Dance Music

Highland Park’s Danny Chaimson founded Gold Coast Events seven years ago, and currently has three bands in Chicago (The Gold Coast All Stars, The Chicago Players, and The Lakeshore Encores), one in Los Angeles (The Golden Coast All Stars), and a crew of DJs that have totally revolutionized wedding, mitzvah and event entertainment. Music to the ears of North Shore party planners, Chaimson shares how he stays current between gigs.

IN HIS EARBUDS

“In my car, I’ve been super into all things Vulfpeck lately—they’re a bunch of very soulful musicians from The University of Michigan who really understand old school soul, funk, and pop. They do an amazing job of capturing the essence of this as songwriters and producers. It’s both tastefully funky and tug on your heartstrings vibey. Joey Dosik is another one of the artists in their crew—his song “Game Winner” is becoming one of my favorite tracks of all time. At home, it’s been constant family jams in the kitchen reliving Tom Petty’s whole catalog. Watching my wife and daughters laughing and playing while “Wildflowers” blares in the background on a Sunday morning—while sipping some nice hot green tea… that’s as good as it gets.”

ON HIS MOBILE

“I love following cool Instagram accounts like @dusttodigital, which posts fascinating historic musical pictures and clips of everything from 1920s blues films to rare Otis Redding outtakes. @jumpmanhistory is a phenomenal account posting rare and random Michael Jordan clips (I’m a huge sports fan). I also try to keep up with new music through blogs like gorillavsbear.net and thefader.com. As far as websites, I’m always checking out reverb.com for great vintage instruments and gear to pick up—I have a home studio where I still produce music and love getting authentic old-school tones.”

ON HIS NIGHTSTAND

“Right now I’m reading But What If We’re Wrong by Chuck Klosterman. I discovered him years back when he used to write columns for ESPN’s Page 2 site and always enjoyed his writing. This book goes really deep into challenging everything we think we know, and trying to imagine what our place in history really will look like. I’m always trying to get to the why of things, so I’m enjoying how abstract the conceptual thinking behind what he’s saying is. Klosterman is amazing because he’ll reference Aristotle, Tom Brady, and Steely Dan within paragraphs of each other to prove a point—and I’m nodding my head along like it’s not weird at all.”