LWE Interviews Marcus Mixx

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Many times what divided the early Chicago house producers who became household names from those who remain underground heroes was not their musical abilities but their label’s business acumen. Marcus Shannon, best known as Marcus Mixx, is one of the better examples of this. Concerned that rapacious record labels would screw him and and his production partners Gitano Camero (aka L.I.A.M.) and China, Marcus opted to self-release nearly all of their productions. In a time where Chicago house records were selling thousands upon thousands of copies, such classics as “I Wanna House” and “Is This Dream For Real?” were limited to a few hundred each — and not out of a desire to create artificial scarcity. Many never made it to vinyl at all, at least not with Marcus’s permission in the case of Le Melange’ Inc.’s “Tortured Journey.” As this extensive interview below reveals, making music was truly more important to Marcus than widely disseminating it. And while he proved an adept label manager and club promoter in the early ’90s, there’s a good chance Marcus would have remained one of Chicago house’s forgotten greats if not for crucial reissues by Let’s Pet Puppies in 2006 and newer material on Unknown To The Unknown in 2011-12. I recently met with him at a Dunkin Donuts on Chicago’s near south side to discuss the origins of his productions, his short stint managing Trax Records, and where he’s at today.

Did you grow up in a musical household?

Marcus Shannon: Yeah, I grew up what is known as South Side Irish in the Beverly area of Chicago. I moved over there when I was 6, and that was in ’72. It was about 75 percent Irish and very heavily Catholic; so when I went to grammar school I grew up with [Led] Zeppelin, the Doors, and disco, soul, jazz, and blues. So I had a whole assortment of music that I grew up on. That’s where I get my ideas and thoughts from when it comes to producing or writing or whatever. I’m all over the highway.

When did you start making music?

I actually started recording in ’86. I’d just turned 20 and I had a great job at this grocery store, still in Chicago, called Jewel Foods. So I had the money to finance my own project, and that’s when vinyl still ruled. I did my first song called “I Wanna House.” My buddy hooked me up with this studio that was only $10 per hour. I’d never been inside of a studio, it was a little eight-track. That’s the guy Gitano Camero who eventually became one of my best friends ever. He didn’t even know what house music was.

So you introduced him to house music?

Yeah. We met through a mutual friend who was into everything. And when I went to the studio, the first thing I wanted was a simple [makes 4×4 kick drum noise]. He was like, “OK,” and he had a drum machine and was like, “Dude we don’t really mess with this drum machine, we have drum kits.” I was like, “Nah, I wanna do this,” and was really introducing him at the same time to my first project. I said, “Can you make it thicker and louder?” And the levels started pumping up higher and higher. He was like, “Man, what are you doing?” So I say, “This is what house music is.” So, “I Wanna House,” he didn’t have any syncs — you couldn’t sync the stuff up on his stuff, so I did it all by hand — the bass line, all the music — and I did my own vocals. The total project cost $300 ‘cuz he didn’t charge me. The following weekend when I went back to finish that song he was like, “Man, me and my girlfriend, China, we’ve been checking this out. We love house music. Would you help us do a song?” And we were best friends.

You worked with them on the project Le Melange’ Inc. How did that record come about? Just because you were all hanging out?

It was just us hanging out. We weren’t even looking at the studio aspect my second and third visits over there. It was the fact that they had the equipment; we’d be over there at 2, 3 in the morning listening to WBMX, the original Hot Mix 5, or some tapes I would bring by, because they were just getting introduced and stuff. They’d be like, “Hey man, I’ve got this great idea!” And we might still be over here doing whatever, and I might go in there and start playing around, or Gitano or whoever in this small little group we had including China and Krazy K maybe. “Wait, hold on, do that again,” and he would record it and loop it. Eventually we started moving up and we started getting more business-minded and was like, “Wow, we can really do something with this.”

