Rumbles From the Underground
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While in Seattle Kuglich remained in close contact with his friend Ryan Fernandez back in Chicago. They’d met growing up in Bloomington, Illinois, when Kuglich was four and Fernandez was three, and stayed in touch after Fernandez’s family moved to Springfield in 1986. They formed a hip-hop act called Chromium while in high school, and came to Chicago together to attend UIC. Though Kuglich had lost interest in performing, Fernandez kept at it–the Filipino-American MC worked the local open-mike circuit, rapping and reading his poetry under the name Offwhyte. He’d also hooked up with some other talented hip-hop outsiders, like producer Justus Roe (aka DJ White Lightning) and graffiti artist Josh Grotto. They’d been discussing ideas for a compilation of unrecorded local acts, but they lacked the resources to make it happen.
Fernandez named the label after one of his songs, inspired by the Kurt Vonnegut novel Galapagos. “The islands have a number of plant and animal species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world, so the song related our music to something that was unique,” explains Fernandez. By the time the label released The Blackbook Sessions, its long-discussed compilation of local acts, in the summer of 1999, Kuglich had decided to come back to Chicago, since most of the talent he planned on working with lived here. He moved into a three-bedroom Andersonville apartment owned by Roe’s parents; its back room, outfitted with Roe’s recording gear and additional equipment purchased by Kuglich, became Galapagos4 Island Resort Retreat Recording Recreation Center, where the bulk of the imprint’s albums have been recorded.
The guys at Galapagos4 are aware of the pitfalls of working with friends. “It’s hard because it’s art, business, and friendship, all with the same people,” says Fernandez. “Sometimes you realize you never talk to anyone casually without bringing up business. We were just talking about going bowling, something we can do without having the business side enter into it.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Newberry.
