It’s been a while since I last post an entry to Dance Classics Series or even to this blog. Let’s just say I’ve been busy digging around the internet to bring you some smashing tunes from the past. While I was searching the tunes it became apparent that this club we are going to discuss today had been a quite an milestone in the development of electronic music. As with Paradise Garage one can really hear the styles taking shape, the evolution of house from disco in the Paradise Garage and acid & rave evolving as subgenres of house in Hacienda.

Hacienda (officially The Haçienda), item number 51 in the Factory catalog, was concieved in 1982 by Rob Gretton, manager of Joy Division and New Order and by Tony Wilson and New Order of Factory Records. Financed mainly from the incomes of New Order’s record sales the club survived until 1997. The building where the club resided was torn down in 2002 and the location is now a home of an apartment building called Hacienda Flats.

Some say the financial demise of the club was drugs people were taking and therefore not drinking as much alcohol. Some say Hacienda is the birthplace dj superstardom with elevated dj booth (to offer better views of the audience). Hacienda was also the place for Madonna’s first UK gig back in ’84. And yes Hacienda really has a Factory catalog number as has almost every single thing that was put out by them. This includes The Hacienda, all the records released, stationery, egg timer, posters and even Tony Wilson’s funeral and coffin. Full catalog can be found in Wikipedia, where else.

So as I said there is some tunes to go with this post. It’s a Spotify playlist again, so no dishing out 12″ this time either, sharing is so much easier in digital. And as with Paradise Garage playlist I’ll be updating it from time to time.

And as an afterthought, the best documentary about Hacienda (and Factory Records) is of course Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People. Check it out now, even if you have done so already.

• Hacienda (FAC 51) playlist at Spotify
• Hacienda at Wikipedia
• Madonna at Hacienda

Zapp & Roger has always been one my favourites. Everybody knows Roger Troutman for his talkbox singing in Tupac’s California Love, or maybe for their biggest hit, More Bounce To An Ounce. He took the talkbox singing to a next level, which is probably one of the reasons why in the 00′s started the auto tune craze. The band was of course great inspiration to G-funk and west coast rap.

The band started in 1978 and continued making good records thruout the eighties. Eventually they focused more in their popular live act until the tragic death of the brothers Larry and Roger in 1999.

Here’s three great Zapp & Roger tunes, two of them from the nineties(!) one from their golden era. “Easy” is – hands down – the best ever made cover version of the Commodores radio friendly classic. This song was the reason for this post anyways. “California Love” therefore is a Roger’s own version for his and Tupac’s hit. There were two rap verses I took away so now it’s a more R&B jam.

Zapp & Roger – Do It Roger (Mediafire 320)

Zapp & Roger – Easy (Mediafire 320)

Zapp & Roger – California Love (Herman Prime De-Rap) (Mediafire 320)

Behold the living dead creatures of disco from the past of the future! Weird and spaced out, dubby & tribal to rock and exotic.

Imagination – Music And Lights (Nightdubbin)
Strike One – Can’t Mix Me Anymore
Serge Blenner – Esthematique
Logic System – Clash (Chinjyu Of Sun)
The League Unlimited Orchestra – The Things Dreams Are Made Of
Japan – Life In Tokyo (Disco Version)
Original Mirrors – Reflections
The Alan Parsons Project – Lucifer
Laid Back – Roger
Heaven 17 – This Is Mine (Filmix)
Herb Alpert – Beyond
Space – On The Air
Enzo Avallone – Bianco E Nero
Demis Roussos – I Dig You
Ronnie Jones – Video Games
The Quick – Zulu
Supermax – African Blood
Cerrone – Sweet Drums
Play By Numbers – Cloud Nine (Truth Is Light Edit)
Dubset – Onyeocha, Onyegee
Manu Dibango – Pepe Soup

100% vinyl – enjoy!

Tom Moulton. Who’s he? Well, he is the man. He is the father of remixing. He is the one who invented ‘accidentally’ disco break and 12″ maxi single format. He is behind thousands and thousands of disco remixes.

“I never made a dance record, I made records you can dance to.” – Tom Moulton

[1]‘And of course all the songs were 3 minutes long and I went; ‘It’s a shame because the minute the song is over they start mixing in this other song and they don’t know whether they should dance to the new song or keep dancing to the old one.’ And then people would just walk off the floor. That’s when everybody would change and you could see that they were trying to get more intense and more involvement. I said; ‘There’s got to be a way to make it longer where you don’t loose that feeling. Where you can take them to another level.’ And that’s when I came up with this idea to make a tape… So that’s what I did.’

