Year: 1975

NORWAY’S NORMAL?

LOTS OF jocks get gigs in Scandinavia, so here’s a bit of info from someone who’s over there now.

Peter Brown (Seasons Disco, Wembley, Middlesex) is spending some of the Summer working at the Hawk Club in Bergen, Norway, and from what he says it seems the Norwegians are fairly normal if just a wee bit behind the times. He writes: “My favourite music is soul . . . however, over here you have to play some really weird disco music. For instance, MAX BYGRAVES Tulips From Amsterdam (Decca) goes down tremendously, and GLENN MILLER always works a treat! You wouldn’t hear many other than mobile discos playing those in England, I’ll bet!” And more’s the pity, say I.

That’s not the only way in which Peter finds the Norwegians lagging behind the times. “Norway is slow in catching on to new records. The Norwegian Top Twenty still has GEORGE McCRAE’s Rock Your Baby in it, along with I Can Help by BILLY SWAN which if a vote was taken would probably be their new National Anthem!”

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HOT TIP

FROM Peter Greig (Route 88 Discos, Plymouth, Devon): To make your own slip mats, get two coloured felt off-cuts (usually sold in one foot squares by remnant shops) and cut them to turntable size using a suitable plate as a pattern. Fold each in half and then quarter and nip the inner point with scissors. Stick them onto your turntables with some small dabs of glue and – presto! – you have a pair of perfect slip mats for professional cueing in.

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New Spins

DWEAM DWEAM DWEAM!

THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND: (All I Have To Do is) Dream (WA UP 35875)
Yes, despite the brackets, the Everlys’ cocos commercial oldie . . . given a Misty-style updating full of twinkling banjos and mildly bouncy subdued jollity, Dreamy MoR, could be a smash.

JEANNE BURTON: Nobody Loves Me Like You Do (Seville SEV 1010) Incredibly exciting shrilly screaming gallop paced hustler by a chick who combines Gloria Gaynor and the Queen Of Clubs to produce a sound that’ll send shivers up your spine. Make it a hit!

STEELY DAN: Do it Again (ABC 4075)
and again and again and again. Maybe this time?  Continue reading “August 9, 1975: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jeanne Burton, Steely Dan, Al Wilson, Rod Stewart”

NADJ BASH

DISCO ’75 is the inspired new name for this year’s National Disc Jockey Convention & Exhibition.

Organised by the National Association of Disc Jockeys, the exhibition will be open on Monday and Tuesday, September 8 and 9, 1975, at the Bloomsbury Centre Hotel, London WC1, where the 11,000 square foot London Suite will provide room enough for a bigger and better show than before. “Our first event last year was a great success and attracted over 1,000 Disc Jockeys from all parts of the country,” says NADJ boss Ben Cree, “and this year we are aiming to double or even treble that number.”

Just a few of the many companies who will be exhibiting their wares are disco manufacturers SAI, FAL and Disco Supplies, the Mushroom Disco Centre, Atlantic Records and Aarvak Electronics. “New names are being added almost hourly,” continues Cree, “and I fully expect the show to be a complete sell-out.” Ben Cree can be contacted at PO Box 23, Hitchin, Herts, SG4 9JT (Telephone 0462 50918) for fuller info.

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SUPER SAVERS

THREE new items of disco equipment should interest many jocks, especially as each does a job that previously cost a lot of bread.

Roger Squire’s Disco Centre of 176 Junction Road, London N19, has launched a jingle machine that’s almost like the ones used on radio yet sells for a ludicrously low £29 (with a deluxe Auto-Cue model at £35). Adapted from a well-proven 8-track player, as which it can still be used, the Squire machine is designed to take special pre-recorded cartridges containing four jingles, one jingle per track on a 30 second loop of 4-track tape, cued by an illuminated track selector button. If these £2 carts are not personal enough, customised jingles cost £3.50 each.

Martin Blake Lighting and Effects of 14 Rydal Road, London SW16, have developed a carbon dioxide (dry ice) machine for creating that low-lying “Fog” effect popularised by such as “Thank Your Lucky Stars”. Evidently all other Fog Machines are incompatible with disco use, so that not only is this purpose-built unit cheap at £65, it’s also the only one available.

Proops Brothers Ltd of the Hyde Industrial Estate, Edgware Road, Hendon, London NW9 (with demonstrations at 52 Tottenham Court Road, W1), are blowing their trumpet about an effects projector selling for £19.95, which price may or may not include the necessary 12 volt transformer and a liquid wheel also quoted at £6. Less ambiguously worded, the many extras for the basic projector (which it must be emphasised is only 50 watts) include a range of eight picture wheels at £3 each and various image-splitting lenses from £6.50 to £10.