Referring back to “I Wanna House” for one second, that first gap between when I got my first test pressing, we must have recorded four-five different songs waiting on “I Wanna House.” They were more excited than I was, because we actually built something from a seed and watched it grow like a tree or something. We got the first test pressing, it was like a young kid getting a birthday present. It was so exciting. I only ordered 300 copies, and I started to learn how to move product that way. I went to the original Imports Etc. on Plymouth Court, JR’s Records — I don’t want to leave anybody out, but the ones that were there back then — and I was like, “Will you please check that record out.” We didn’t have any radio play because we’d just started — I say we because they were helping me — and wow, we must have sold them instantly, because they wondered, “What is Missing Records?”

Why was it that you ended up putting it out yourself instead of trying to shop it around to other record labels?

Because of all the alleged rumors that you’d hear, in any form of music even until today. When you want to put something out, you’d hear that record labels are all just scum and all that, you need an agent, a manager. And in a lot of case you do, but like I said, I grew up in rock and that I’d talk to my buddies in bands and they were making money and they were still independent. They would sell their tapes at their gigs and some of them didn’t even have vinyl yet. So I took it from this level. Other DJs back then weren’t using cassettes as much, they wanted vinyl, so I said, “Well, I guess I gotta do vinyl.” It was my money, I didn’t go to my parents, because like I said, I had that nice gig as a kid at Jewel Foods.

But the problem, I’m looking back on it, we’d only pressed up like 700 copies. We did the initial order and a reorder. And then we did “Is This Dream For Real?” and other stuff, but we never really focused on it. Even when we had opportunities with Trax Records and D.J. International, and Ray Barney’s Barney’s Records, just locally, we didn’t really pursue it. It was fun, and yeah, “We made a clump of money, and let’s party with it.” We had no management of any sorts. It was like a hobby slash, like, “OK, we don’t have enough beer for this weekend, let’s sell 50 more copies to Imports.” It was good, but looking back, we coulda woulda shoulda, and everybody goes through that.

Because you did end up having one record on Saber Records [a Trax sub-label], and there was one on Streetfire, which was the sub-label of Saber. How did those come about, since you were mostly focusing on putting out the music yourself?

Oh yeah. The best thing about being on Saber, Streetfire, and even Trax Records was, and I have to give Steve Poindexter all the credit on this one, because one day out-of-the-blue he called me up and said he was leaving Trax as their A&R and asked me did I want the gig. And he actually hired me. Larry Sherman, the original owner, along with Rachael Cain — Screamin’ Rachael, she wasn’t as big a factor then, when Larry was still there. So Steve was like, “If you want the job, Marcus, you can have it.” I’m like, “Well, I haven’t really run a record company.” He said, “But you know how to promote stuff. It’s not that hard and we’re in the house music capital, third largest media market in America — it ain’t that hard.”

So I took the gig and Larry Sherman, after the first couple of days, gave me carte blanche. He said, “Make sure we sell the obvious stuff” — the stuff that sells redundantly to this day, “Move Your Body,” “The Jungle,” the Trax classics — “and put your stuff out if you think it can sell. Even if it doesn’t sell, we can recycle it.” Because he had that pressing plant. I said, “I wanna form Saber into this sound, Streetfire into more of a deeper sound.” There was a label called Dangerous which I was trying to make an acid house sound, and then you have the original Trax.

But the thing is, Larry Sherman had a very crappy reputation with distributors and stores, and even artists. I saw his Rolodex on his desk one day and I just went through the Rolodex day by day, all around the world, phone numbers and faxes. There was no email. And I let people know, “I’m running the label now — all of them — and [you] don’t have pay an extra $3-4 per unit. Come to Marcus Mixx and get your stuff done. And the numbers went up like 300% per week for sales, and that’s when I said, I’m going to put my stuff out, because at least if my stuff doesn’t blow up like that, there’s other things. He gave me access to his Cadillacs, which I wasn’t really into. He gave me the keys to the warehouse, I could party there if I wanted to. But I got a lot of work done, and I learned a lot from Ray Barney and Rocky Jones, and even Larry, just like the marketing and… It’s all redundant. It doesn’t matter if it’s house or hip-hop or rock, even country — I’ve been around that aspect. It all funnels up to, even if you’ve got great owners and stuff, the bottom line is: sell it.

How long were you in that position?

