DJ

As the waning hours of on-call fall away, I’m busying myself looking up music videos on You Tube. I must be feeling the need for hitting a dance floor in a retro club or something, because here’s what I’ve been watching tonight:

Sonia – Never Stop Me Loving You.

Hazell Dean – Love Pains.

Sinitta – Right Back Where We Started From.

Nu Shooz – I Can’t Wait.

Will To Power – Fading Away.

I seriously need to get out of the house.

It’s time for a Saturday Night dance break. We’re going back to 1991 for this one and it’s one of my favorite dance tracks of all time.

Watch the video for Boy Krazy – That’s What Love Can Do.

I have a song stuck in my head this morning. Do you think I’m doing a little bit of daydreaming at my desk?

“Summertime, Summertime”, Nocera, 1987.

Take me, take me to the water
Summertime, Summertime
Maybe, we can fall in love
In Summertime, Summertime

So I was catching up on blog reading and came across Jimbo.Info (one of my favorites) and read about a new dance track is shooting up the charts in Europe and is hitting the trendy clubs here in the States. It’s by Global Deejays and it’s called “Stars On 45”.

Oh. My. God.

Stars On 45, also known as just “Stars On”, made all those medleys that were big in the early 1980s. There were two Beatles medleys, a smattering of Abba hits, “Stars On Stevie” and many more. I was a Stars On 45 fanatic in my early teens and still have all three of their albums, appropriately named “Stars On Long Play” (and II and III).

I taught myself to beatmix by lining up the hand claps on the 2nd and 4th beat of every Stars On 45 record. I made my own medleys. My interest in radio and recorded music was spawned by Stars On 45.

And now Global Deejays has mixed their “Stars On 45” jingle tags into a house track. Here’s a sample you can listen to.

Being in a “music” mood of sorts today, I did some searching around on the internet to see if my two favorite groups from my teen years, The Human League and Animotion, were out on tour these days. I would love to see these two groups perform.

Imagine my surprise to see that they performed *together* in Las Vegas recently! Hello? Where was my invitation? And to think I still have the letter I received from Astrid Plane back in 1985 in response to a fan letter I had written.

It seems like I never have any luck trying to meet The Human League either. I tried pulling strings back when I was a program director for the radio station, no dice. I had to sit in the audience like everyone else.

The closest I can get right now is this lucky fan’s photo on the internet. Time to crank up the iPod baby.

Astrid Plane of Animotion and Susan Sulley and Joanne Catherall of The Human League with an unidentified fan.

I just listened to a great song called “Moving Into Light (Freemasons Mix)” by Black Fras. This is an awesome Italian House track – now if I could just find the single on iTunes.

XM Radio’s BPM followed it up with “Move Your Feet” by Junior Senior. Another Wow Worthy track, perfect for dancing on a flatbed in a parade.

It’s always good to perk up your evening with a retro dance track or two off your iPod. We’re not going way back tonight, as I’m currently listening to “Justified and Ancient” by the KLF featuring Tammy Wynette, The First Lady of Country Music.

It’s funny, when I listen to music I tend to look up these lost artists I’m listening to on Google. I’m kind of curious as to what they’re up to. Of course Tammy Wynette is no longer with us, but as I was doing a little research on her participation with The KLF for “Justified and Ancient”, the next song on my iPod came on…

“Boom Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To My Room)”, Paul Lekakis, 1987.

Who would know that Paul Lekakis would have his own website? And it has his resumé on it. Very odd. I feel rather old as this song came out in 1987 and it seems like it was just yesterday that I was dancing to this track in a little bar in Jamestown, N.Y. called “Doc’s”. My college roommate Steve and I would go out with a bunch of friends from the music school at SUNY Fredonia. The bar was called “Doc’s” because it was in the basement of a doctor’s office. That must have been a hoot for the patients in the waiting room. “What’s that thumping noise?” “Oh, it’s just the gay boys cranking up the tunes in the basement.” “Oh.”

“Baby Love”, Regina, 1986.

Now we’re on to “Baby Love” by Regina. I remember this song very well as it came out when I graduated from high school. Co-written by Stephen Bray (who worked with Madonna on early records), this could easily have been a Madonna cast-off, but contrary to the rumors, this track was never offered to her.

Because I first heard this song in spring ’86, I always think of summer when I hear this track. It does have a summertime feel to it. This song is definitely in the J.P. Top 25. I should compile that list some time and share.

Speaking of summertime, it’s always good to spin this track up at the end of January…

“Summertime, Summertime”, Nocera, 1986.

Another track from 1986, the year that dance tracks started making a return to radio. One of the first freestyle tracks I ever heard, I found the syncopation in this type of music very fun. “Together Forever” by Lizette Melendez and “Temptation” by Corina were both bigger freestyle tracks as far as chart action goes. Both of those songs use almost identical beat tracks, in fact, when I was a DJ I used to spin those two back-to-back, followed by “What Goes Around (Comes Around)” by Giggles. It worked for a while but then the crowd would get bored and I’d have to change it up.

“Situation”, Yaz, 1983.