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HOT TIP

FROM David Crawt (Chessington, Surrey): “I always play BREAD’s The Guitar Man as the very last record and since it isn’t either slow or fast it gets a great response – especially when I turn the light show off and put on a strobe. A mate of mine does this as well and he enjoys it so much that he gets up and has a dance himself, leaving the decks unmanned.” Oh well, whatever turns you on!

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New Spins

FRENCH PHILLY

RITCHIE FAMILY: Brazil (Polydor 2058625)
Hip to the sort of US sound that’s big in Europe, French producer Jacques Morali went to Philadelphia to use arranger Richard Rome and the Family of Philly musicians (hence group name) on this breathless new treatment of the great old tune. The result is the new Hustle and is already ousting El Bimbo in European resorts. Incroyable!

THE HUDSON BROTHERS: Rendezvous (Rocket PIG 18)
Penned by Bruce Johnston with the Hudson boys and prod by Bernie Taupin, it’s totally pure and powerful Pop.

CALENDER: Hypertension, Pts 1 and 2 (All Platinum 6146308)
Picked up from the Pi Kappa label of Jersey City, this purposefully pounding sinister beater has elements of Grapevine with Temptations-type vocals. Mainly instrumental flip.  Continue reading “August 2, 1975: Ritchie Family, Hudson Brothers, Calender, Hustler, Billy Ocean”

FLOWER POWER

SOME light relief – mainly, details about my own secret system for making flower displays and gardens look lovely in the dark!

I must confess that I’ve never really gone in for the more flashy types of disco lighting. Instead, over the years I’ve developed a rather theatrical method of using coloured filter gels on my lights to emphasize flower arrangements and architectural features in doors, and – on a much larger scale – whole gardens and houses out of doors.

The basis of this system, apart from miles of electrical cable and dozens of adaptors, is a time-consumingly assembled set of nearly sixty swivel-mounted Par 38 150 watt lamps, some spot but mostly flood, all fitted with Rank Strand colour frame holders (and If you can get any of them these days you’ll be lucky!). Indoors I use specially wired switching circuits that give me many ways of controlling the lighting, while out of doors the Par 38s are very often wired up in conjunction with 500 watt or 1000 watt floods (which I hire). Anyway, on to the principle of the idea.

Light casts shadows, and several sources of light cast several shadows. If the lights are different colours, they combine to produce yet another colour where they all overlap, and then the shadow of each is filled in by whichever other colours can reach it. The effect of a vase of flowers or anything else multi-faceted when lit, preferably from ground level, by several sources of different coloured light is one of distorted reality and incredible depth. In gardens, a border of flowers looks like a jewel box if each individual clump is lit with a different colour so that one stands out against another. All this is hard to explain without the benefit of some colour pics, but hopefully you can get some idea of the effects that are possible. I’ll try and expand on the methods and results at a later date.

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HOT TIPS

“Cinemoid” is the brand name of the moist commonly available coloured gel for use as filters in theatre lights, etc. A combination of the following Cinemoid colours will make most flower displays look incredible: – Number 16 Blue – Green, No.34 Golden Amber, No.12 Deep Rose, No.45 Daylight, No.26 Mauve, No.6 Primary Red, No.22 Moss Green, and – depending on the flowers – No.36 Pale Lavender (Surprise Pink), No.1 Yellow or a duplication of one of the others. Those are trade secrets, y’all.

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New Spins

UH-HUH!

K. C. & THE SUNSHINE BAND: That’s The Way (I Like It) (Jay Boy BOY 99) Casey and the kids get a crystal dear rhythm thing going and get to chanting “That’s the way I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh.” Millions will concur.

THE STYLISTICS: Can’t Give You Anything (But My Love) (Avon 6105039). Eddie Calvert lives!

SOUTH SHORE COMMISSION: Free Man (Pye 7N 25688)
Bunny Sigler penned/prod, Norman Harris arr, vocal group dancer with untypical Philly backing which sets it apart and has made it a big NY disco hit. Disco mix flip.  Continue reading “July 26, 1975: “My secret system for making flower displays and gardens look lovely in the dark””

Handy Hints

IT’S GREAT to see how many mobile jocks are prepared to please more than just the kids.

Tom Waller (operating from 45 Argyll Place, Aberdeen) has plenty of good hints to pass on: “One mistake Mobile DJs make is to shine their lights into people’s eyes – not really a good idea at bookings like wedding receptions, as most older people will only grumble. Try reflecting light shows off the walls – or even the roof!” I agree, and have myself made a big thing out of lighting flower displays – about which, more another time.