I was there probably six to nine months. Because it was more of a handshake deal — nothing was ever written down as far as doing stuff with Larry Sherman. That’s the problem why some artists, including myself, may get like $300 and that’s it. No points ever, even if your stuff appears in movies. But the reason I left was ‘cuz, he wouldn’t even give me gas money, let alone my salary, for like three weeks. I would literally take cash and money orders and all these certified checks that were coming to me directly now, because people were dealing with me instead of him. So, here’s five grand, and they would wire it to me. I’d say to Larry, “Hey I’m bringing the money to one of your houses.” He had like three at the time in the Chicagoland area. I would get in one of his Cadillacs he let me use, and I would take bundles of money like it was a Swiss bank, and invoices and everything. He would be so happy, and I would say, “Larry, I need like $50 to put in the Caddy.” “We didn’t do that well today, Marcus. Maybe tomorrow.” He was never yelling. I would have to beg him for $20 after I’m bringing him all this money.

Gitano was like, “Man, you’re getting screwed!” I went three weeks without getting any gas money. Family started coming out on me saying, “You can’t work for somebody who’s not paying you.” So one night, Gitano and I were hanging out and he was like, “You should bust him out for his bootlegging.” Now Larry Sherman had was rumored– I knew he was bootlegging, but I didn’t have anything to do with it. So I said, “If he doesn’t pay me in a couple of days, we’re gonna go to Channel Two News” here in Chicago. And there’s this lady Pam Zekman, and I invited her to the warehouse and showed her the bootlegging aspect as revenge for not being paid. [Larry] would thank me but I had to borrow money from ex-girlfriends and stuff just to work, not even to hang out or whatever.

That’s why I quit. That’s the only reason I quit. It was probably the toughest decision I made in my young years. I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Perfect job, because Larry was hardly ever there. I had my own desk. I would fly to work, whether I was staying the night at a girlfriend’s house or Madison or Milwaukee, because I would love to see how many faxes were piled up for all the orders. There was no fax catcher so they would be spread across the back room. I was getting orders in all languages from around the world. Istanbul, Turkey, I was getting… just imagine if the Internet was out then! I was meeting people mentally and only orally, and they were into Trax again and just starting to get into Saber. I would be like, “Why don’t you take 100 Dangerous’s and I’ll sell it to you for like $2, and I’ll give you — shhh — 50 of whatever Trax you want. Just put these on your shelves.” Now that’s basically common sense to anybody, but when you see it, any aspect of business or marketing, it’s like introducing a new cheeseburger.

Did you end up having any other jobs in the music industry after that?

Not necessarily as far as A&Ring or one specific label. That’s when I got more into the promotional aspect of just doing parties. What I would do is go into clubs and bars that would have very slow nights, and I would go to the owner and say, “Give me that night for a month, give me 50 percent of the door and I’ll get people in here. Very diverse, won’t be any gangs or anything, no matter what neighborhood in the Chicagoland area and ‘burbs, and you keep the bar.” And they had nothing to lose. I was still DJing at the time as Marcus Mixx and Marcus the Mixxer. I would get people like Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, and Farley, and Hurley, and anybody. Just legends.

Were you friends with those guys?

Not really friends, because I’m like 10+ years younger, depending — it was like I was still a kid in high school when they were getting to the very tops worldwide. What I would do, and you would hear this story from a lot of guys who were in house music back then, I’d be very fortunate to carry their records into the club. I was lucky, at 16 I was driving a ’78 Cutlass, beautiful car, I was getting to the club an hour early, so when Farley pulls up, “Hey Farley, how you doing? Can I carry your crate in?” “Ah, OK, don’t break my records.” I didn’t know if he was joking — he was joking — but I’m like, “Oh my god, I hope I don’t scratch one record!” They would be all sealed and everything, but that’s how nervous I was. They’d ask, “OK, what do you want to do now?” “Can I just stand here and watch?” So I’d just be way in the corner as he’s doing his thing. And then more and more, I was just watching how they did stuff.

Is that partially how you learned how to DJ as well?

