It’s a two gig weekend for me. The day between gigs is always interesting as I’m in total night owl mode, but I’m surprisingly keeping busy around the house with a few home improvement projects. Lag bolts, beams and a few other devices make for an interesting experience for all.
I’m such a geek.
I’ve had this song in my library for a couple of weeks and have been “force feeding” it to the Friday night crowd at the bar. Last night they finally gave in and admitted that yes, it is a good song and yes, I know what I’m doing. It packed the floor with more than just the LaDonna fans.
Here’s the latest single from Donna Summer, it’s called “Stamp Your Feet”. By the way, it was written in part by Danielle Brisbois, who played Stephanie on “All In The Family” all those years ago.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that I had been inspired by a recent DJ gig and have been busy this week selecting, downloading and tweaking new music for upcoming gigs. Busy = over 175 songs this week.
Tonight’s crowd won’t know what hit them!
As I’ve been perusing charts and the sites and blogs of other DJs, I’ve noticed that each of them do as I do and occasionally post mixes on their site for all to enjoy. Many of them use a theme, such as DJ 50 Pound Note and his “Kiss The Future” series.
I’ve decided to name my mixes in a similar manner: “More Than 12 Inches”.
Since my gig in Ithaca last Saturday night I’ve been going a little crazy researching music and getting it organised for upcoming DJ SuperCub appearances. During this frenetic activity I’ve discovered a group that I LOVE, especially their remixes.
Earl and I are back from our little adventure to Ithaca, where I was the guest DJ at The Common Ground last night. We had a really good time. The dance floor was busy from 11 p.m. onwards (that always makes me happy) and I had quite a few folks compliment me on my mix of music. It was different enough from the house DJs to keep in interesting but familiar enough that the folks were still able to know what they were hearing and enjoy accordingly. I had the opportunity to meet one of the house DJs, Dr. DJ Mike, who asked about the particular version of “Apologize” by OneRepublic and Timbaland that I play (it’s the Tony Arzadon Club Remix that I heard when we were in Dublin last fall). There were a couple of other inquiries throughout the night. The Common Ground also has a computer system with every song they have in their massive CD library, and one computer on the network is available to the crowd to make requests. I didn’t use their CDs but I was able to accommodate several of the requests throughout the night that scored me points.
The crowd was an interesting and somewhat amusing blend of folks. The club is larger than what we have here in Utica. It was Leather/Levi and Bear night (I spin best at these kinds of nights) and at one end of the club most of those guys were congregated around the bar chatting, playing pool and enjoying the music. At the other end of the bar were the club bunnies, twinks and a smattering of transgendered folks that I couldn’t tell which way they were transgendering. On the other hand, perhaps they were just creatively dressed. They celebrated my end of night selection of pseudo-disco tracks (“Coming Out Of Hiding” by Pamala Stanley, “The Rumour” by Olivia Newton-John) by clogging with their high heels.
The DJ booth at The Common Ground blew me away. They have a REALLY nice setup. The DJ booth was nicer than the last radio station studio I worked at! I hadn’t expected as much high-tech equipment as they had, nor did I anticipate the amount of volume that was available at my fingertips. I was in eargasm heaven. It was also a good opportunity for me to hear how my MP3s and such from various sources compared to each other. I have a couple of tracks on the PowerBook that I have to weed out simply because they don’t sound good over a relatively powerful system. Luckily they are mostly old tracks that I dug up from somewhere on the internet years ago and can easily replace by rerecording the vinyl here in the studio at home. Earl assured me that everything sounded fine with these couple of tracks but that I was probably noticing things that others wouldn’t pay a moment’s notice to.
This morning we slept in a bit and then came home by way of the Finger Lakes, stopping for lunch and a little shopping excursion at The City (formerly known as ‘Circuit City’?). I picked up a couple of new speakers for the studio here at the house as I was obviously inspired by last night’s setup. I expect to be making more mixes to share very soon.
Here’s a fan made video to one of my favorite tracks from 1990 (though it was never released as a single). I played this during one of my first DJ gigs in Erie, Pa. It was one of the first songs I felt I was taking a risk by playing because there were no remixes and it was an unreleased track. I was delighted when the crowd continued the pace on the dance floor.
I found a fun, rather obscure video from the 1980s. When I hung out at the record store in my hometown after school we used to have debates as to the sexuality of Sam Harris. He was (and still very much is) a hottie and if I had completely accepted my gay card back in 1984 I would have been tipped off by the ruby shoes pictured in the video.
Here’s Sam Harris with “Sugar Don’t Bite”.
For those that say, “doesn’t that sound like…”, this came first, there was litigation, and the writers of “Sugar Don’t Bite” won.
Back in 1993 I had my “big break” in radio when I was asked to host a remix show on our local Top 40 radio station. I had been hanging around the studios for a couple of months, had secured my FCC license (which you needed to be on the radio in those days) and was ready to show the world what radio personality J.P. Marks was all about. The regular remix DJ, a very nice guy by the name of Ron The Sugarbear, was taking the weekend off and I was asked to fill in. The Program Director was nervous as all get out and laid out a game plan for me to follow for three of the five hours I was to be on the air, the other two hours I was allowed to do my own thing. One thing I distinctly remember is that after a few mixes I did my first talk break in which my mother called immediately afterwards in tears because she was so excited to hear me on the air.
Saturday Night Dance Tracks was skewed towards the mainstream dance music of the time (remember it was the early 1990s) and the emerging hip hop scene. One of the highest rated time slots on the station (which was consistently in the top three in the market), I was determined to fill some pretty big shoes for my debut while keeping my own spin to make my trademark.
I decided to play a record I had picked up a couple of months prior. It wasn’t on any of the industry dance charts at the time and was only being heard in gay clubs in major cities, it was however very successful when I played it during my gigs. I was absolutely certain that this record would be a HUGE hit if the general public had the chance to hear it, even though it was a remake of a HUGE hit from the 1980s. The song was released by an unknown artist on a small indy label from the UK.
When I spun into this record and the first verse started, the phone board started lighting up. As we progressed into the chorus of the very familiar tune, the board reached capacity. “Who is this?” “Where did you get this?” “Oh my God, I love this!” All the callers were loving the record. The hotline (a special line into the studio that station personnel have access to) called, it was the music director. “Great track, who is it?”
Grinning from ear to ear, I replied with, “It’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart'”. The music director thanked me for the obvious. I filled in the blanks with “she’s Nicki French and it’s on a small indy label called ‘Energise Records’ or something like that”. He replied with “can I borrow it?” “Absolutely.” Success. J.P. Marks had made his mark.
Nicki French’s version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” hit U.S. mainstream radio about a year later. I had the opportunity to meet Nicki a couple of times: the first time was backstage at a Kix 106 concert in Providence, Rhode Island and the second time at John Garabedian’s house during his syndicated “Open House Party” show. Ms. French is clearly the NICEST artist and one of the NICEST people I have ever met.
For your enjoyment, here’s her video for the U.S. radio mix of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
