An Interview with Front 312
KILTER: Front 312 is obviously a party,
but there seems to be a lot more going on there. Explain the scope
of what front 312 is. Adam: Well, Front 312 is a collective
of artists, photographers, musicians, promoters, djs, that we really
are kind of all into both locally inspired music, punk rock, all
sorts of dark dance music, new wave, industrial, be it Front 242 or
be it newer groups like the Presets or Motor. We started a website
and we throw a series of parties all around Chicago. KILTER: You guys have been adding a
lot of people to your collective. Who was there in the beginning.
How did it evolve from there? Adam: It started from a combination of
me and Bill working together, and then talking to our mutual friend
Chris McNar, who is known as one of our party hosts, Adolf Hipster,
which is really not as offensive as it sounds. KILTER: Really quick, you’ve got to
explain that. Adam: He used to have the kind of
swoop that kind of dark wave comb over and he just called himself
Adolf Hipster and he would kind of make fun of people. I assure you
there was nothing hate filled about it. We were all too tongue and
cheek about it. KILTER: So he was involved in the
original inspiration? Adam: Yes, we started talking about
doing nights, because me and him and Bill as well were all big fans
of WaxTrax records, old industrial music, new wave -- Bill: new wave, post funk, all that
stuff Adam: And Chris used to work for
WaxTrax. We just realized that there was no where to really hear a
good amalgam of his music. Industrial music was really known by a
lot of people to be like that newer heavy metaler sounding kind of
really abrasive - KILTER: So the party was born from the
inspiration of conversations you had with Chris. (Adolf Hipster.) Adam: Yes KILTER: And where did you guys go from
there building your collective? Adam: As far as building the
collective was rather a recent move. It originally started as me and
Bill, Sarah LaSprite, who is one of our promoters, djs and artists,
she designs most of our flyers, and is extraordinarily talented. We
started doing a party at the Liar’s Club with Mel Hammond, who is a
mainstay of the Chicago dance music scene, and is well known. Bill: Well, I didn’t want to do a
night life party. I thought it would be kind of ridiculous to
continue just being a party because my free time is limited and what
I do with my free time is valuable to me so I wanted to extend what
we were doing and make an extension of my other interests and hobbies
including everyone else in the group. So as we added people, we
added subject matter. We added the blog where we can all write
whatever interest be it film that fits our own aesthetic, art,
graphic design. KILTER: What is the website? Bill: Front 312.com. It’s pretty
easy to remember.
Adam: So we wound up – Sprite had a
friend, was she living with Megan. We booked Megan to do photos for
us early when we were over – we were doing Front 312 the party at
the Lucky Number which is over on Milwaukee & Western. Bill: Awesome place. Adam: And she came out and did some
photos for us, which was really great publicity. Then I started
working with Peter Propaganda and we had done a couple of events
together and we realized we liked working together and were very much
on the same page of trying to – just sharing our passion for all
that it is that we do, everything about our social lives. Then we
got Chris involved. Chris really wanted to start promoting and
hosting for us again and finally we invited our good friend Eddie
Riot, who has been playing for years as an amazingly talented dj,
well connected person and just all around nice guy. We all realized
that we were looking for the same thing and we decided to all start
working together for the greater good. KILTER: In addition to the people who
have become part of the family, who have you guys booked at your
parties? Adam: Well like you said, aside from –
because most of the people that we work with now are people that
we’ve booked either as hosts or djs, photographers. From the very
beginning we started working with Mel Hammond. Bill: And I met Kill Memory Crash when
I was in Detroit because I was interviewing them when I was working
for a site called Gearwire. That is how I met Adam and Alex. Adam: They played the very first
event. We’ve worked with Scary Lady Sarah, who’s a mainstay of
the goth industrial scene in general, let alone Chicago. Bill: And she’s really nice. Adam: She really is, I know. Broken
Disco 1980, who are a great local project. Mr. Bobby, Lacure Smith
and Lafonz. They’re all from Pilsen. There is a great scene down
in Pilsen. Bill: Lacure is in Perfect Kiss.
Adam: Transit from Dark Wave Disco who
has been doing this forever. DJ Animal X, who is amazing. He signed
to Capital Records and just shows up. He’s just out of his mind.