Oh yeah, as far as commercially really blossoming and making money out of it. I would do it for a hobby at home. But as a matter of fact, Frankie and Ronnie sometimes, but mainly Farley, would ask me to open for them. ‘Cuz there would be some gigs that would start at 7, and they’re the headliner so there would be a gap. So I’m messing around while they’re testing the sound, and Farley ain’t even got there yet. He’d be like, “Hey Marcus you want to open for me, go 7-9pm?” I knew nobody really gonna be in there, but it’s like, “I’m opening for Farley!” Getting out those cell phones that are like 50 feet high, you need a van or helicopter just to hold them to talk, “I’m opening for Farley!” “You’re crazy!” they’d say. “Come up there.” I’m sure other people have stories that are similar when it comes to basketball or whatever, carrying Jordan’s sneakers or Pippen’s.

What was the reaction to your music like back in those days? I know you were able to press 700 copies of some of your records, but what was the reaction like in the club and from other DJs?

The best thing about Chicago — and I earned most from DJ in general when I was doing it was, I guess the word is respect. Because most of them were putting out stuff, too. Even though their commercial stuff maybe number one on the dance charts, they always have other artists they’re experimenting with and they wouldn’t get the radio play other than themselves or their buddies. So it’d be like a trade off in that sense, too. They would also be honest, not necessarily in how you mixed or why did you choose this bass line, they’d be like, “You know how you get your stuff on the radio? Don’t make every mix like 8 minutes long. Do a shorter version.” I would mentally jot this down and maybe do a 5 minute version of what’s originally a 9 minute track for the club. When we first started hearing our stuff on college radio, WKKC and WNUR here in Chicago, it really started to make sense. I started getting more into the marketing thing. Now as far as selling these 700 records, we never really reordered. That was on us. We could have either re-licensed it or gone to Trax back then, way before I was working there, when I was like 20 at the time. D.J. International or Ray Barney here locally said, “We want to do something with that,” but we were just moving on and playing around.

I was thinking about how a lot of the subject matter of your music and the tone really reminds of stuff that would have come out on Dance Mania or Cajual or Relief Records. Did you ever try to work with those labels?

I think I started coming into contact with them. I never really traveled, and this was way before the Internet, but I had made contacts with them or been introduced to this A&R or this artist or manager or something. But the one thing we did down at Head Studios, we sort of made this underlying or invisible trust like thing. We wouldn’t go anywhere else. If Gitano does something separate, we still have to come along and be a part of it. So if he gets this great offer, we have to roundtable it. Mentally, really. We wouldn’t hold each other back or anything, but we never really pursued it. It was a great feeling having people say, “Wow, we coulda woulda shoulda.” But yeah, there were some other opportunities but, like I said, my life for maybe about five years consisted of going to my part-time job, just looking forward to the weekends. I would hang out with whatever girlfriend I was with, I’d have buddies come through, and we would break out the guitars and there would be Zeppelin styles. We would just experiment. It wasn’t like, “OK, you’d better be here by 10.” It was more, “Oh dude, we just saw this movie, I got this great idea.” We were all over the highway, and there’s still stuff that, God willing, it will be released. It’s in that T.A.P. and psycho-house mode. There’s some stuff recorded pre-1990 that’s on those DAT tapes.

So what happened to all those DAT tapes?

Hopefully they’re still with Gitano, or they’re somewhere. But I talk to him almost every other day on Facebook and emails, he says they’re protected so that temperature and time won’t mess them up. He says, and I believe him, that he burned them on a couple of CDs for back up. I hope that somebody gets their hands– it’s not really a matter of a lot of money, but once again… There’s some stuff that we did let some DJs play, Farley and Frankie and them, when they were still using cassette mixers, they would play them inside the clubs and I would play them inside the clubs, and there would be other DJs there like, “What is that?” You play guaranteed hits like “Move Your Body” or Larry Heard’s “Can You Feel It?” and then fade into one of our tracks and the crowd would still be up and they’d be like, “What is this?” “Oh, this is my track.” “What are you gonna do with it?” “Well…” And we weren’t being snotty, it’s just like, “Um, we don’t know if we’re gonna put it out next week or next month.” But a lot of them never came out.

