Lawrence.com

Like so many teenagers in the early ‘90s, Chris Shively was swept up in the more appealing elements of the booming rave culture – i.e. the music. When that scene came crashing to a halt, Shively held tight to his passion by acting as the electronic music director for KJHK 90.7FM and gobbling up new releases at 180 beats-per-minute. He also began honing his songwriting skills, modeling his Murderbot alias after the classic mid-‘90s jungle records that he loved so dearly.

Now residing in Chicago, Shively has redoubled his devotion to all things electro by starting two record labels: Dead Homies and Sleazetone. The former serves as a one-stop for Murderbot releases and various jungle and dubstep associates, and the latter is off to a running start pushing the faaabulous new album from Kansas City’s Ssion. Shively has also been making a name for himself in the DJ scene, packing up his decks for a recent two-month European tour. He’s also kept up a residency at the Eighth Street Taproom, returning to our fair shire nearly once a month to spin underground electro records from middle earth—as he will Friday for a little post-Thanksgiving throwdown.

Tune in to our Murderbot podcast to hear cuts from the Bot’s 2007 release “Ruff in the Bunny Fizness” and his thoughts on electronic music’s club-rattling renaissance.

lawrence.com: It doesn’t seem like you performed as much while you lived here as you do now that you live in Chicago.

Shively: Yeah, I kind of laid low and stayed home a lot and worked on music. It wasn’t until I was done with school that I actually started bothering to play out again. I had played out a lot at raves and stuff in high school, but then that whole scene went down really hard in the late ‘90s.

Can you compare/contrast that scene with the way things are today?

Everybody who was around back then is now either a burnt-out old fogie who is done with going out, or has spent the last 15 years waiting for that kind of thing to build up again. I feel like the first half of this decade was really a dry spell for electronic music culture. You had the whole electroclash thing happening, which I was never that huge on. It seemed a little one-note.

A lot of new things are starting to bubble up again. Electronic music is getting really interesting and vibrant for the first time in awhile, and it’s exciting to see that. Juke and ghettotech, Midwestern booty house, dubstep, bassline, new house music … All these different genres are intermingling and getting really good. It’s like 1994 again – there’s no hope of keeping up with all the amazing stuff coming out.

The description you have for Sleazetone Records is: “sleaze pop, hi-NRG, tech house, juke / ghettotech, speed garage …” If I was on Techno Jeopardy, I might have a hard time discerning what’s what.

Those are all different genres, but they’re all similar in that they’re modern takes on that classic era of house and rave when everything was still one genre and everything was stupid-happy party music.

How did your European tour go?

Shively: It went really well … I was in Russia, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, The U.K. and Ireland. I had a lot of fun and played at some amazing parties on some of the best sound systems I’ve ever heard.

There’s this club in Bratislava that’s literally a Soviet-ear nuclear bunker built into a hill under a castle. They do police and military training exercises by day, but at night it’s a club … Not only is it a really cool venue to look at, but acoustically it’s this giant cave that magnifies the bass frequencies.

Being in Russia for the first time was a trip. It was really weird, especially since I showed up like three days after that whole Georgia debacle kicked off. That was awkward, to say the least.

Being an American was awkward?

Being not-Russian, but also being American and having everybody ask me, ‘What do you think of Georgia? Aren’t they awful? Don’t you love our Prime Minister?’ One person was like, ‘I really hope Obama wins because McCain has said he doesn’t like Vladamir Putin’ … I didn’t have the heart to be like, ‘You know, Obama doesn’t like Vladamir Putin either – he just hasn’t been asked about it in public yet.’ They had this perception that Obama loves Russia and was really going to be close pals with Putin. What am I supposed to say to that and not have 20 Russian rave kids all pissed off at me for the rest of the night?

What was the worst music and/or fashion trend you experienced?

In Belgium and the Netherlands, there’s this thing called jumpstyle. It’s like extreme hardcore techno for football hooligans … It looks kind of like Tae Bo mixed with European folk dancing.

Some of the kids are these white-power nationalist skinheads, and the other half are the anti-fascist/non-racist skinhead kids – which are essentially the same thing, except they like to beat up other skinheads instead of beating up minorities. All they do is fight. They show up in their little motor scooters with their Fred Perry sweater-vests and their shaved heads and they smash beer cans on their foreheads and they’re really obnoxious.