All started back in late 60′s with self made overlapping tapes for a local bar (Sandpiper). After a while people went crazy for Tom’s tapes at the club. Funny fact is that Tom never spun the black discs, so someone had to act dj while he’s tape was rolling.

How 12″ single was born? After two seasons of making tapes for Sandpiper club Tom started to cut own records for dj’s. Early 70′s on one Friday he went to Media Sound where he used to master his records and cut to 7″. Place owner Dominic was going away that day and didn’t have time to do the job. So Tom asks how about Dominic’s assistant (the Puerto Rican sweeper José) to do the job for him. So they started to work on new Trammps tune and that worked out really well. So well that José ended up to master all of Tom’s records later on. One day when Tom went to master Al Downing – I’ll be holding you (orginal track on youtube) with José. The thing was that the studio was out of 7″ acetates and Tom was really eager to get the record. Only way to go was to cut it on 10″. The difference on cutting one track on 7″ and 10″ is that 10″ has more space, so they made the grooves on the vinyl spread. This forced them to cut it louder and sounding way better. Next track was on 12″ and it was Moment of Truth – So Much for Love. Era of disco 12″ had begun.

Tom’s first 12″ promo was South Shore Commission – Free Man and first 12″ commercial release was Double Exposure – Ten Percent.

How did the disco ‘Break’ got invented? Tom got hands on Don Downing – Dream World.

[1]“I got a record for Scepter Records, it was called ‘Dream world’ by Don Downing. That was the very first record I ever went into mix. It immaculated! [Immaculation is when the key goes up.]
Alright, so in the second part of the record, towards the end of the record it immaculated to another key. So what happened is I went to make a long version of it and of course I want to get back to the beginning of the song and of course the key drops down. And I went; ‘Oh, this is horrible! So what am I gonna do?’ I said; ‘Like I feel that I can do, is take out everything that’s musical.’ So that how it went into a drum break. Then, I would start putting in percussion back in, then I would bring the bass. So in the long version the song actually sounds like it’s immaculate twice, but it only does once. But that’s how it was created.
People said; ‘Oh, How did you do that?’ And they should go on; ‘You’re so great, it really takes a genius to create something like that!’ I said; ‘No it doesn’t! – This was just the way out of the situation.’”

“It’s just something that was created by accident – Totally by accident.”

So this is how things got started. Busiest years were during 1974 to 1977. So if you think of disco classic, most probably there is a Tom Moulton Mix of the track. Google, check youtube!

I’ll list some of my favorites:

BT Express – Peace Pipe

Patti Jo – Make Me Believe in You

Andrea True Connection – More, More, More

Camouflage – You’ve Got the Power

Just scratched the surfafce, there’s plenty of good interviews about Tom. I recommending to check this radio interview by Jarrell Mason on youtube: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5. Also text above marked with [1] was borrowed from disco-disco.com interview I truly recommend checking it out! The interview is: HERE!

Check rest of the photos from HERE!

fb event!

Rest of the week (21.-24.7.2010) Herman Prime & Jukola, along with mr Aromi (lifesaver/bassoradio) will be banging classic dance tunes in Pori. More precise at bar boat Barco (check pics: here!) Feel free to join us enjoying good music and festival atmosphere on the jazz street!

http://www.porijazz.fi/

Do you think we got enough records with us?

Herman Prime crates:

Jukola crates:

Aromi crates:

Also Elektropäissään blog made interview about Herman Prime. It is about man him self, Dance Classics, some things about this weeks Pori gig and of course about Plauge. Check Finnish interview from: here!

Once upon a time there was a disco called Paradise Garage, located in the city that never sleeps. Operational from 1977 to 1987, Paradise Garage was the home of DJ Larry Levan, known for playing eclectic sets. With no genre restrictions his only goal was to make people dance. Every track was a good track as long it was danceable.