For a period of time you were self-releasing a bunch of CDRs of your music called the “Legal Volume”s. First off, why were they called that?

I put that out when I was still staying in the house I grew up in in Beverly, the very diverse community I grew up in. I called them the “Legal Volumes” because a lot of our stuff had been bootlegged. So it was an indirect slap at the people who– since we only put out 700 original copies of “I Wanna House” and “Is This Dream For Real?” and stuff, people started bootlegging it. So I just started putting out the “Legal Volumes” for the few people like yourself who would notice it. But it was Marcus Mixxed Up Records; I did them all on an Acer — those huge computers — and I finally got Mac and did some stuff on that. Every single note I did. Some of them got out to, like Unknown To The Unknown and stuff like that. I didn’t really shop them as much, because I was taking care of my dad who had dementia. So I just dropped off the scene for about scene for about three years — recently, I mean. This is going back to about 2009 and ’10-11 or whatever. That was just stuff I would play around with.

The one thing I will say is, I’ve talked with Rachael Cain, the predominate owner of Trax now, I’ve already agreed… some people don’t want me to say this, but I’m very proud of this. She has a show called Trax TV based out of Chicago on cable 25. She said I can edit and help co-produce it.

That’s fantastic.

So hopefully there’s no blockade or anything comes up by anybody. But I’d love to be back with Trax. I’ve made up with Larry Sherman. And there was some other stuff in the gap I really don’t have to get into, but there’s no hatred or vengeance. It was stupid on both parts, we agreed to that a couple years ago. There were some other offers he had offered me. I didn’t even do ’em, I was doing just mainly video editing at the time. But everything has been a nice, full circle ride. It’s good to know — the Internet, there’s some people even in the newer generation that like the stuff, even from the past.

That’s a good point. Do you still have the original master tapes of stuff like “Is This Dream For Real?” Because I bet if you were to do a legit re-issue you could sell thousands of copies if you wanted to. I don’t know if you do want to.

Oh, absolutely. It’s just a matter of legal stuff that I’ve never really been involved in.

Who has a claim on it besides you and Gitano?

It’s really all over the highway, because, like I said, a lot of that stuff we did, we may have a couple of our buddies over and they may have contributed to the one loop every 16 measures and people go “Wow!” and then get back into the song, and then there’s a build up. But they may have never received any credit. So I would say, a couple people are like, “Hey, I want my piece here,” which I’m for, but then somebody over here may go, “Well, their name is not on there.” I’m like, “Look, we have some fun just doing this and that, it’s better than nothing.” Plus it’s more pump– I’m looking at it from a marketing perspective. So there is some slight legal crap that may be involved, but I’ve never been involved in that.

Changing subjects, I’m curious when you got involved with filming and editing? Is that a long time interest of yours?

That was actually something that got started through Gitano as well. When we were becoming more and more buddies, about a month after our friendship and recording “I Wanna House” and they’re just starting to get into house music period, he was like, “I’ve got this great idea for this show.” He was more of the video guy, and he took classes down at Cable 19 here in Chicago, CAN-TV. He said, “Man, you’re not going to believe what I’ve been learning,” like one form of video editing, Chroma key, the weatherman effect. We out to the studio and there was this blue screen and he said, “Stand in front of the screen.” I’m just standing there and he put an image behind me and I’m like, “Wow. Hey man, get my head doing this!” [swerves his head around] His show was called Booom TV, like an explosion. Have you ever seen any of the old stuff?

I’ve seen a little bit of the stuff on your YouTube channel.

Yeah, there’s a couple of clips on there, but we still have all the tapes. So I go like this [moves his head again] for like 20 seconds and then I scream into the mic, the words “Booom TV” appear and then my head explodes. And the show was a house version of “Soul Train.” We may have 20 people in the studio, three cameras, and images in the background. And then there was a mix. We got mixes from Gene Hunt and Chip-E and Poindexter, and I did my own mixes. Every week were on, then we started going live on the air. So we would be on from like 11pm to midnight, and then we’re telling people to come meet us up at Club AKA or Coconuts or whatever we were doing. That’s how you promote: go live on the air. [laughs] I’d get people in for free, and then the following Monday people would be talking, “Man, Marcus Mixx did this party that was outstanding! You won’t believe! It was great, it was different.”

