuff, but I need to make some money. And so when I found my opening store, I was like, very clear, here's how I can do both. I can make some money from selling what I need to sell. And also can, I had my turntables in the store from the very beginning, from day one.

23:40That was in 97 because they were my turntables. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, I'm at the store more than I am at home. So I would bring my 12s over there and I'd play breakfast between customers and people started coming in. And, you know, I knew people, I knew some people before I opened the store, some DJs and stuff like that. And they're like, oh, can I play? You know, Daryl Mellow Man, Cordell Johnson. Of course. You know, Elwood Phillips. So those were friends before I had the store. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they would come in and start playing. So it kind of became like, right away, it was like that, you know. Yeah, that's awesome. And then just I had friends who were visual artists.

24:12Mm-hmm. So we put art in the wall. And so this is the first silver room was at 1410 Milwaukee. Yeah. So right away, it just became this place for art, for music, you know. Yeah. So that was it, you know. That's cool. Less poetry, more selling. But you can do both. You gotta do both. You gotta make money, though. You gotta make money. What about silver? Talk to me about that. I can tell you the exact story of that, where that came from. I was in New Orleans at the Jazz Fest. Mm-hmm. This was 93, 94. Mm-hmm. And I was selling T-shirts and glow lights.

24:43So Jamie, Jamie 326 got it. He'll tell you the story. He used to work with me selling glow lights. And so I was the glow light guy. And so anyway, long story short, I went down to New Orleans selling glow necklaces. I met these two African women that were selling silver. And they didn't have a place to stay because it started raining. And they stayed in my van. They slept in the van. We didn't have a place to stay. What? Man, we was a little hustler. We were hustling, you know. You were just raw, man. And so then they were like, hey, if you ever come to New York, you know, I can show you how to buy silver. Because they were like selling, I'm like, they were making some money. So I went to New York, you know, back in the summer.

25:15And, you know, when I'm meeting them up with this lady, she took me to a place on Broadway. I bought some silver. And they were like, it'll sell. I'm like, is this real? I didn't really know, you know. Brought it back to Lidex. And it sold. It sold out. And I was like, oh, man, this is pretty good. Okay. I started buying silver. So then I'm like, wow, silver is something that anybody could buy. You know, it's a black book. Maybe the white people, the neighborhood ain't going to buy it. I saw how the neighborhood was already changing already. It doesn't matter what size you are. It doesn't matter what color.

25:45It doesn't matter. Like, people are going to buy silver. I love it. And so that's why I got stuck on silver. And then I'll never forget, I had to get the license for the store. I was with my friend. And we were staying outside of City Hall. And I was like, I can't think of a name for this store because I'm so busy hustling. And I'm like, well, I'm selling silver now. I'm going to call it Silver Something. And she was like, I'm like, well, what about Silver House? Because I love house music, right? So I was like, I had written down Silver House. And she's like, well, your father has a place that has Manning's Blue Room.

26:15You should call it the Silver Room. And I was like, yeah. And I said, well, don't Silver Room. That's how I was named. Wow. But sometimes the best decisions are made on the spot like that. It was my friend. I said, it would have been called Silver House, which would have been cool. Silver Room is good, though. You landed right. Yeah, it's good. It's called Silver Room. But yeah, anyway, so we were Wicker Park, and that's how it started. Wow. That's how it started. That's great. So Wicker Park changed over the years. I mean, can you talk about, like, you were there to witness it. You know, like, it's a very different place than it was in the early 90s.

26:47Like, it's so, so different. Was it Leo's Lunchroom? Leo's Lunchroom. They had these, man, these buckwheat pancakes. Yes. Man. We ate that all the time. The woman in the back. Remember the black woman in the back? Yes. The cook, man. Yes. And the guy with the mustache looked at the bar. I remember all of them. Man. That was a fun place to hang. Oh, Leo's, boy. That place was so good. Yeah, it was on jail. Well, things changed, though. So you were there for, what, 15? How long were you there for? I was in Wicker Park for 17 years. 17 years. So talk about the evolution.

27:19Like, you know, we want to get to Hyde Park, clearly, before we run out of time. But what happened there? Well, you know, I moved to Wicker Park in 92 and 93. Okay. Before I had the store. So just, man, Wicker Park in the 90s was like, for me, again, this kid from this small town. And I felt like all the people who were, like, misfits and weirdos found themselves in Wicker Park. Agree. You know what I mean? So you could be, you know, if you're a white dude with tattoos, blah, blah, you're in Wicker Park.

