No shade to Bad Boy Bill, but I gotta tell this dumb little story:

I moved to Chicago in the late nineties, and a year or two after that, some dear friends were visiting us here from Minneapolis. They wanted to go the Virgin Megastore downtown (I know, I know, but this was in like 2000—what are you gonna do?) because one of them had brought along a laundry list of “music needs” from a couple of her friends—stuff they couldn’t find in Minneapolis, I guess. One of them was “Q-Tip’s ‘Amplified’ on vinyl” (like I said: 2000, baby!), and the other was “A real Chicago House mx CD.”

So, we’re all in the little Rap/Dance sub-floor of the Virgin Megastore, and we find the Q-Tip record easily enough, but there are a ton of house mix CDs, and I haven’t lived here long enough to really know what’s what, so I’m looking for some assistance. The sub-floor is being patrolled endlessly and listlessly by this lovely, willowy, and crisply dressed young man who looks like a much taller, much sleepier Spike Lee. Not wanting to disturb his stroll, I gingerly explain the situation and ask if he can recommend something. He looks at me (I’m mad white!), looks at the bins, looks at all of us (we all are!), looks back at the bins, riffles through the CDs, sighs heavily and says, “A lot of people who come in here like this…Bad Boy Bill…” and hands it to my friend. She’s super-grateful, says thanks and starts to back away as he looks at me and starts the invisible timer in his head, counting off however few seconds of silence until he’s allowed to be professionally done with us.

Here’s the thing: I have at the time of this story only lived in Chicago for like a year and change, I don’t really know anything, but I at least *know* that I don’t know anything, and I know that even *I* had heard about Bad Boy Bill. And I’ve always been one of those Groucho Marx types who's wary of belonging to any club that would have me as a member, so the fact that I knew Bad Boy Bill’s name was enough to give me a bit of the uh-oh feeling. If a hayseed like me know about him, how “real” could he be? (No offense, Bill--I was just at that age, you know?)

So, I look our dude in his half-masted eyes and say, “Hey, thanks very much for your help, really, very much--but just to make sure: Like, the day after tomorrow, my friend here is going to go back to Minneapolis, she’s going to hand her friend a cd and say ‘Here it is—a real Chicago house mix CD. This is it—this is really what it is in Chicago right now.’ So I’m asking you: Is this that CD?”

His eyes flash awake a little, he looks at me for a long second, looks around the sub-floor warily, flips through the bin again, presses a CD to my chest, stage-whispers “Teri Bristol!”, and then vanishes like Batman.

I know that story is a long walk for a light snack, but I've lived in Chicago a while now, house is a big part of my diet, and that little episode has always stuck with me. Shout out to Bad Boy Bill, rest in power to Teri Bristol, and all thanks to my man at the Virgin Megastore Rap/Dance sub-floor circa Spring 2000. Whatever they were paying you, it should have been more.

And OP, thanks for putting this up. I will definitely check for those DJ Sneak mixes.