As far as the editing, I started branching off on my own and then eventually bought a couple of cameras. I’m not the most technical guy in the world. I like using the easy software that they call “grandma software” because even grandma can use it and it usually comes with the computer you get. I started building up. Currently what I’ve been doing the last couple of years is “Cheap But Not Cheap” videos where people literally send me the footage and images that they do on their own along with some clean audio and I’ll make a video for them.

The reason they’re cheap is because there’s a zillion bands out there. It’s not like I’m a saint or anything, they don’t have any other means, but nobody will do them for like $30 or $50. I do ’em in like four hours, I don’t just crap ’em out, but I actually get into it. So if it’s just a band playing in their basement, I’ll suggest to them as well, “Why don’t you go into your backyard and just jam? You don’t have to have the music on, just do Nirvana-type stuff and just rip-and-run and throw snowballs at each other, and send me the footage. Let me play with it and make a video, add some special effects, some worms, whatever, girls in bikinis, and turn it into a “real video.” So I’ve been doing that for a while.

And are you still making music?

Yeah. The gap now as we record this… by partying too much, by drinking too much beer, I physically have to go into rehab. The doctors gave me a choice. They’re like… and it was a spiritual thing, too. It was like, “You came this close to possibly dying because you just like…” So literally, for about the past two months now, I was in rehab first, then I went to Salvation Army, which is like a rehab/help people get their stuff together in a lot of ways. And now I’m at Pacific Garden, and this, God willing, is the last step. Financially, I have the money to go on my own, but I’m in a tumble with my family now. They think if I get access to my money all I’m going to do is drink it up. And I see where they’re coming from, but at the same time it’s like, God only knows how long I’m going to be here. I don’t know, you don’t know. We just have to see. They know that once I start editing and making music again for whomever, yeah, there’s going to be some money there. Not millionaire money.

How did you end up meeting Thomos from Let’s Pet Puppies?

I believe I met him at Head Studios. I don’t know who was doing… it may have been China. I don’t know if they worked together. When hears this, he may get angry because I don’t remember. It had to be at least 20 years ago, because it was in the ’90s. I just remember he was a big fan of some of our stuff, and he helped us get more distribution. We were on the cusp of starting to do something with Underdog Records and Missing Dog was the label that was really about to do something. He made great suggestions and started getting our stuff in different markets on a bigger level. Gitano and China and us, we never really thought of focusing mainly on the business side of it. There was no pressure from Thomos, but after Gitano and China broke up, we were still recording but it was this-and-that. We were doing the TV show and I was starting to do videos and promotions at the time. But his label, Let’s Pet Puppies, has some great artists like Jody Finch and some other guys.

[I asked Thomos myself via email. This was his answer:]

Thomos: In the early 2000s, I was heavy into record digging and obsessed with the Missing and Missing Dog material. Adding to the mystique, someone I bought records from insisted that Marcus was legitimately crazy, and could be found wearing a cape at Beverly bus stops. I’d later find out this was BS, as the party in question spread those rumors only after stealing most of Marcus’s record collection. True or not, it added to the mystery and fueled my obsession. Marcus would run Booom TV on Channel 21, Chicago’s public access station. The intro is this crazy rotating head (his), a jagged loop without any audio at all. Indescribably weird. Marcus is not crazy, but he’s eccentric to say the least, and Booom was always an outlet for his more avant-garde side. During the show he would basically beg people to call him, flashing his number up on the screen. One day I did.

The night I went down to Beverly to meet him there was an intense thunderstorm, making things that much more surreal for me. Marcus was living in the house he grew up in (pictured on LPP005), up on top of the only hill for miles. It was falling apart, and had animals living in some areas — he’d bang on the door to “clear” a room before entering. He showed me his damaged teeth from his unfortunate police incident. It became apparent that he had been completely detached from the music scene for years, a time capsule of sorts. He seemed amped to have gotten a response from Booom other than racist calls, which were relentless (and to which he seemed totally accustomed). He had been hiding in plain sight, begging people to call him.

