FB EVENT:
I haven't had much time to look into this specific event yet, but I saw it pop up on my feed. It seems like something that might be worth checking out if you're in the area, though I guess it depends on what you're looking for. Maybe it'll be a good scene, or maybe not. I'll probably try to find out more once things settle down a bit.▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Future Scope featuring Dave Clarke.
The Boogaloo protest in Chicago | 12/08/2017.
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For the final major Future Scope edition in 2017, the club "The Sound Loft" in Chicago will be hosting one of the most respected and highly regarded techno DJs working today. We're talking about the legendary Dave Clarke. He’s earned the title "the Baron of Techno" for good reason—he truly stays true to himself and doesn't just chase whatever happens to be trending at the moment.
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Main Floor
Dave Clarke... just white noise at this point.
SKEPTIK, also known as PERO FULLHOUSE
F.O.R.M. is finally live!
I guess I should probably mention Central European Time... though since we're talking about things from an American perspective, maybe we should just stick to Eastern or Pacific time zones instead. It’s easy to get turned around with the offsets.
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The second floor.
JOMA MAJA
I guess I should probably mention the shipping situation... maybe? It seems like things aren't quite moving as quickly as they should be. I'm just thinking out loud here, but there might be some delays.
I suppose I should mention that MATYA was right about this. It’s a bit unsettling, really. Maybe I’m just being cautious, but I think we need to take a moment to actually process what happened. It isn't always easy to see these things coming, I guess.
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Tickets... I mean, they're getting harder to come by lately. It feels like every time something big happens, whether it's a concert at Madison Square Garden or a game at Fenway, the prices just jump instantly. I guess it’s just how things work now, but it still catches me off guard sometimes. Maybe I should start looking earlier, though I'm never quite sure if that actually helps. Just one of those things, I suppose.
Earlybird $23 Sold out.
I suppose I should probably mention that this is just a regular post. No special flair or anything, just my usual thoughts. $27 / (27.11. - 07.12.)
The Boogaloo Club over on Vukovarska 68.
Maybe I should mention that little spot called Bizarre... it's tucked away right in the heart of downtown Chicago.
I guess I should probably mention Entrio... maybe? It's just one of those things on my mind lately.
I guess you can find tickets for Dave Clarke right here if you need them: https://bit.ly/DaveClarkeTICKETSTicketmaster.
Maybe about the door pricing... I guess it's worth looking into. $33
The official after-hours session kicks off at The Standard [06:00 - 12:00].
With respect to Mary and Matt.
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Dave Clarke's biography:
Dave Clarke is a DJ with a massive anarchist streak and a soul that’s pure punk.
His new album, ‘The Desecration of Desire,’ really drives that point home. It’s heavily electronic, I suppose, but there's still this layer of deep, dark songwriting underneath it all. It feels like it took nearly two years to pull together, which is quite a jump considering it's been fourteen years since his last full-length record.
"The urge to start songwriting has been brewing inside me for quite some time," Clarke says. "My debut was really just a loose assembly of tracks—those 'Red' EPs and some random bits here and there. By the time I got to the second one, even getting decent time in the studio was becoming a struggle. Looking back, those first two projects felt more like collections than anything else. But this new one... it feels different. It’s more like a book, I suppose. A real chronology. I'm honestly just so grateful for my studio setup now. I've made a point to steer clear of the club scene, too. At the end of the day, it's finally just me, my own imagination, and maybe a little bit of courage to actually be vulnerable."
Dave Clarke has always leaned into sounds that push past standard electronic dance boundaries, drawing inspiration from acts like Savages, Idles, and classic favorites like Bauhaus. That influence really shapes how he approaches a DJ set—using Serato on a 13” MacBook Pro Retina to deliver these incredibly lean, high-impact techno and electro mixes. I guess you could say that same energy carries over to his new album too. He’s collaborated with some heavy hitters on this project, including the late US alt-rock legend Mark Lanegan, the dark synth specialist Mt. Sims, and even artists like Gazelle Twin and Anika, who has ties to Portishead. He even threw in a reimagined version of the new wave staple ‘Is Vic There?’ originally by Department S, this time featuring the French producer Louisahhh.
A major car accident back in the States during the summer of 2016 really took a toll on Clarke. I think it played a huge part in why the album feels so heavy and reflective. It made him want to step back from the usual DJ gigs and focus more on putting his actual soul into the sets he plays. “I still have a massive passion for DJing,” he says, sounding pretty excited, “but this album... it just lit a fire under me to actually make music, you know? To be completely authentic. It’s been a long time coming, I guess.”
Dave Clarke grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, but these days he calls San Francisco home—a city that really breathed new life into his creative process. He’s the son of a tech enthusiast and a mother who lived for soul and disco, so I guess it was always pretty obvious he’d make his mark on the music scene. As a kid, he actually ran away from home, spending nights sleeping in parking lots and out on the beaches. He worked some pretty dead-end jobs in shoe stores just to scrape by on a few bucks a day, all so he could afford to keep playing those low-paying local DJ gigs. Anything to stay close to the music, I suppose.