27:49If you're a black gay dude on the south side, you could be in Wicker Park. Right. If you're just a black dude who didn't, or a black woman who were different than a lot of your south side friends, you could go to Wicker Park and kind of be yourself. Is that a good assessment of that? That's, you would describe me, you know. Right. That's how I felt. And I felt the same way, too. I'm at home here. Right. I'm like, I'm from Robins, but I'm like, I like kind of weird stuff a little bit. And, like, no one's going to, you know, gay people is just doing gangbangers, Puerto Ricans, Polish people. Everybody I met, and they was Agnieszka. And all these, like, Polish friends.

28:19But it was, like, it was cool, you know. Yeah. And it was artsy, and, you know, around the coyote, and then. Around the coyote, yeah. Yeah. So I just found, and then, you know, the loft with this, and Derek Cardinal, the parties. And it just was, like, this, it was, like, off the beaten path. Yeah. And, like, nobody really cared about Wicker Park back in the day. Like, it was just, like, a free fall in a way. You kind of could just do what you wanted to do. You totally could. And it was a sense of freedom. And it was, like, you know, get Leo's lunchroom, these little cafes were popping up here and there. And just, like, this is, I love Wicker Park. Yeah. It was great. That was a joy. I remember, and we would stay up all night, because we, you know, we did this Wednesday night party at Red Dog.

28:56Of course, yeah. We did it for a long time. And I was the DJ. I was the main DJ, but we had a lot of, you know, guest DJs. And we would be there. We'd go to the hot dog place across the street. You know, we would have a hot dog at that corner, like, right there. Or we'd go to the Mexican place and spend the night at DeRoe's house. He lived on Division. Do you know DeRoe? Of course I know DeRoe. Okay, of course you do. I know DeRoe for, yeah. Yes. Hey, DeRoe. Hey, DeRoe. Wherever you are, we don't see each other enough. We go back.

29:27Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've had some interesting conversations. I'll bet. I'll bet. But I know that it changed. Like, and I didn't see that change, because I'd been away from it for a while. And I, I don't know, maybe like five, six years ago, I drove through there to do something. I was like, I don't even recognize this place. Oh, it changed. I mean, I was, so I actually lived on Milwaukee Avenue twice. Okay. So I lived, I lived above the, above the first civil room at 1410 Milwaukee. Yeah. From, wow, what year, 99 to 2006. Uh-huh.

29:57And then I lived above Una Maze on Milwaukee Avenue again for three or four years. So I lived on the, I lived on the street. You were in the midst. Yeah. So I, from, so from Division down to North Avenue, I knew Milwaukee Avenue. And you know, no, neighborhoods gentrified, you know, and they, and they change, you know, it's like, excuse me, they're exciting to some people and they want to come and be a part of it, but they don't really add to the culture. They just want to observe the culture. Yeah. And I saw that happen a lot. And then after a while, they're like, okay, this is cool. Y'all got to go, you know? Yeah. And so by the time I left, I was ready to go.

30:29I mean, it wasn't like, you know, I tell the story, I think it's an important story to tell about how things gentrify. Mm-hmm. And it's not always like it's cutting the rise or make it seem, meaning like the big bad developer came and kicked you out. That happens. But I think me seeing over time how one person sold their building, think about this. If you were in Waker Park, a lot of these people, their fathers or their uncles or whoever mothers bought these buildings back in the 70s, 60s for $30,000. So I tell somebody, if you bought a building for, if your father bought a building for $34,000,

31:03somebody comes to offer you $2 million, you're going to say no? No. Right. So it's not like, oh, like, no, yeah, you would probably take it too. Yeah. I saw that happen over and over and over again. And so how I actually moved, my landlord, his father-in-law had bought the building, which now is supreme, actually. So I was next door, which is the silver room at 1442 Milwaukee. He had bought the building for $30,000. Mm-hmm. And he got an offer to sell it for $1.8 million. So I got the letter in the mail, because he had a cleaner that was next door to me,

31:35called Hollywood Cleaners. Mm-hmm. And so I was next door. The letter came in the mail, was saying, we'll either do a master lease for $8,000 a month, or we'll purchase this building for $1.8 million. Now, at the time, my rent was $4,000. So I had this letter. But me and this guy, we had to become friends. He was my landlord, but we were cool. Sure. I'm looking at this letter like, should I tell this dude about this? Because he could make a whole bunch of money. And I was like, you know what? So I told him. I said, man, look, you know, they offered you a bunch of money for this building. And again, we were friends at the time.