Tom continues: “Mobile operators should play some slowies during a party, as nothing is more frustrating than being unable to dance up close to a beautiful girl because all the DJ plays is ravers.” On the other hand. I find it’s good not to get too slow as not everyone who’s dancing necessarily feels that way about their partner! Tom anyway suggests a few fairly lively segues which he finds when cued up correctly run well together, viz: MR BLOE Grooving With Mr Bloe / CRAZY ELEPHANT Gimme Good Loving / TOMMY JAMES Mony Mony, or DAVID BOWIE Jean Genie / SWEET Blockbuster, or NORMAN GREENBAUM Spirit In The Sky / ALVIN STARDUST My Coo Ca Choo.

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HOT TIP

From Tom Waller (Aberdeen): Get the crowd to dance to the Hokey Cokey (JOE LOSS or many other “Party” records) – with a bit of help they will dance in circles, all ready in position for an Eightsome Reel (JIMMY SHAND, on a Parlophone EP). Och aye, hoots mon!

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Funky airmail

FUNKY American disco hits sent airmail from New York every week – that’s the new service just announced by Record Source International. Many DJs, writers and broadcasters will be familiar with the other RSI services of Top 100, Soul, Country and Easy Listening hits sent in packets of ten each week. Now RSI are going to add a Disco Starter Package and a weekly Disco service: the Starter gives you fifty singles and ninety albums of disco standards and current hits to establish a basic library, while the weekly service is two brand new albums and three singles each week – all selected by Billboard’s disco research team. Cost of the service varies depending on whether surface or air mail is used, but the Starter package is 295 dollars plus air freight and the weekly service is 658 dollars airmail for one year. Other deals exist, so write for details to Record Source International, 1 Astor Plaza, New York, NY 10036, USA, enclosing an International Reply Coupon. Tell them we sent you, then maybe they’ll advertise!

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New Spins 

Now it’s Jolson

CLIVE BALDWIN: Now It’s Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Alice Cooper, Elton John (Mercury 6167170)
Dawn’s old Levine & Brown team have tied their yellow ribbons round the sound of Al Jolson and his Mammy on this very Dawn-like happy bouncer all about an old codger coming out of a 25 year coma and finding himself badly out of touch with contemporary music. Can’t fail MoR, and I fear it’s a serious rival to Harry Hasting’s other bit of summer madness.

HARRY HASTING’S PALM BEACH ORCHESTRA: She’s A Great Great Girl (Bell 1434)
OK, enough teasing – It’s rush-released this Friday! An old 1920s ditty of uncontrollable jollity, done up with synthetics and a crazily treated vocal at the very end, this Is MoR silliness of the Who’s Been Polishing The Sun/The Sun Has Got His Hat On variety. Amazingly it’s Phil Cordell and not Jo King who’s behind it all.

ROY ORBISON: Oh Pretty Woman (Monument MNT 1054)
One of the greats, from 1964 and in stereo. I nearly always segue it out of the false fade in the Beatles’ Get Back, and synchronize my lights to the stomp bits. Continue reading “July 19, 1975: Clive Baldwin, Harry Hastings, Roy Orbison, Jackie Wilson, Lenis Guess”

Party Pieces

GOOD LETTERS are coming in about the difference between mobile and club D-Jing . . . thanx!

Martin Peters (Worksop Tiffanys, Notts), a resident DJ who goes mobile on his night off from the club, has these sensible things to say: “One good thing about mobile work is you can give your best on mobile gigs – play your best records and crack all your best jokes – whereas in a club you tend to play the same discs because you know what music the customers like and expect you to play. In my disco it’s mainly Soul.”

A point that I’d like to raise here: club work probably keeps a DJ more flexible as he’s playing to much the same crowd all the time, while a mobile jock’s carefully worked out “party pieces” will seem fresh at every gig unless he’s on a very restricted circuit.

I’m afraid that some of my special record sequences have been the same for years . . . but then they do get requested in their own right! As he’s the first DJ to mention the more lunatic records that he uses to liven up his show, Martin’s choice is this week’s Hot Tip – and the best thing in his whole letter is what he says about his choice: “Some people might pull faces at these names, but to see your audience smile when you play ’em is fabulous.

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HOT TIP

From Martin Peters: FRANKIE HOWERD AND JUNE WHITFIELD’S comedy version of Je T’Aime (Pye); PETER SARSTEDT’s Take Off Your Clothes (UA); DICK EMERY’s comedy Conga-type You Are Awful (Pye); plus various tracks from Benny Hill’s Ernie LP (Columbia), which Martin says is a knockout. Now then, don’t pull faces!