"I wasn't really out there in the world much," he remembers. "I was just your standard, disconnected young adult—kind of a JD Salinger type, I suppose—who used to find refuge in music."
Clarke’s first big break came back in 1990 through XL, right around the time they were breaking The Prodigy. Back then, he went by the name Hardcore, a persona he eventually brought over to the iconic Belgian techno label R&S, where he put out several EPs (sometimes under the name Directional Force). By 1992, his own label, Magnetic North, was starting to gain some real traction, and he dropped the absolute classic ‘Alkaline 3dh’ under the alias Fly By Wire. His career really hit another gear in 1994 when his ‘Red’ trilogy landed on Bush Records. Those tracks basically moved him into a whole different stratosphere, and suddenly he was the guy getting calls to remix legends like Kevin Saunderson’s Inner City, The Chemical Brothers, New Order, Depeche Mode, Moby, Leftfield, and Underworld. They were such massive milestones for techno that DJ Mag definitely earned it by putting ‘Red’ in their All-Time Techno Top 100.
Then came his debut album, ‘Archive One,’ which had these subtle touches of breakbeat and electronica—something that felt pretty fresh in the strict, almost purist techno scene of that era. His mix CDs, like the techno/electro double-feature ‘World Service,’ were huge; one of them actually moved nearly 100,000 copies and even cracked the top ten of Resident Advisor’s best mix compilations of the 21st century. Eventually, he signed with Skint Records—the same label that houses Fatboy Slim—which led to his 2004 album ‘Devil’s Advocate.’ It was packed with that heavy, dark techno energy but still had those hip-hop rhythms woven in. Later, when things slowed down a bit on the production side, Music Man Records pulled together ‘Remixes & Rarities’ in 2007. That one ended up being Album Of The Month in Mixmag and got a lot of love from critics.
After taking a bit of a breather from producing, Clarke started making moves again recently. He worked with his partner Mr. Jones (Jonas Uittenbosch) as _Unsubscribe_ and has been churning out remixes for everyone from John Foxx’s synth-pop staple ‘Underpass’ to Gesaffelstein, Detroit Grand Pubas, and Octave One, while also making tracks for labels like Houndstooth and Boysnoize. In 2016, he released a remix album called ‘Charcoal Eyes (A Selection of Remixes From Amsterdam),’ featuring names like Placebo and A Place to Bury Strangers, which made it seem like he was totally recharged in the studio. This new album seems to prove that, especially since it features a track he did with the legendary producer Keith Tenniswood (also known as Radioactive Man).
When it comes to DJing, Clarke is out on the road maybe three weekends a month, touring the US and the rest of the world. He really lives up to that "Baron of Techno" nickname that the late, legendary BBC Radio icon John Peel gave him. You can hear that same meticulous attention to detail every time he plays; his sets sort of slice through the crowd with this sharp blend of techno and electro, supported by a deep well of DJ techniques that clearly stem from his early hip-hop days. He’s basically techno’s original “Man in Black.” He tends to just fade into the background when he shows up, letting the music do all the heavy lifting. That’s really when he shines, using skills he’s spent years perfecting to just absolutely tear the roof off a venue.
Whether he’s playing intimate, sweaty clubs or massive spots like Fabric, Fuse, or Tresor, Clarke has this incredible connection with the audience. It’s the same story at festivals, too. He’s performed at places like Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Glastonbury, and he’s built a special bond with Tomorrowland, where he actually has his own dedicated stage. At those shows, he’s hosted names like Green Velvet, Vitalic, Heidi, Seth Troxler, Chris Liebing, Jeff Mills, and Ben Klock. He also remains a major fixture at the Amsterdam Dance Event, where his Dave Clarke Presents night at Melkweg has managed to sell out for eleven years straight.
And we can't forget White Noise, his weekly radio show. It’s become a bit of a global institution and a way to see where the scene is heading. With over 600 episodes aired on more than 100 FM stations worldwide, it’s where Clarke highlights emerging producers he finds in his Dropbox alongside much more established acts.
“I’ve never really cared about what’s trendy or what isn't,” Clarke says. “But the best music finds its way to me every single day, and I just want to pass it along.”
Because he's so tied to the tech side of things, he’s the ideal spokesperson for brands like Serato, Soundtoys, Waves, and the American-based gear maker Arturia, since those are essentially his daily tools. But at the end of the day, I guess Dave Clarke just keeps resisting anything predictable and stays true to himself. He really represents the authentic techno spirit. Whether he's pushing experimental sounds in a club halfway across the country or producing that moody, Mark Lanegan-led track ‘Monochrome Sun’ for his latest album, he has this sense of vision and purpose that you don't see very often in the constantly shifting world of dance music.
Basically, Dave Clarke might have made it, but he’ll never truly be part of the elite circle.
