The Cool Kids are in the new issue of Rolling Stone, justifiably named as one of the 10 artists to watch in 2008. To boil it all down: Chicago’s hot shit right now and the Cool Kids would be the first to admit that their own loftiness is owed in large part to the trend-setting that another Chicago group – Flosstradamus, the DJ team of Curt “Autobot” Cameruci and Josh “J2K” Young — forged not all that long ago to energize a city that Cameruci called “Haterville” some time ago. The community that’s been built is not the Kanye-Common-Lupe clique that jet set its way to the top a few years ago, but one that’s been fashioned out of unabashed fun-getting, fun-having, 1980s fads gone wild and urban/ghetto and old, glossy Nikes that are bright enough to light a fish tank or iguana cage. Cameruci and Young grew up on Weezer – like all of the other indie kids in the neighborhood (they end many of their shows with “Say It Ain’t So” from the Blue Album), but they’ve transitioned into turntablists and gone about their pinch of this and dash of that cross-breeding in a fashion that Gregg Gillis of Girl Talk hasn’t – aligning more with the hip-hop than the non-sequiturs and the rock songs that time has somewhat forgotten about. It’s a different universe, where everyone dresses like Spank Rock or Spank Rock dresses like everyone else and the glad-handing and mutual sharing of respect is free-floating. Flosstradamus make nights fashionable and have been doing so with great success, packing clubs left and right. They’ve been offered residencies in Vegas and elsewhere, but have continued to maintain their stronghold on the Chicago scene.

“We look at ourselves like a band. We like to do more of the performance aspect,” Cameruci said. “Chicago’s poppin’ off these days, as the kids say. The kids there seriously don’t care about anything but having fun. It has that college town feel to it. There’s tons of music going through at all times. There’s a crazy ghetto club next to an indie club. There are a lot of eyes there. There’s tons of good talent. We grew up with all these kids. It used to be a battle mentality. We got burnt out on that. We stopped DJ-ing for a while. Chicago was haterville. I guess people got over it. I don’t know.”

They find what works and they stick to it, “Especially if everyone’s having a cool ass time.”

Below is a Daytrotter exclusive of The Cool Kids’ “Pump Up The Volume,” remixed by their buddies from the Floss. It’s full of references to double-dutch, bomb ass shoes and wearing football jerseys savvy-like.

Flosstradamus
The Cool Kids
Fool’s Gold Records
Chocolate Industries Records