C H I C A G O   A N T I S O C I A L
by Liz Armstrong

Friday Night Clampdown

The police bust up the first big to-do at Jerkstore, a new Wicker Park loft space. 

The last time one of John Dal Santo's parties made it into the Reader was in April 2003, 
when the party he threw for his 20th birthday was busted and he spent the night in jail on 
three misdemeanor charges. (Two of them were dropped, but he ended up paying the city $250 in fines.) 
"From now on," he said back then, "I'll make sure everything I'm involved in is legal. 
I've learned my lesson." Well, around midnight last Friday, I showed up for the grand 
opening of Jerkstore, a new work/party space above the Blue Line Club Car diner on Damen near North. 
Dal Santo (aka Johnny Love) lives there, along with Adam Lee (aka Atomly, a computer programmer and IDM artist). 
They and a third partner, DJ Marlon Montez,thrown dozens of parties in homes, galleries, and clubs, 
where there are "lots of people," says Dal Santo, "but they're never spilling out on the street." 
They'd lined up an all-star roster, including Swiss DJ Plastique de Reve (best known for his work 
on the International Deejay Gigolos label) and Berlin's Phon.o, who'd done a live PA at Sonotheque 
on October 6, as well as Love and Atomly. The party was promoted "only" through e-mail and the Internet, 
though as Dal Santo admits "the crew that booked Phon.o had access to the entire Smart Bar mailing list" 
and a listing ran in the Reader. "They didn't think they'd attract that many people, says Montez. 
In fact, says Dal Santo, "we thought we underpromoted." By 12:30 the place was jam-packed with 
Wicker Park riffraff, including club cheeseballs, art students, IDM nerds, and a heavily 
tattooed woman selling glass pipes out of a briefcase. Well-behaved girls and boys danced without 
invading each other's personal space and crowded around an unmanned keg without shoving. 
In his blog at www.atomly.com the next day, Lee wrote that at this point he "had to go to the 
front door and tell them to stop letting people in." As he did, though, he "looked at the stairwell 
and out the window and realized that we had over a hundred people waiting to get in and more 
were coming at a constant rate." "If you throw a party at one of the busiest intersections 
in the city and have that many people standing in front of your place," he continued, 
"it's inevitably going to get busted." Sure enough, around 1 AM a handful of cops showed 
up and started clearing people out. I asked Officer Suarez what was going on. 
"This is a fire hazard," he told me calmly. "If everyone leaves without any trouble 
there won't be any problems." I saw another officer flick on his flashlight and lift up 
some couch cushions. "What's he looking for?" I asked Suarez. Ecstasy or dope, he replied---