Podcast Summary: "Disco's Revenge" – New Books Network, Soundscapes NYC
Date: October 28, 2025
Host(s): Ryan Purcell ("A") & Christy Soares ("B")
Guest: Dr. Micah Salkind ("C")
Theme: The legacy of Frankie Knuckles, the birth of house music, and the cultural-political meaning and memory of Chicago’s house scene.
Overview:
This episode explores the life and influence of DJ Frankie Knuckles, the evolution of house music from disco, and how Chicago's queer, Black, and Latino underground scenes reclaimed and transformed dance music. Dr. Micah Salkind, a DJ, curator, and author of Do You Remember House? Chicago's Queer of Color Undergrounds, joins the conversation to unpack the sound, politics, and memory of house music—"disco's revenge"—and its enduring resonance.
Key Discussion Points & Insights:
1. The Warehouse, Frankie Knuckles, and the Birth of House
- Frankie Knuckles, often called the "Godfather of House," becomes resident DJ at Chicago’s Warehouse in the late 1970s (00:11–04:22).
- The Warehouse, started by promoter Robert Williams, was originally offered to Larry Levan (famed for Paradise Garage NYC) who recommended Knuckles instead.
- Knuckles arrived in 1977 and, drawing on NYC disco traditions, catalyzed a new sound blending disco, electronic, soul, and gospel.
- Quote: "It was something that people on dance floor created for themselves. It's something they adapted and they made their own." —Ryan Purcell, paraphrasing Frankie Knuckles (00:11)
- Quote: "Music meant the world to Frankie Knuckles, but the vibrant scene he helped foster in Chicago really began in 1970s New York." —A (00:50)
- The term "house music" emerges in the early 80s, tracing roots both to the physical "Warehouse" and new music technologies.
- Quote: "So that I think probably you can trace to the late 70s in Chicago ... when the warehouse starts to be called [house music]..." —Micah Salkind (11:39)
2. Disco Demolition Night and Cultural Backlash
- Disco Demolition Night (1979, Comiskey Park, Chicago) crystallized anti-disco (and racist/homophobic) sentiment nationally (13:49–18:14).
- Steve Dahl, a shock-jock, invited listeners to burn disco records, leading to scenes likened to cultural book-burning.
- Quote: "You're imagining like a book burning, like people are burning black music in the middle of a baseball field ... It doesn't get much more symbolic than that." —C (14:56)
- This mainstream rejection opened creative space for underground Black, Brown, and queer scenes to redefine and reclaim dance music ("house").
- The contrasts and connections between New York and Chicago are explored, with industry dynamics (major labels remained closer to NYC, leaving openings for innovation in Chicago).
3. Memory, Myth, and the Meaning of Place
- Both The Warehouse (Chicago) and Paradise Garage (NYC) live large in cultural memory, often with more people claiming attendance than could fit (26:01–26:31).
- Quote: "Everyone claims to have been at the Warehouse, despite the fact that they're 22 years old and, you know, 2025." —B (26:01)
- Memory is political: who is remembered, who is erased. Salkind's scholarship works to center Black, queer voices ignored by whitewashed EDM histories.
- Quote: "It was this particular moment with EDM where the biggest earning artists were so clearly white and European and there was just no space ... about dance music where Chicago or New York or black folks or queer folks were being mentioned." —C (27:35)
- The book aims to course-correct the misremembering and write the queer, Brown, and Black progenitors back into the story.
4. House music as “Chicago’s Musical Stonewall”
- House music was both resistive and generative, a political act for doubly marginalised Black gay men excluded from white gay clubs (33:29).
- Quote: "House culture was extremely political for the gay Black men who participated in it. Especially at the beginning when they were excluded systematically from white discotheques." —C (33:35)
- Quote: "There’s nothing more political than being a doubly marginalized person and insisting that love be foregrounded in the lives of the people you care about." —C (34:58)
5. Myths of Colorblind Utopia vs. Chicago’s Self-Awareness
- NYC dance music spaces (e.g., The Loft) are often mythologized as colorblind, but in reality replicated racial/class exclusions; Chicago’s house scene, conversely, was more self-aware.