He shows up with like laser gloves and he’ll bring all his own
equipment. Bill: Some how he will dj metal in the
middle of his set and it’s still good. Adam: He loves his satan. Polyfuse,
which is really great. We were really privileged to have them come
play. Bill: Amazing live act. Adam: Death Lab came out from Detroit,
which they could not be nicer. And then local band Clicktalk, who if
you have not heard them, you definitely need to check them out. They
are amazing and communists. KILTER: Can you give us some insight to
the communist imagery in your promotion? Bill: A lot of people have asked me
about – I mean – people initially think of as being Soviet design
work and some people are somewhat worried about this and concerned.
I’m not sure why. And other people are just kind of confused , you
know, why the soviet imagery. And for me, my two favorite types of
art are German expressionism and soviet graphic design. I just am a
big fan of constructionist design and have always wanted to do
posters for an event that look like that. And honestly I’m kind of
sick of seeing a girl in a bikini and then it’s just like Photoshop
all over. I like things that look like they are actually screen
printed. Things that resemble propaganda, and I think propaganda
works for our night because we are referencing old industrial music
which you know in a lot of ways industrial started with industrial
records which Throbbing Grissel is sort of the head of. And they’re
initial way of promoting themselves was by making fake propaganda. A
big influence on me was seeing their early scenes and their early
propaganda at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago at an exhibit
called Sympathy for the Devil, where they had on display all the the
Throbbing Grissel materials. They had the actual graphic design and
breakdown for New Order's [album] Power, Corruption and Lies. So a
lot of what I was being influenced by was coming from actual art
exhibits, retrospectives going on on the No Wave, Post Punk and
Industrial scenes that were kind of going on in Chicago. KILTER: It’s funny you talk about
the concern about the communist imagery. I’ve heard of people
actually being concerned with your use of the word fascism. Adam: Well every blog or every
organization, they say they are about art, music and fashion, but it
is really just a play on words. Switching the words “fashion”
with “fascism” We are not a political movement by any means.
There is nothing we do that is at all political. We don’t discuss
politics with any of our members. It is purely nightlife. Bill: It’s not purely nightlife. It
is purely artistic pursuits, nightlife, things like that. But it is
definitely in no way are we a political movement. If anything, we
are poking fun at political movements that take themselves too
seriously, especially in light of our political situation. When we
started the party President Bush was in power. It was just kind of
getting to the point where we were being bombarded with propaganda
that was like it was almost part of your normal everyday life. KILTER: What do you guys have coming
up? Adam: Well right now we have Ceremony,
which is a night over at Liar’s Club, which is Thursdays. The next
one is scheduled for Thursday, April 1 and that focuses on new wave,
sync pop, cold wave, alternative dance, be it new or old revivalist.
We’ve got some really killer drink specials. We’re going to have
live bands play. We’ve got a number of artists we want to work
with in the future. There is just so much great local stuff
happening in music. KILTER: Going forward, is that going
to be on particular Thursday? Adam: You know what, you’ll have to
check the calendar on either Front 312.com or GothicArtChicago.com.
We keep all of our events updated and current on those two sites.
Also we have Front 312, the original reason we all started doing
this. We’ve been privileged to move it to Neo. It’s on a Friday
at Neo now. It is Friday, March 26th. Bill: Which I am so excited about. Adam: Its actually on my birthday.
KILTER: Well Happy Birthday from
Gothic Art Chicago. Bill: Oh God, I didn’t know that. Adam: There will be police reports
involved. You’ll be carrying me out of there in a wheel barrel.
Which is great. Who do we have playing this time? We’ve got Peter
Propagana playing. Bill: It’s going to be awesome
because we can actually do exactly want we wanted to do. We can play
what we want to play. And there is no catering. It’s going to be
Black Automatic, which is Adam and me. It’s going to be Peter
Propaganda, Eddie Riot, Liz Sprite and Megan will be taking photos,
Adolf Hipster aka Chris McNar will be hosting. And the nice thing is
we’re going to be able to play exactly what we want to play the
whole time. Pulling no punches, it will be anything from early 80’s
darks and stuff, cold wave. We’re going to play some EBM, some
industrial, some new electro, new kind of industrial.
Photo by Ivan Phillips