DJ's Old-Time Granny and Dyn-O-Mite spin old school soul, funk, and disco jams! The show airs on special occasions on WCOM radio, 103.5 FM in Carrboro, NC, and streams online worldwide. www.resoul.org
This track is supposedly the rarest one to appear on the 25-volume Ultimate Breaks and Beats LP series that dropped between 1986-91 on Street Beat Records. Granted, this designation is based on some random Wikipedia user's contribution, who might just be the former label-owner of Fraternity Records (where this track originated), sitting on a pile of vintage unsold Manzel 7-inchers and hoping to unload them someday at highway robbery prices on eBay.
The original version from 1979 is pretty slamming, but Kenny Dope crafted an extended remix that's stretched out and even more awesome.
Having first been exposed to Hell on Wheels during the epic opening credits of Roller Boogie, I really didn't think it could get much better. But tonite I discovered a video for the 12" extended mix featuring some old pics of Cher rollerskating that date from when she apparently used to rent out roller rinks and throw private roller disco parties for her friends. That in turn led me to Cher's original Casablanca Records-produced video for this track, one of the first bona fide pre-MTV music videos, and was astounded.
Cher was a freakin' maximum strength disco goddess, and this clip is all the proof you need. Not to mention a 70s motivational guru right up there in the pantheon alongside the guy who wrote I'm OK, You're OK and Dr. Cash - "See something you like, better go for it, see something you want, better get down on it!"
Too bad it only hit #59 on the Billboard charts. But it dropped in the closing months of 1979, just as the decade was ending and mainstream America was finally waking up to the fact that the disco craze they got hipped to by John Travolta was (shock) actually a black and gay thing! Hide your wives, hide your kids!
Mad props to all the disco-fied souls who braved the wrath of Hurricane Irene to come out and party with us at Burrito Boogie! Lotsa lotsa fun...the 4th edition of Club Taqueria was the best one yet. At the height of the night, half the parking lot was full with folks getting down, more than a few with burritos in hand!
Special thanx due to Candace the Disco Design Queen, who rolled up to the party on a funky, yarn-covered two-wheeler and helped us get things looking right. After she was done, the wall of sight and sound never looked better!
Imani the Dancing Machine popped by for a repeat visit, and Rachael Rollergirl showed up just in time to catch Jim Bray saving Linda Blair from an out-of-control roller-skate dude during the first of many epic skating scenes at Jammer's.
Birthday Girl Lindsay and her pal Lew aka Disco Lolita were both dressed to impress. They turned the glam quotient up high by requesting some Xanadu action later in the nite, and we hooked them up! Philly Matt and DJ Leafy Greens kept things cooking with their smooth dance moves, and at the party's peak LG whipped out his video stick to capture it all for posterity.
All video stills courtesy of Leafy Greens.
Highlights included Locksmith unlocking the funk with "Blackjack," boogie funk straight outta Houston with Videeo's "Thang (Gimme Some Of That Thang)," vintage disco circa '75 with "Save A Place" by the Trammps, and Bobby Thurston rockin' the nite's #1 jam, "You've Got What It Takes."
The Carrboro cops even brought the disco flavor when they pulled some poor bastard over in front of Taqueria Jalisco (shout-out to Roberto Jr. for slinging tasty eats all nite long), blue lights flashing! This was before they turned out to be true dicks by shutting us down at 2:45 am, denying the dancefloor the last few songs of the nite. If you were there, you know Club Taqueria was THE place to be! If you couldn't make it, bummer! Until next time, in the immortal words of Gerry Bledsoe, "Keep your minds together, your hearts full of love, and let's keep this thing we call SOUL alive." And in the nearly-as-immortal words of Imani, "FUCK Hurricane Irene!"
Haven't laid down any JOTD's lately b/c we've been busy! But here's a gem that popped up this afternoon as I was trying to recover from the previous nite's Burrito Boogie.
Straight outta Chi-town, Southside Movement dropped three albums from '73-'75 before calling it quits. "Save The World" is from their second LP, Movin', which is chock full of vintage street funk circa 1974.
It's been sampled by the Beastie Boys & Beck (has that fool renounced Scientology yet? Let's hope so...), among others, and appeared on Vol. 22 of the influential Ultimate Breaks and Beats LP series.
Last weekend's party brought the funk. Special thanx to our guest DJ Tongue, master of beatbox disaster, and mad spinner of party-starter jointz. Tongue blew up the spot!
Dancers came out to get down, peeps dug the flickering images on the wall of sight and sound from classics like Liquid Sky and Wild Style, and some tasty beats were served up hot & spicy.
Electric Burrito's Revenge! Photos by Tongue & Groove.
So guess what...the Club T flava is comin' back atcha! It's Club Taqueria 4: Burrito Boogie! Anotha FREE street party at the Taqueria Jalisco taco truck (next door to Cat's Cradle - 206 E. Main St, Carrboro), on Saturday nite, Aug 27, from 11 pm – 3 am.