Everything you put out on Let’s Pet Puppies was older stuff, right?

Marcus: Yeah, those are all older. He, Gitano, and I have all discussed some of the older stuff we discussed 20 minutes ago. I just don’t know the scheduling for it. It would do good because of the responses I receive from DJs. They’re like, “When are you going to put out this again?” A lot of these guys are doing it out of respect, they don’t want bootlegs and they still like vinyl. Thomos is the one I’m sticking with. He has other businesses that he does as well, but I’ve also talked to some other artists that I can’t name right now. They’re original house music stars who would love to appear on Let’s Pet Puppies. God, I swear, he knows this. That would pump up the label; I just don’t know when that’s going to occur. But there are some mega names from the beginning of house to now to, God willing, the future, that could be on Let’s Pet Puppies as soon as the go button is pressed.

When was the last time you DJed?

That was probably 20-25 years ago.

What contributed to you not DJing any more?

Oh, the promotional aspect. Do you remember those posters? I was just into all promotions and sponsorships. It wasn’t like I was saying, “Well, I’m a promoter now, DJs are here, get away from me,” but I wanted to make sure stuff got done. I learned that a lot of businesses, when I was focusing on house music at the time, if you tell a sponsor, like a major beer company or cola or chips or whatever, you’re gonna have this done, it has to get done. You can’t depend on friends and buddies. Even if they do put in their hard effort and it’s like half a crowd, because I’m going to take the hit for it, and rightly so. So I wasn’t really thinking about DJing at the time.

Have you considered it again in more recent times?

I have in the last couple of years, but, once again, my family — and they don’t rule me or anything, it’s just like, a mental thing — they’re like, “If you do that, you’re going to get back into the women and drinking and all that,” especially with more travels. I’ve had some offers to do some stuff opening for people like Farley and some other people, playing stadiums like Wembley. I can only imagine; I’ve seen it online. Even if I open, if 5,000 people are there and they don’t even listen to my stuff, but the time Farley gets there there’s 100,000 people, in a stadium for house music. It’s August 19th, 2014 now. God willing, next four to six weeks I’m going to make a decision of where I go. Is it going to be a nice, comfortable apartment or just something small where I’m not going to be inviting people over and tempted when the 12-packs come through and stuff. DJing would be great, though, even on a part-time basis.

Peter Mertes  on September 3, 2014 at 9:23 AM

Great interview! Fantastic choice to interview Marcus for a feature. Such an informative story. Would be great if his back catalog becomes available soon (in a legal format).

And now you’ve guys warmed up with Mixx you can start working on that big interview with Spencer Kincy!

nipon  on September 3, 2014 at 10:26 AM

such a deep and profound interview, he’s the John Fante of House music ! nice work LWE

Perseus  on September 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM

An absolutely amazing interview, best thing I’ve read in a while, top work Steve, and hats off to Marcus. How very down to Earth.

Soulomon  on September 4, 2014 at 5:52 AM

Fantastic feature!

Long live Marcus Mixx!

roberto  on September 4, 2014 at 11:59 AM

THE MAN.

s.k.  on September 4, 2014 at 2:08 PM

great piece

Rona White  on September 6, 2014 at 12:10 PM

Marcus Mixx is a musical genius!

Andrew Duke  on September 16, 2014 at 7:49 AM

Great feature, Steve. Always happy to read well-written and informative pieces like this. Keep up the wonderful work you do!

DANNN  on December 21, 2014 at 1:26 AM

Really great interview.

Screamin Rachael  on April 22, 2016 at 1:31 PM

I love Marcus! He’s amazing and I would love to hear
From him!

Trackbacks

Marcus Mixx Interview | The Hipodrome Of Music  on September 4, 2014 at 4:14 AM

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Goodbye from Little White Earbuds – Little White Earbuds  on October 5, 2015 at 8:30 AM

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