We in the Midwest: New mixtape from Skyler Mendoza and Rehab

It’s always cool to see people you came up with blowing up. I remember when Skyler was a little ass kid with a skateboard and a moped, throwing parties above the We Sell Your Shit on eBay store in Humboldt Park, at a tiny apartment he was stubbornly calling a loft (conversely, he knew me when I was booking parties at the free room at Reggie’s [ugh] and lighting photobooths with clip lamps from Ace Hardware). I remember one day, when he was planning the I Love Gold New Year’s party, he had stars in his eyes and was talking about booking Justice and I was like “whatever, man”.

Exactly one year later, he was opening up for Justice and I was shooting the afterparty.

So in all this time, I don’t think I’ve seen him put out a mix until now.

Rehab, the weekly dance party that packs Debonair every Monday night, just started a blog at UR Chicago and decided that the first order of business was putting together a mixtape. They tapped Skyler, whose group Yello Fever is one of the night’s residents, to put together Endless Summers, Winter Thrills. The mix features a lot of of-the-moment shit (like Ladyhawke, LaRoux, and Major Lazer), some surprising older cuts (like The Bucketheads, along with remixes of New Order, Jamiroquai, and Earth, Wind & Fire), and a bit of local flavor with Yello Fever’s remix of Hey Champ’s “Cold Dust Girl” and Million $ Mano’s superb remix of Matt & Kim’s “It’s a Fact” with guest vocals from Hollywood Holt (which, grrr… I was gonna put on the upcoming GlitterGuts anniversary mixtape). All in all, it pulls something surprisingly substantial from Skyler’s love of cheeseball disco and 90s rap.

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Download the mix from the new Rehab blog at UR Chicago
Check out parties we’ve done with Skyler, Yello Fever, and Rehab at GlitterGuts!