Jevon Jackson

Jevon Jackson was a rebellious rocker kid growing up in the late 1970s on Chicago’s South Side. His first exposure to house music came courtesy of a neighborhood friend, DJ Mel Hammond, who hipped him to a Frankie Knuckles cassette. Having started his high school career in 1986, he was too young to get into The Music Box, or the Power Plant, but Jackson was listening to the tapes, as well as BMX mixes; he was already learning how to spin records too. Jackson’s first club was The Powerhouse at 2210 South Michigan. By the late 1980s, He was checking out sets at big ballroom parties spun around Chicago by Armando, Gene Hunt, and DJ Rush. As the scene and sound on the South Side became more hyper-masculine and tracky in the 1990s, Jackson followed DJs like Diz to the North Side. Red Dog, Shelter, and the Milwaukee Ave. loft party scene became his home for the next decade. He would eventually play residencies at Shelter, Red Dog, Smart Bar, Neo, and Crobar, while hosting wild underground parties on Aberdeen and traveling abroad. In 2000 Jackson became the musical director at Mad Bar after playing there as a resident. He continues to play in his musical bloodline around the city.

1990s

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Jevon Jackson’s first time at Red Dog

A month before his twenty-first birthday, Jevon Jackson tried to get into The Warehouse on Randolph but was rebuffed at the door. With little to lose, he and his friend Charles Little jumped back in the car and drove to the corner of North and Milwaukee. The security guard took one look at his I.D., and seeing that he would soon be twenty-one, allowed him up. At first Jackson couldn't believe there was a club in the upstairs space because it was so insulated he couldn't hear the sound system. When he opened the door he was blown away. As his eyes adjusted to the room, he noticed the DJ pointing at him with a lit cigarette, beckoning him to come over. He climbed up into the booth and low and behold, it was his buddy Diz.

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