32:07And he was like, man, like, you know, I want you to stay. Can you pay $6,000 a month? I'm like, man, I'm barely paying $4,000, you know? And I was like, you know what? Just take the money, man. I get it. Just go ahead. Yeah. So I said, I'll figure something out. Yeah. And University of Chicago, they had courted me the year before. Okay. To move to Hyde Park. And I'm like, let me call UFC. I called back the guy. And I'm like, he said, we got a space for you. And that's where I'm at right now. That's so great. That's a great partnership. Yeah.

32:37Yeah. UFC has been a great landlord, man. Yeah. I like UFC for many reasons. They're doing some important work, especially around history. I know you're a history lover. And they have, I work with them with the Southside Home Movie Project. Jackie. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie. So, yeah. I've got a lot of stuff in their archives there. Yeah. But, and DJ at a couple of their little parties, too. There's so many good things there. I work with the health system, too. So, I want to talk a little bit about Hyde Park.

33:07Hyde Park is, in and of itself, as we were discussing earlier, you know, kind of a place. Hey, Dante. What's up, babe? What's up, Scott? You know, a hub for black people. Yeah. A hub for sort of this intergenerational, you know, multicultural hub for so many different folks. And I think it sounds, it seems appropriate that you would end up in Hyde Park. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How did you feel moving there? And, you know, what was that transition like?

33:39Well, it's funny. So, my sister lived, she moved to Hyde Park in, like, 92, 93. Mm-hmm. So, my first memory of Hyde Park was her living there. And I was like, this is a cool neighborhood. It just was so different, you know? And going, then later going to Bennington, I think, was over there. Mm-hmm. And then later with, you know, when Dwayne Powell was, the record store and what, Dixie Kitchen, I think it was called? Dixie Kitchen, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I had memories of just going to Hyde Park, just feeling very different. Yeah.

34:09And so, I always liked Hyde Park. But, Wicker Park was like, that was where I was at. It was a grip. My identity was Wicker Park, you know? And so, when I had to, I didn't know what I was going to do. So, now, you think about, okay, I'm like 17 years into this store now. Yeah. And I got to move out in, like, two months. Wow. And I'm like, I have no idea where I'm going to move to. Should I even keep the store? What else can I do? What are my skill sets? It's like, finance had definitely gone years, you know? So, I'm like, well, I got to keep the store going. So, I didn't know how I would do at Wicker Park.

34:41I had no idea. I'm sorry, in Hyde Park. I'm like, if I can do just okay, I'll be okay just moving to Hyde Park. And, you know, I moved down there. I never forget, the first day, someone asked me to do a party. They said, can we do a breakfast there? We do a breakfast, a house music breakfast. From 8 a.m. till, like, noon. And I was like, okay. I was like, sure. You know, I always try to say yes. And they came and cooked pancakes. They had pancakes. It was a whole breakfast. Bacon. And they had DJs in there.

35:11Because, again, I had my 1200s. You know, I brought them down to the store. And by 8.15, it was packed. I'm like, wow. And I'm like, this is cool. So I think that first day kind of got me acclimated to, like, Hyde Park. And then it was so interesting because I'm thinking, you know, 70 years of a store, everybody knows me. But moving to Hyde Park, like, all these people had never heard of Silver Room before. Wow. Like, black folks. I'm like, you know. But, see, we were making this point earlier. Not black folks. There are only certain kind of black folks that was making their trip down the north side.

35:43Exactly. Right. There's a whole other population that you hadn't touched. I didn't realize that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like that in house music, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was really interesting. I'm like, everybody knows Silver Room. Even from the block parties, a lot of people, even to this day, they say, oh, the block party started at Hyde Park. I'm like, I did 12 block parties at Wicker Park. Mm-hmm. The block party is way more Wicker Park than at Hyde Park. That's so wild. You know, we did 12 in Wicker Park. We did four in Hyde Park. I did two on the beach. So the block party is, to me, in many ways, way more Wicker Park event than a Hyde Park event.

36:16I don't know. You know? To me. I'm just saying, the guy who started it, to me, the memory is more Hyde Park. I mean, Wicker Park to me. So you were, in 2019, you started the block club party, first year, 2015? 16. No, when I started it? No, 2002. No, I'm saying in Hyde Park. Oh, I didn't do it. The first year I moved there, I didn't do it. Okay. Because I had to get acclimated to the neighborhood, and I'm like, let me just get myself together.