- Quote: "White participants in dance music culture want to feel a kind of racial innocence in their, you know, enjoyment… But these were Black spaces where there’s a few white participants who are there because they’re part of the culture." —C (36:34)
6. House, Disco, and Sonic Evolutions
- Salkind resists a hard dividing line between disco and house, seeing technical, rhythmic, and historical overlap (40:13–43:11).
- Synths and drum machines brought new sound, but the love of eclectic music selection persisted.
- Quote: "I don’t really super subscribe to the idea that house and disco have a firewall between them." —C (40:13)
7. “Disco’s Revenge” – Cultural Survival and Flourishing
- Frankie Knuckles’ phrase “house music is disco’s revenge” signals survival, flourishing, and innovation even after mainstream rejection (43:11–46:34).
- Quote: "…in spite of all the, like, struggle culture, the cultural mainstream, cultural struggle against disco, like, here’s house, and it doesn’t give a shit... It’s out here being as gay and Black as it is..." —C (44:16)
- House music becomes a maroon space—separate, secret, self-sustaining, not seeking mainstream approval.
8. Preservation, Legacy, and Living Memory
- Salkind’s Chicago House Music Oral History Project (47:04) preserves the firsthand accounts of house pioneers.
- Quote: "…it was important for me to make them accessible to a broad public so that people could do other interpretive work." —C (47:44)
- After Knuckles’ passing, his legacy is commemorated by community art and social media (e.g., #FKalways), and his massive vinyl collection curated by Theaster Gates.
9. Continuing the Culture — Where to Find Salkind
- Salkind’s ongoing work includes forthcoming scholarly articles and the “Dollar Disco” parties in Providence, RI.
- Mixes are available on SoundCloud; events are small and informal—carry on the house legacy’s spirit of community and innovation (52:29–53:22).
Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps:
- Frankie Knuckles' own words about the Warehouse:
"You're sitting in a church, you know, and the pastor is giving you just the right sermon… That's pretty much what the warehouse did… We were just busy having a good time." (C, 32:11) - On why Chicago’s house scene matters:
"Chicago has this particular cultural and industrial musical base ... and a club scene that facilitated a certain kind of ... spectrum of musical interactions that came to be understood as house music." (C, 13:20) - On house as a queer-Black politics:
"For him, when he says musical Stonewall, he's saying like, you know, it was resistive. It was… creating their own culture because they couldn't fully participate in the cultures, the gay cultures that were more mainstream..." (C, 33:34) - On house as genre and living culture:
"If you're debating it, you're part of house culture." (C, 54:40)
Important Timestamps:
- 00:11 – Opening: Significance of Warehouse, Knuckles’ move to Chicago
- 13:49 – The impact of Disco Demolition Night
- 21:35 – Chicago vs. NYC: Scene and industry post-‘79
- 22:15 – Arrival and mythologization of Frankie Knuckles
- 26:31 – Cultural memory of clubs (“everyone was there”)
- 27:35 – Correcting historical misremembering of house
- 32:11 – Frankie Knuckles on the spiritual power of the Warehouse
- 33:29 – House as "Chicago's Stonewall" (political radicalism)
- 36:34 – Race, exclusion, and the “racial innocence” myth
- 43:11 – “Disco’s revenge” unpacked
- 47:04 – The Chicago House Music Oral History Project
- 52:29 – Present-day party scene (“Dollar Disco”) and Salkind’s work
Tone and Style:
The episode is insightful, warm, and deeply respectful of its subject matter and figures. The hosts and guest speak with intellectual rigor, but also with a conversational, inviting tone—mirroring house music’s ethos of inclusion, innovation, and joy.
Summary Takeaway:
House music’s story is one of adaptation, innovation, and resistance—deeply rooted in Chicago’s Black and queer communities but reverberating globally. Frankie Knuckles and his peers transformed the aftermath of disco’s mainstream demise into an underground revolution: “Disco’s Revenge.” It’s a culture of sound, memory, politics, and communal joy that endures—and invites all who care, to listen more closely, remember more deeply, and participate in its ongoing evolution.