From Chicago's NW Side, Rick Allen...aka...RRKS was raised on old school Chicago house music.
At an early age his weekend's were spent in juice bar's or house parties listening to the likes of Depeche Mode, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, New Order & The Cure just to name a few.
He started re-mixing and making tracks in the late 1980's with some of his father's old gear that was lying around in the basement.
Ultimately it was the classic mix shows on WBMX & WGCI that made electronic music a permanent fixture in his life.
Friends were always astonished at how he could tell what the next track was going to be only after hearing the 1st four bars of what was coming in.
As his vinyl collection began to grow; a pair of Technics 1210's and a second hand Numark DM-1750 mixer became inevitable.
For many years Chicago's infamous Gramaphone records was his second home and allowed him to build friendships with some of the world's best DJ's & Producers.
What was originally a hobby quickly became an obsession and in 1992 he scraped up enough money to buy his first drum machine, the Kawai R-100 - the rest is history.
As a permanent fixture at various Chicago Underground Night Clubs and many of the now historic Chicagoland Raves he was able to experience numerous life changing sets.
He is the self-proclaimed recluse of the Chicago house scene and was never one to promote his production or mixing skills and until recently kept his projects private.
Finally, after more than a decade of basement tracks, mixtapes and music production evolution - the Internet has made it possible to share his musical vision with the world.
2010 was a turning point in Rick's production career as he was chosen as a winner in DJ Paul Edge's Super Fantastic Easy Sex remix competition and continues to collaborate with Paul on an ongoing basis.
2011 has solidified that Rick is a formidable up and coming artist as he was recently chosen by Richie Hawtin as the runner-up winner in the Plastikman Ask Yourself remix competition. His remix is featured in the Plastikman Arkives on Minus Records.
Rick has recently joined forces with Rolf Mulder's Rotterdam based label The Public Stand for an upcoming release in the near future.