This time, we're presenting a special pre-party movie in full, the greatest roller disco flick on wheels...Roller Boogie! Showtime is 11 pm, and we will run out of chairs, so bringing your own is encouraged.
Our guest DJ is DJ Taco Libre, Latino Man of Mystery! As always, e-mail your funk, disco, soul, and old school hip hop requests to resoul.org@gmail.com, and we'll hook you up.
We had such a good time getting down this past weekend two nights in a row at Club Taqueria, we're gonna do it again!
So, get ready for Club Taqueria 3: Electric Burrito's Revenge! It's a FREE street party at the Taqueria Jalisco taco truck (next door to Cat's Cradle - 206 E. Main St, Carrboro), on Saturday nite, Aug 20, from 11 pm – 3 am.
Along with your regularly scheduled turntable hosts, this weekend's special funky guest DJ is DJ Tongue, of Tongue & Groove fame! E-mail us your soul, funk, disco, and old school hip hop requests to resoul.org@gmail.com, and we'll hook you up.
For the past couple of summers, DJ's Old-Time Granny and Tongue (aka Tongue & Groove) have been maintaining a relaxed living environment at their Carrboro crib, affectionately known to visitors as "The End Unit."
Party starters at The End Unit, May 2011. Photo by Old-Time Granny.
Recently they hosted a movie nite at their place curated by yours truly. Utilizing the new indoor screening room that just got rolled out within the past week, in part to cope with the ongoing oppressive temperatures of the Great Heat Dome of 2011. And a new, giant wall-sized screen devised by Tongue and unveiled for the first-ever time that night!
The consensus flick turned out to be The Spirit of '76, which I first discovered sitting on the living room couch at a Pink House movie nite back in the day. But this latest showing didn't get underway without much haggling and vote-trading in favor of other contenders (since it's safe to say every audience member in attendance was a certified film freak, with Claudio getting special props becuz it turns out he used to host a long-running outdoor movie series in his backyard on Lindsay Street, showing 75 flicks in all). Including another Chez Pink fave, Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, plus Lost City classics like Psych-Out ("Taste a Moment of Madness! Listen to the Sound of Red!") and Over The Edge, and a very recent discovery, I Was A Teen-Age Zombie, which I think sat on our dollar rental shelf for years, although it should have been a store favorite. Based only on the short clips I've seen so far of the Weed-Man ripping some dude's face off, once he's been turned into a zombie by the toxic lake that he was either pushed or fell into when he wouldn't give kids back their "monies" for a refund on the bad "marah-jahooby" he sold them.
Anyway, Spirit of '76 didn't disappoint, as Leif Garrett aka Eddie Trojan put some kung fu fighting on the CIA so he could get back to "hustling" with Olivia D'Abo, "Downtown" Julie Brown dropped knowledge on Heinz 57 about how Watergate really started with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and Adam 11 aka David Cassidy learned about Tang and all the other good stuff the astronauts did for mankind from Chris Johnson and Tommy Sears, aka Jeff and Steve McDonald from Redd Kross, the coolest kids ever to rock a pair of banana bikes. As our time-traveling heroes made it back safely with the cultural knowledge they'd gathered and turned the bleak future of 2176 into a sunny disco paradise, the credits rolled, leaving us cheering and getting our couch boogie on.
At which point we were spotted by other revelers from the street who decided to come join the fun. Starring frequent 401 Pritchard traveler and Fly Five sista Alexis (who beat out like, 500 other costumed kids with her amazing sea algae outfit to take home the title of costume contest queen the night before), and her friend Jason, who was celebrating his birthday, plus his whole birthday crew. They were actually politely waiting out in the parking lot for the movie to finish, but busted in immediately after it ended, just like emissaries from a future dancefloor!
Alexis rockin' a past costume contest-winning outfit at 401 Pritchard, May 2004
Then a drive-by disco party erupted, kickin' off with Bobby Thurston's "You Got What It Takes" (a Francois K mix), followed by Suzy Q reminding us to "Get On Up" (during which Jason showcased his mad breakdancing and shoes-on-the-hands air moonwalking skills), continuing on and on via some Trammps and Debbie Jacobs, with OTG serving up a healthy mix of Sylvia Stripland's "You Can't Turn Me Away" and other Roy Ayers productions sprinkled throughout, and climaxing with the epic 10-minute Alkebu-centric opus known as "The Crown," music by Stevie Wonder mixed with knowledge by Gary Byrd, aka "Professor of the Rap," which Tongue found recently in Raleigh. Old-Time Granny and Alexis were both Dancefloor MVPs, as they made sure the whole joint was jumpin'.
The drive-by dance party extended the entire movie nite until well past the midnight hour, so we were all jamming and singing along to "The Crown" well into Sunday morning. A "toad-ally awesome," unplanned jam.