“When playing shows, hire a videographer and do little after-videos. Let people see that you’re playing. Use one party to sell the next.”
As an artist, mixtape master, and party promoter, Gettoblaster has been a pillar in the Chicago house-music scene for decades.
A force in the studio and a master on the decks onstage, Gettoblaster (aka Paul Anthony) continues to fill venues and release tracks with regularity. In fact, in 2024 alone, he’s already offered a dozen releases – original tracks, collaborations and remixes – of his trademark jackin’ Windy City sound.
Originally working since 2014 as a duo with Detroit-based Zach Bletz, Gettoblaster broke out with We Jack, a 20-track full-length effort loaded with percolating rhythms and whopping grooves. Since then, they collaborated with the legendary likes of Bad Boy Bill, Steve “Silk” Hurley, DJ Funk, Roland Clark, DJ Deeon, and Chip E. Anthony has since split from his former studio-and-stage partner and assumed the Gettoblaster handle alone. But he hasn’t slowed down at all. In fact, before the summer ends, he expects to drop another album, Acid Ice Cream, on his own Aliens on Mushrooms imprint.
We caught up with Gettoblaster in the midst of his flurry of spring releases – a bumpin’ remix for Tyler Hill (“I Can’t Wait”), plus his tasty collabs with Fuzzy Cufflinxxx and Franklyn Watts (“Ya Me Voy”) and Nathan Barato (“The Move” EP). So, we discussed his tech, his process, and his own house-music history. It went like this:
DJ LIFE: How did you come up with the name Gettoblaster?
Anthony: As a kid, I used to have a boombox, a portable stereo – we called them ghettoblasters. For me, I was really big with mixtapes. When I had my first career as Paul Anthony, I put out 25 mixtapes that sold over 100,000 units in five years. I used to listen to these tapes on my ghettoblaster. So I thought it would be a cool name. I couldn’t believe nobody had the name. And then I was like, “You know what? Let me change the spelling because if I have an ‘h’ in it, every boombox in the world is going to come up on an image search.” If I take the “h” out, I have I have a unique search.
DJ LIFE: How did you get into house music?
Anthony: Growing up, I was in northwest Indiana. I was born in Chicago, but I lived 20 minutes away. So, in the whole Chicagoland area, when you turn the radio on, you’d hear house music. In Cincinnati, you did not hear that – you heard Whitesnake or Guns N’ Roses. In Chicago, the same station that would be playing ZZ Top or Poison would be dropping [Cajmere’s] “The Percolator” in the 1990s. The Top-40 stations would be slipping in house music.
DJ LIFE: So, the radio was a big influence…
Anthony: Right. So, as a child growing up in the Chicagoland area, it’s very common to want to be a basketball player or football player, a doctor, and a DJ – these are things that people do. Growing up, my sister was into house music and my dad would let me control the radio when we were driving to Illinois and I’d put on that weird “utz utz utz” station. Also, I found out that my neighbor was Mickey “Mixin’” Oliver from the [WBMX] Hot Mix 5.
DJ LIFE: How did the DJ bug hit you?
Anthony: By the time I was 12-years old, I wanted turntables, so I got turntables. Then, when I turned 18, I
moved to Chicago to be closer to all of this. And right when I got out of high school, I started getting club residencies and started hanging out at Gramaphone Records – and Derrick Carter, DJ Sneak and Mark Farina worked there at the time. My buddy John was working there, too, and I’d go with him to work there daily. I then started realizing that just being a club DJ wasn’t only what I wanted to do.
DJ LIFE: What else were you into?
Anthony: I was throwing parties at a VFW Hall. I would bring in radio DJs and I would DJ all night long with them. I would pull, like, a thousand kids at $10 a head at these shows – I was making killer money at the time. So, your goals grow – from there I wanted to be on the radio. Bad Boy Bill and these other guys had residencies, but they would give me guest spots. So, I started getting popular on the mixtape circuit and then I started getting booked.
DJ LIFE: What are your biggest musical influences?
Anthony: That’s a tough one because Gettoblaster has been modeled after ’90s Chicago house music. Everything you’re hearing with Gettoblaster has an edge of the ’90s. My biggest influences are DJ Deeon, DJ Slugo, Bad Boy Bill, Paul Johnson, Green Velvet, Felix da Housecat, Terry Mullan, and Daft Punk. Bad Boy Bill had the quick style with a certain kind of scratch and Terry Mullan had an underground acid style with a different kind of scratch. And if you listen to any of the scratching that I do, and you listen to those two, I’m basically like if they had a child – they’re both heroes to me.
DJ LIFE: How do you keep yourself booked and busy? How do you market yourself?
Anthony: So, it’s a magnet. It’s a lot of things – social media, being active. It’s putting out records, doing a podcast, doing interviews, doing everything, everything you possibly can. Then, when you are playing shows, hiring a photographer/videographer, doing little after-videos. Let people see that you’re playing —use one party to sell the next.
DJ LIFE: Anything else?
Anthony: I also like to use punk-rock marketing. I have Gettoblaster stickers. I’ve printed 100 books over
the last few years. And pretty much every venue that has a bathroom has a sticker on it. In Miami, there’s one pole that has 500 Gettoblaster stickers on it. I already have one pole, but then I hit every pole in Wynwood. But you gotta ask: Where’s the best place to market? All my friends are in the red-light district. So let me put stickers all over the red lights. And all of a sudden, I’m getting private messages: “Hey, I saw your sticker.” I’m like, I know where you’re at. I put stacks of them on the counter. I put them on the door like guerilla marketing. Punk-rock marketing to me is the best because I love street art. Stickers, for me, is a form of street art.
DJ LIFE: What is your current studio tech?
Anthony: As for studio tech, I use FL Studio, Roland TB-303 and Juno-106 for hardware. I borrow [Roland] TR-808 and TR-909 units for samples. I use Native Instruments Massive soft synth.
DJ LIFE: What’s your process in the studio?
Anthony: I use a real 909 and a real 808. These are companions, drum machines from friends. And I’ve made
extensive samples from them. They’re all legit 808s and 909s. I used to own a JoMoX, which was a German drum machine. I try to use 909 for my kick drums. I tend to use an 808 for my basslines, and I put them on a keyboard and I actually play them like notes… I sample my synthesizers even with plug-ins. Like, I’ll write lines, then I’ll export them and then I’ll chop them up on the piano. I’ll make it more of like a triggered thing off the sampler. So, it seems like it’s done with gear, but what I like to do is literally make it feel like you’re using a sampler like you used to in the ’90s, which is why my stuff has a natural Chicago jackin’ sound.
DJ LIFE: Your label is Aliens on Mushrooms, how did that name come about?
Anthony: The name is meant to be exactly what it is. We are all aliens on mushrooms walking around in this crazy-ass planet. Aliens represents the rave culture that we grew up in. There was always someone dressed like an alien with an alien picture or alien shirt and currently mushrooms have gone legal in most cities. Aliens On Mushrooms essentially ties house and techno into the
hippie world.