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INTERVIEW FOR Disco-Disco.com My mentor/teacher was the man previously mentioned, Paul Solari. I was so young 16 & 1/2 years old so he had to teach me everything: How to act, how to behave with bosses, who to respect at the club, who to keep away from, etc. In addition what songs do the club like & don't like. My taste at the time was very soul, pop & funk orientated. I didn't know about the 'underground hustle music'. He taught me that also. My absolute favorite was Walter Gibbons. We used to go to Galaxy 21 after work to listen to him spin. Our clubs closed at 4am---Walter would be getting warmed up around that time. He would go until 11am sometimes. He had his own 'home made' remixes that he would play. He also worked on a 'tri-amp' system in which he would have separate volume controls for the bass, treble, & midrange. He would work the controls in & out to make a different sound everytime he played the song. It was incredible. He once played the break from "10%" and "Disco Party" back & forth, changing the bass, horns, & highs in & out, song to song; the place went nuts!!!! Another DJ I loved was Francois Kervorkian. He would take chances and be very progressive with his music. At 5am with the crowd screaming on he switched genres and went from "Super Freak" to "Bedsitter" to "Cake" to "Start Me Up" and back to 'D' Train. The crowd screamed even more. And he has remixes no one had. "Bedsitter" & "Cake" were a couple of them--->took me 2 months to find. (imports) I didn't invent the wheel or anything. I like to spin with momentum. I don't like to keep it on the same plane. I like to be progressing to an emotional upswing. It has to keep going up or it has to change. If I see people on the dance floor getting bored even a little, I will change the music completely and start over. I want them hooping & hollering; havin' fun. Another thing that made me a lil different is that I liked to have my own versions of the top songs. I made lots of plates at Sunshine Sound and even more on reel-to-reel or cassette. Paul Solari, my teacher/mentor gave me my first gig. It was at 'The Last Laugh'--it was latin night - Thursday night and I had to play in between The Joe Cuba Sextette, a very popular salsa band from the late 60s. I was young & nervous and Paul would not be there--I was on my own and I did well. I remember playing "Love's Theme" for the 1st time that night and people asking me "what is that song?". I knew I was there to stay. The first 2 places I worked at (Last Laugh & The Playhouse) was very Mob orientated places. I was young & naive to this fact. An older gentleman asked me to play Frank Sinatra; I then told him that I didn't have any and we don't play that here anyway. (I told him with the boldest face that a scrawney 17 year old could muster up)---The boss was there 10 minutes later looking in the closet for an old dusty Sinatra LP that he had stashed just in case; he was very very nervous as he pleaded/ordered me to play it. I naively asked him why? The people will stop dancing. This was at the height of the night. He was shaking at this point and said "Just do it NOW!" I've had different great jobs in my life. I was a bus driver for the New York City Transit Authority for 10 years.(self-explanitory) and I was a case manager/court liason for NYC T.A.S.C. {Treatment Alternatives for Street Crime} I assessed defendants in prison for admission into various residential drug treatment programs. That went on for 10 years. I had my own problems with addiction. With the help of Narcotics Anonymous I finally delt with my own demons. One day at a time!!!!!! The Last Laugh was my first in 1974.(3 months) The Playhouse was 1975-1976.. (18 months) Act III was 1976. (4 months) Tropicalia was 1976-1980 (3 & 1/2 years) Pegasus was 1980-1982 (18 months) The Roof Top was 1984. I played there for 3 weekends until I was fired for partying in the booth. (Pete knows the story, I won't get into it here) Obviously Tropicalia 'cause it was the most famous & beautiful club. The Playhouse because I was so young and could play ANYTHING there and they loved it! Absolutely---In the Bronx, I was well known. People would come to hear me play & to hear NEW music. That was easy. Once I went into Tropicalia in Manhattan, an established club, they didn't care for what I used to play in the Bronx and wanted to be entertained in a different way. They were like 6 months behind in the music, and I had to adjust BIG TIME!!! When I got to Tropicalia they were into "MIDNIGHT LOVE AFFAIR", "LADY BUMP", & "TRY ME" and in the Bronx we were over those songs already. So I had to get the crowds favor by playing their favorites while training them to like newer music at the same time. I worked there 5-6 