‘

Reason of this little history lesson is that I finally got my Paradise Garage playlist on Spotify in publishable form. At the moment it contains 500+ songs gathered from various tracklists around the internet. New songs might be added from time to time. Some other classic clubs may follow…

The playlist (Spotify)

Paradise Garage in Wikipedia

Paradise Garage Tribute (some interesting articles)

In my previous DC post I promised to present some actual speed garage tunes. This genre was “the next big thing” in the UK after the big beat hype during the late 90′s. Regular elements in speed garage tracks included sped-up garage house rhythms, female vocals/male MC and heavy basslines. The success of this style was relatively short but it influenced a lot of future genres such as bassline house and also drum’n'bass, from which speed garage itself borrowed a lot!

The first tune is ‘Spend The Night’ by Danny J Lewis which was released on the legendary Locked On label, as well as XL Recordings. Most mixes of this track represent the sound which is quite close to the original garage house due to their soulful vibe. You just got to love the trippy drums and percussions!

Danny J Lewis – Spend The Night (New Horizons Mix) [Mediafire 320]

Double 99 was a duo formed by a UK garage enthusiast Omar Adimora and filter house legend Tim Deluxe. Their first collaboration called ‘RIP Groove’ was a pioneer track and one of the most famous ones in the speed garage scene. Despite having a Jamaican-style MC, the track has a strong UK gangster house feel to it. This is something that was later incorporated heavily into many drum’n'bass and dubstep tunes, making them sound delightfully British!

Double 99 feat. Top Cat – RIP Groove [Mediafire 320]

The last track is by far my favourite! ‘Deeper Love’ by Ruff Driverz was somewhat of a pop house tune that just happened to take advantage of the raging popularity of speed garage. It underlines those certain elements a lot, but that just makes it more fun! This one has a lot of build-ups and it evolves all the time, which is why I like so much – many of these tracks relied on just one theme throughout the whole song. Play this until 4’22 and when it finally drops to that bassline madness you will surely have the crowd jumpin’!

Ruff Driverz – Deeper Love (Ruff Mix) [Mediafire 320]

Check out also Plauge’s Dance Classics playlist on Youtube!

Jocelyn Brown maybe needs no introduction, but take this as a salute to maybe the best female dance music singer. Her career is truly a link between disco, post-disco era and the development of house music to this day. Brown started in the late seventies singing for studio groups for example Chic, Cerrone, Change and Patrick Adams’ projects Musique, Phreek and Inner Life. Her solo career’s breaking point was a 1984 hit “Somebody Else’s Guy”. In 1999 she appeared on Ministers De La Funk’s international house hit “Believe”. In Between she has done so much great music. Post YOUR favourite Jocelyn in the comments!

Late nineties music video version…

It’s Mrs. Brown singing backrounds on this one. She sang on Chic’s albums Tongue In Chic and Take It Off as well. Needless to say what’s sampled from this.

Snap’s “Power” has a sample taken out of this at 5:42.

The 1999 hit.. Check out the great Spen & Karizma version below.

Inner Life – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (Mediafire 320k) (The Plauge Dance Classics Ending Theme)

Inner Life – Make It Last Forever (Mediafire 320k)

Cerrone – Hooked On You (Mediafire 320k)

Chic – Stage Fright / Burn Hard (Mediafire 320k)

Musique – Keep On Jumpin’ (Mediafire 320k)

Jocelyn Brown – Somebody Else’s Guy (Mediafire 320k)

Ministers De La Funk feat. Jocelyn Brown – Believe (Spen & Karizma Remix) (Mediafire 320k)

Playing these and some of the less known Jocelyn tracks for sure next Saturday at Yo-Talo:

As Åke posted D.C. Scorpio’s “Beam Me Up Scotty” in the previous DC-post, and told nothing about Go Go, I thought that has to be done! So, go go is a sub genre of funk. This Washington D.C.’s signature funk sound has a recognizable syncopated beat influenced by afro caribbian music. The sound was developed basically by one man, Chuck Brown. Some of the biggest bands were Trouble Funk, E.U. (Experience Unlimited) and Hot, Cold & Sweat, to name a few. Live bands played and jammed with the long tracks blending to one on another to keep up the party (as dj’s do!). The genre has its golden era from mid to late seventies, but the influence of the music lasted decades. Some of the first hip hop acts like Kurtis Blow were recording with live go go bands. Summa summarum, go go is still straight up party music.

Trouble Funk – Don’t Touch That Stereo

Hot Cold Sweat – Meet Me At The Go Go

E.U. – Da Butt