In late July a fire destroyed Mucho Culo, a near-west-side studio, performance space, and multimedia outlet as well as the home of local DJ and musician Erik Voit, aka Pranas. Voit made it out of the building with his laptop, hard drive, and Maschine Studio controller, but he had to abandon the rest of his music gear—keyboards, turntables, guitars, basses, microphones, synths—and audio/video equipment. “I estimate I had about $60,000 to $70,000 worth of stuff,” he says.
After the fire, Earl offered his services to help get Voit back on his feet, which led to Saturday’s benefit show. The event is part of a slow re-emergence for Mucho Culo; after Voit’s studio and home burned down, he moved to Pilsen and began assembling a new studio setup. “I hadn’t really done any gigs right away, but I’ve been starting—in the past few months—to play out a little bit,” he says. His Mucho Culo collaborators wanted to get back to organizing club nights, though Voit wasn’t so keen on the idea at first. “I wanted to focus more on original production and not really worry so much about booking shows and getting acts together—not really doing parties again,” he says.