nights a week so it was easy but still a task. Took me the better part of a year to do this. Ask Louis Pegno (a DD.com member) who was the doorman. He would see the frustration in me from time to time. The Playhouse: "ZING WENT THE STRINGS", "DATE WITH THE RAIN", "LA LA PEACE SONG", "WHEN THE FUEL RUNS OUT", "LOOK ME UP", "HONEY BEE" Tropicalia: "DISCO PARTY", "TEN PERCENT", "DEVIL'S GUN", LOVE & KISSES, "THIS TIME BABY", "MAGIC BIRD OF FIRE", "I FEEL LOVE", "B-2" Pegasus: "JUST A TOUCH OF LOVE", "JUST A LITTLE BIT OF JAZZ", "I'LL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU", "I'M IN LOVE", "AND THE BEAT GOES ON", "LOVE IS THE MESSAGE", "HEARTBEAT", "GIVE ME", "NIGHTS, FEEL LIKE GETTIN DOWN" * Any comments or special memories from these clubs? So many memories!! Like the time Peter Martins the owner of Tropicalia threw George McCrae out of the DJ booth & club because he wasn't dressed properly (he had a jeans suit on)--Peter thought he was one of my friends from around the way. George was bringing me his latest 12" "LOVE IN MOTION / GIVIN BACK THE FEELIN" At The Playhouse we booked The Trammps to play live on a saturday night in '75. We thought it would be 4 dudes lip-singing to their hits like American Bandstand or Soul Train. I mean they only has 4 singles out--no album yet--they were pretty cheap to get--only $1100 total for 2 sets. They came with a 14 piece band--2 vans full, complete with a baby grand piano--they did ALL the Philly Sound hits to perfection: "LOVE TRAIN", "TIME", "BACK STABBERS", "THE LOVE I LOST", "SATISFACTION GUARANTEED", and their 4 singles: "ZING......", "WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE / SHOUT", "LOVE EPIDEMIC", & "TRUSTING HEART". They even did "SEXY" (MFSB's hit at the time). I was pleasantly shocked!!!!! (for days)
The Playhouse was the first where I was the house DJ. Paul Solari got US the job; we were partners. He was like my agent, he did all the talking, all the negotiating, all the scheduling. The other clubs I got on my own, thru the owner visiting where I was working (Tropicalia) or auditioning (Pegasus).
booth, Tropicalia was beautiful. Mirrored walls. Silver shiny dance floor. Very elegant. DJ booth was not huge (one huge step up from the dance floor), but I could fit 3 crates of records in the shelves so it was ample. When you walked in the bar was to the left, tables to the right, bright colors all around, very elegant. Then the back room was huge & dark--flashing lights bouncing off the mirrors & dance floor--it was very hard to see. Pegasus was on 2nd Avenue between 63 & 64 street. I had to earn respect there. I was the only white person in a black club, so on appearence I didn't have much credibility at first. Only the backing of the floor manager who hired me. It took a few nights but I settled in nicely. I knew I was in when the bartender, a LL fan and Paradise Garage member, gave me the thumbs up!!! When Pegasus was closed I didn't look for a DJ gig right away. The music was changing and the atmosphere was changing. I knew I just couldn't go to ANY club and play what I played to any crowd. Disco was split up to different factions in 1982. Freestyle & HiNRG clubs abounded where "Funkytown" & "It's Raining Men" & "So Many Men" were must plays and I didn't want to do that. The clubs that I could play freely were few & far between; and they were taken up already by new & hungrier DJs. Like I was when I was 17-20 years old. Now I had a full time job (bus driver, paying me well with medical benefits) and I was happy doing private parties once in a while. That's when my problem with addiction went into full bloom. (I missed alot of songs between '84-'90) In the beginning the DJ was the guy who broke the music. In The Playhouse the crowd EXPECTED me to play all the BRAND NEW HOT music at the height of the night--1am. They went there for that. Up to 1980 the DJs ruled. After that Radio ruled. The dancing crowd listened to Disco Radio that would play the same 20 songs and would start expecting the DJs to do the same----and a lot of DJs did. There were many DJs that got good gigs being human juke boxes and that ruined it for many. Many club owners concerned with business only would hire a DJ that would cater to the radio crowd. If a DJ balked, he would be 'out' and the owner would hire someone that would. There were clubs that played 'progressive' but were few and far between. I guess the newer music is because the breaks are prevalent and the beats are constant, but if you are not careful what you program, 'like sounding beats' can get pretty boring. You can be technically the best mixer and have a pretty boring set. It's not always about the mix. It's about the atmosphere & the music you play. Easier to mix today, but harder to judge a dance floor.
