DJ

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.

It’s been about 48 hours since I’ve downloaded Madonna’s new album, “Confessions On A Dance Floor.” I’ve downloaded both the non-stop and the traditional versions of the CD and have had the non-stop version loaded into the Acura stereo since Tuesday night.

I can not stop listening to this CD. This album is fscking awesome!

While I can’t find a weak track in the bunch, I do have my favorites. I love the ‘smooth’ sound of “Get Together”, I really enjoy “Sorry” (rumoured to be the next single) and I’m diggin’ the trance-disco sound of “Jump”.

It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve thoroughly enjoyed an entire album from an artist, the last one being BT’s ECSM in 1996. I long ago lost faith in pop music and today’s artists, figuring that a pop album with an adult, yet dance appeal was a thing of the past.

I’m happy to say that Madonna proved me wrong.

“Confessions On A Dance Floor” is not sugary but it is full of energy. There’s no anger or rage on this album, just good, melodic, musically complete tracks. If you like good dance music and haven’t added this album to your collection, what are you waiting for?

Welcome home, Madge.

What kind of club DJ would I be if I didn’t go out and get the new Madonna album today? Actually, through the miracles of modern technology, I didn’t have to go out anywhere, I simply logged into iTunes and downloaded myself a copy of the album. There’s actually two versions available, a standard CD with individual tracks, and a non-stop version, with everything segued together into one long continuous mix.

It’s been a long while since I’ve enjoyed a Madonna album. Probably since “Erotica” came out, to be exact. But I’d heard all the rumbles about Madonna embracing dance music once again and I am happy to say that I found the album nothing short of awesome.

I’ve only listened to the entire album once so far. To give it the acid test, I listened to it on my car stereo while driving the New York Thruway at around 70 MPH.

The album feels like Madonna has gone back to her roots, in a 21st century way, and will have you bumping and boppin’ to the way dance music should be, fun, upbeat and hooky.

Go get yourself a copy!

During my last air shift on Top 40 radio back in 2001, I made the radio station I worked for my personal jukebox for an hour and played the “J.P. Top 10”, my Top 10 favorite dance tracks of all time. Unfortunately, I’ve since lost the list. However, as I was driving back from lunch today, I began formulating my Top 5 favorite dance tracks of all time, updated for 2005. I thought I would share.

1. “Remember”, B.T. feat. Jan Johnston, 1996.
2. “I Can’t Wait”, Nu Shooz, 1986.
3. “Save Me”, Lisa Fischer, 1991.
4. “Get Up, Stand Up”, Stellar Project, 2004.
5. “Coming Out Of Hiding”, Pamala Stanley, 1980.

Surpisingly, there’s only one relatively new song in the Top 5 now with Stellar Project bumping out Exposé’s 1987 hit “Point of No Return”. Oh, what the heck, I’ll list the bottom half of the Top 10 as well. Note I can’t make up my mind about number 9, so it’s a tie.

6. “Point Of No Return”, Exposé, 1987. (The version with Jeanette Jurado on the leads, not the original)
7. “Come Rain, Come Shine”, Jenn Cuneta, 2005.
8. “Vogue (unreleased Ultimix remix)”, Madonna, 1990. (“But how do you know about an unreleased remix?”, says the crowd.)
9. “Don’t Make Me Wait”, Loveland feat. Rachel MacFarlane, 1995.
9. “I’m Gonna Luv U”, Summer Junkies, 1997.
10. “Heart Like A Wheel”, The Human League, 1990.

In all honesty, it’s difficult to restrict my favorite tunes to a Top 10 list, but these are definitely the top 10 that I would never become bored with. I’d provide links to mp3 files of these songs but the RIAA or some other acronym happy group would probably sue me for a couple of million.

Madonna’s new single, “Hung Up”, officially began radio airplay today. Knowing the radio business like I do, this is the week they went for “adds” so that they could get it to debut as far up the charts as possible. Record companies like that whole saturation thing.

If you haven’t heard the single, it has a sample of Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” in it. It’s only the second time that Abba has consented to one of their songs being sampled and the writing credits include “B. Ulvaeus and B. Andersson”. Madonna + Abba = trés gay, correct? Yes it is a nice combination, but honestly, this single doesn’t move me like I thought it would. It doesn’t have as strong of a hook that you’d find in a classic Madonna dance track. I’d still rather spin up “Holiday”, “Express Yourself” or “Deeper and Deeper” before playing this song. It did make me wish that Abba would get back together and do something, anything, even if it’s a one night show to raise money for a charity or something. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Nevertheless, I’m sure “Hung Up” is going to top the charts, as well as the album it’s from, “Confessions On A Dance Floor”, coming out in November. If you pre-order the album on iTunes, you get “Hung Up” for free.

I have to make a confession. During the past year or two, Paul Oakenfeld’s remix of Elvis Presley’s “Rubberneckin'” has torn up dance floors across the country and probably half of Europe. I must admit though that I really don’t care for that version of the song. Confessing this may cost me a gay point or two, but I have to finally come clean on this.

I really like the original version from 1972. My mother had the album with this song and I used to crank it up on her GE “Wildcat” record player. This record player was a birthday gift from my grandmother and was your typical early 70s high fidelity unit. The turntable folded up into the speakers to form a convenient carrying case. It could be loaded with as many as six albums at once so you could program your party music ahead of time. It had the adapter for 45s so you didn’t have to put that little yellow adapter in the middle to play your singles.

It was wicked cool. And it played “Rubberneckin'”. A lot.

I remember dancing like a fool in my first grade classroom, having brought the record to show and tell. My teacher, Miss Kania, found my fondness for the track amusing and she told me that she liked the song very much. Now that I think about it, I usually monopolized the record player in first grade during the play time before school actually started, when kids were arriving for the day. I’d play favorites for the class including “Free To Be You And Me” from that Marlo Thomas record, some Three Dog Night song that I would occasionally liven up by playing it at 78 RPM and of course “Rubberneckin'” would round out the set. Then the bell would ring and we’d have to sit at our desks ready to learn how to spell or do math. How I was preparing for the impending disco era!

I found Elvis’s original “Rubberneckin'” on iTunes today. I danced like a fool once again.