Yaz/Yazoo (depending on what record you’re looking at) can always fill the dance floor with “Situation”. At least they could up until 2001 when I stopped spinning. But it had to be late in the night. Always late in the night, after folks were liquored up a little bit. The later into the night, the more daring I could get with music selection. That’s what makes spinning in Buffalo or Albany fun, the bars are open until 4:00 a.m. and people really get into the music in the later hours.

“Because of You (The Original Mix)”, The Cover Girls, 1987.

The last song on my iPod tonight. When I worked in a home for disabled senior adults, this song used to come on the radio as we were driving back from the day treatment center. (I always hated that term: “day treatment”.) Anyways, my co-worker and friend Dawn and I taught the folks some hand movements to do to this track. It made the drive go by faster. Now that I think about it, Dawn and I once took the folks out for a ride and drove to a place where there were rumored to be satan worshippers. So there we were in two vans full of senior adults driving in a gravel bed. It’s a wonder we didn’t get fired.

“Because of You” is a great track but it never really did that well on the charts. People are more familiar with “Show Me” and “Wishing On A Star”, the latter being a remake of the Rose Royce classic. “Wishing…” was also the last song ever played on the radio station I used to work for.

With traditional television having little to offer these days, Earl and I often find ourselves watching Logo, the “all-gay” channel owned by Viacom, parent of CBS, MTV and that whole bunch of stuff. One of tonight’s offerings was “Kyliefever 2002”, Kylie Minogue’s 2002 concert in Manchester during her “Fever” promotional tour. What a fun concert to watch! Energetic, colorful and full of catchy tunes, I really feel the need to go out and grab the DVD so I can see it without commercial interruption. I wish I knew about this concert sooner!

Kylie Minogue has been around since the late 1980s. She began her career as a star on the soap opera “Neighbours” and then hit the charts as a female vocalist for the production team of Stock, Aiken and Waterman, who also produced a bunch of other music at the time including “Together Forever” and “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, “That’s What Love Can Do” by Boy Krazy and Donna Summer’s late 1980s album “Another Place And Time” which includes the single “This Time I Know It’s For Real.” Her early singles included “I Should Be So Lucky” and the number one remake of “The Locomotion”.

Kylie’s fame was then pretty much limited to Europe and Australia, though she maintained a gay following here in the states. In 2000 she made her comeback here in the states with the album “Light Years”, which featured the single “Spinning Around.” It was popular in the clubs, but not that big on the radio.

I have always been a fan of Kylie Minogue, so I tried to help her along here in the states by programming “Spinning Around” into heavy airplay back during my radio days. The song is fun and was very “Wow Worthy” at the time. I didn’t even get an autograph for my efforts. (At least Madonna sent me a gold record for helping out with “Ray of Light”.) Oh well.

Kylie then released the album “Fever”, featuring the songs “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” and “Come Into My World”, the former being written by a dance diva from my baby DJ days, the wonderful Cathy Dennis.

Many remember Cathy Dennis for her 1990 album “Move To This”, which includes “Touch Me (All Night Long)” and “Just Another Dream”. Side note: Contrary to popular belief, Rick Astley did NOT sing the male backups on “Just Another Dream”, they were sung by D-Mob’s Dancin’ Danny D.. Cathy stepped out of the limelight and became known for her songwriting. In fact, if you’re a fan of American Idol, you hear her ever week; she co-wrote the theme song and she’s the voice of the “Oh Whoa Whoa”.

It’s music like this that gets me jazzed about being a DJ. It’s totally fabulous.

For new readers to “Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity”, a “Wow worthy” song is a dance track that would be an excellent fit to the radio station I used to be Director of Operations for: Wow-FM, The Beat of Central New York (WOWZ-FM/WOWB-FM). Wow-FM bit the dust in 2001 when it was consumed by a huge media conglomerate and turned into a generic “Kiss” station. My program director’s ear occasionally finds a song that would fit the station really well if it still existed today.

I’ve found my first favorite dance track for 2006, and that dance track is “One Word (Chris Cox Radio Mix)” by Kelly Osbourne. I was led to this track by blogger god Joe. My. God. in a reference to a group of guys called The Mischievious Boys.

Who would ever believe that I would be diggin’ a Kelly Osbourne track? It’s a typical J.P. tempo’d song, has a great, slightly haunting vibe and a memorable hook. As a bonus, the flip side is a damn true-to -the-original remake of “The Sound of the Crowd” by The Human League!

Both tracks have already been loaded on my club mixing gear after one listen. Go buy it if you don’t have it already (it’s been around a while), it’s available on iTunes.

I was going through old CDs this morning and found a little nugget from my radio days. It inspired me to play “radio DJ” in the home studio for a little while. Here’s your chance to hear what I sounded like on the radio. Sort of.

By the way, back in 1983 this clip inspired me to become interested in radio and music production in the first place. It’s kind of silly I know, but I’ve kept the album around all these years just to remind me.

*The first clip in the first MP3 file is not me, but our very talented station “Mr. Voice” of Mike Goral, followed by clips from the Wow FM jingle package. What you hear is called a “beat mix” using station elements mixed with popular songs, and this particular one was created by Chris Spiwak, a very, very talented musician and audio engineer. The DJ “Dana Dee” I refer to is my good friend Dana, who has her own blog.