Like noted above, momentum, drama, emotion, & happy music. Tropicalia & Pegasus are tied. I could play the new mixed in with the classics at any given time. I seen most of them at the record pool (99 Prince St.) I generally kept with myself & my friends Paul Solari & David C. David had 2 nights at Ipanema, and then a residency at Coatails Disco. No we did not keep in touch. I have reunited with Paul thru this site. We are in touch now constantly; trading music & reminiscing * I know you did the "Hollywood Dub" acetate, did you do other well? I've done many on acetate (Paul has them all) and on Reel & cassette. The story about the Hollywood Dub is on Disco Patrick's website. http://www.discopatrick.com/home/14-jay-hollywood.html
Mostly Me & Paul were inspired by Tom Moulton & Walter Gibbons. They didn't change the music. They just wanted to get the best part of the song longer & better suited for the dance floor. And that's what I did. First before the Record Pools, Me & Paul used to go to the record companies to get product. Each company had mostly the same DJs getting music. Then Billy Smith the promo guy of 20th Century Records circulated his list that most of the companies adopted to be "the list"---if you was not on the list, you wasn't getting any music. I was a charter member of the first record pool called "The Record Pool" at 99 Prince St. It was run by David Mancuso, David Rodriguez, & Steve D'Aquisto. After politics was going to tear the pool apart many DJs went with Judy Weinstein's "For The Record" run by the 'Cork & Bottle' DJ (I forgot his name). I went to LI Disco DJs run by Jackie McCloy. I knew him and I knew he ran a tight ship. None of his DJs were bogus. The most records I got in a week was around 50 with an average weekly pick up of 35. Only a few were good---lots of BS music being pushed on us at the time. I wasn't good friends with any, but I used to pal around with Bacho (everyone did) I still have most of my records---I used to give at least 100-200 discs away each year ('77-'00)---I figured if I didn't play them, I didn't need them. I was foolish. Wish I had some of 'em back!!--I still have about 2,000 discs behind my couch. I kept the cream of the crop. That's always hard! ok, today it's: "DISCO PARTY"--"10%"--"MY LOVE IS FREE"--"HIT & RUN"--"DOCTOR LOVE"--"DREAMING A DREAM"--"THAT'S WHERE THE HAPPY PEOPLE GO"--"BAD LUCK"--"MAKE IT FUNKY"--"HEARTBEAT" Did I tell you that I love the Philly Sound?? " It started going bad for me when real commercial bubble gum songs (to me) started being real big hits: "FUNKYTOWN", "IT'S RAINING MEN", "SO MANY MEN", Viola Wills, all the freestyle sounding the same drove me away for awhile. When HOUSE, which I see as a direct decendant of Disco, came on I got interested again. Artists like Ten City, Jamiroquai, C&C, & Incognito brought it back for me. "DISCO PARTY" The Trammps. "you only go around once in life, and it's about time you have some spice; all work & no play makes a very dull day, yea,yea, yo, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoh!!!" Music that moves me---mostly Disco/House/Funk with momentum. That narrow it down for you?? I just LOVE music. tell about? Or any The Trammps, I told the story above.
Some you got special contact with?None Barry White used to hang in Tropicalia every Tues & Weds; He used to have his own table in the corner and would hate when he heard his songs played. Ashford & Simpson lived across the street from Pegasus and would bring me their latest projects when they would be ready to release them. Phyliss Hyman used to come to Pegasus all the time. WHO GOT IT BETTER THAN ME?????? |