These days, everyone likes to pretend they didn't like electroclash at the turn of the millennium and that it's a blight on the illustrious hipster recent past. (Give it another couple of years and it'll be time for an electroclash "revival.") But for all of that little flash in the pan's embarrassing haircuts and cookie-cutter songs about "the disco," some good came out of it. First, it became cool for rock kids to dance again. But more important, a series of happy electroclash-era collaborations helped pluck from relative obscurity the second-wave Chicago house great, Felix da Housecat.
Indeed, for most current early-/mid-20-somethings, their first exposure to Felix likely came with his 2001 record, Kittenz and Thee Glitz, and uneven followups such as 2004's Devin Dazzle & the Neon Fever. But he had a healthy career before that, DJing funky Chicago sounds from teen-dom. And in recent years, too, he has thankfully crashed outside the unfortunate electroclash label box. Last year's Virgo Blaktro and the Movie Disco was an R&B-infused, sexed-up romp that went criminally overlooked (perhaps it came just a little too early for the current crop of nu disco). His most recent artist album, He Was King, mines similarly icy but soulful future funk. For his DJ set at LIV, it's safe to expect a grab bag of all that is glamorous in four-to-the-floor.