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LOOK, MA NO HANDS

NOTHING’S TOO good for the Disco Page, and to prove it the classy chassis pictured here could set you back by between £1800 and £5000, depending on the amount of luxury extras you want with it. A Rolls-Royce amongst Minis, this superb console’s most exciting gimmick is possibly its remote push – button start for all three record decks and tape deck. Definitely not a mobile unit, it’s designed for permanent use in clubs, pubs, liners and the like by BACCHUS International Discotheque Services of 30 Redan Street London W14 OAB (01 – 602 6292). The whole desk comprises such items as three Goldring Lenco GL78 turntables with Shure SC35C cartridges, AKG mike and cans, two 100 watt EMI PW101 power amps (driving two Tannoy 15inch. HPD 85 watt speakers), mixer with full pre-fade cueing on all inputs, standby mixer, switch panel for fifteen lighting effects (which are extra), controls for additional background music speakers, and built-in record storage for 100 albums and 600 singles. The storage bins are raked so that the sleeves can be found at a glance. Now, how much is your club manager prepared to spend on you?!  Continue reading “July 12, 1975: Harry Hastings Palm Beach Orchestra, Eruption, Intimate Strangers, The Reflections, Dr. Feelgood”

Dance to the lyrics!

LAST WEEK I began a discussion about the many differences between dee-jaying in clubs and at mobile gigs. Until you’ve had time to join in – as I hope some of you other D-Js will – I’ll just continue with a few more of my own observations.

The primary aim of a discotheque is to entertain its audience, whether in a club or at a party. Obviously it’s a great buzz to turn people on to as yet unknown sounds, but unfortunately most people want to dance to tunes that they know. One of the very first things that I worked out when I started was that – amazing though it may seem – your average audience doesn’t dance to the music, it dances to the words. People dance to their memory of a song!

In clubs it’s much easier to play something that’s not well known – the speakers are likely to be mounted up higher and to have better penetration than at a mobile do. At many parties, people want to talk while they dance and are less likely to concentrate on the music. Consequently, unless you’ve got a super-hip crowd, at a mobile gig it’s always best to keep it obvious and simple with lots of hits to begin with – then later, when the talk has quietened down and you have felt out the crowd’s prevalent taste, get more adventurous. There can be no hard and fast rule of course other than to keep ’em happy and keep ’em dancing, but if you can entertain them AND yourself at the same time you should be really cookin’!

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HOT TIP

A perennial fave since its release in ’71, Burundi Black, Part Two – that’s the un – mucked – about – with African drums B -side of the BURUNDI STEIPHENSON BLACK single (Barclay BAR 3) – has just started to get much requested again, presumably as a result of its recent re-issue. Skip the chanting intro and segue (or dramatically cut directly into it) from another suitable raver. You shouldn’t be disappointed, although following it can be a trick!

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New Spins

Lynsey’s whimsey wins

LYNSEY DE PAUL: Rhythm And Blue Jean Baby (Jet 755)
One reaction report coming up: It works! Lynsey’s bit of thumpalong candyfloss whimsey may be lightweight but in a mixed age group setting it has just the right happy beat and straight Pop gaiety. That doesn’t mean you must rush out and buy it today . . . just wait until it hits which it will!

GRIMMS: Backbreaker (DJM DJS 393)
Silliness from the Scaffold / Bonzos refugees, this Mud / Showaddywaddy / Rubettes send-up about a wrestling girlfriend is not only very funny but also great doo-wop singing that’s worthy of the Marcels / Rivingtons / Excellents. My fave of the week, except the next two are kinda nice too.

AL MATTHEWS: Fool (CBS 3429)
For a UK production (by writer Pierre Tubbs), this bouncily clomping Four Seasons / Philly vocal group gem is remarkable. Not to be missed – In fact do your darndest to make it the smash it deserves to be! Compulsive play it again quality.  Continue reading “July 5, 1975: Dance to the lyrics!”

Hello again

Gee, but it’s great to be back home! Has it really been ten months?

Welcome, anyway, to this, the first of a regular weekly page devoted to fax & info for regular disco DJs, dancers and super sharp record freaks in general.

Just to give it all some credibility, I’d better explain where I’m coming from. I’ve been a discotheque DJ myself for over 13 years, having started out as a club jock in London and New York. During the mid-60s my main interest was soul music – and, in fact, when I was doing the weekend allniters at Soho’s The Scene in ‘65/’66 I played nothing but Northern Soul . . . on its first time around!

When I went mobile in 1968 I soon saw that an all-soul policy was too restricting, and also that as most other mobile discotheques were aimed at the kids it would make sense if I set out to win over an older age group. Older audiences, incidentally, are usually richer and more appreciative of the trouble you take. Consequently I now tend to play to very mixed age groups, for which I carry a vast range of music. There are even occasions when I don’t play a single current chart record – mainly because modern music really does sound so dull in comparison with the sort of crazy “party” music I’ve made my specialty.

This is an aspect of disco dee-jaying that I hope this page, with your participation, will bring out into the open. There are – or ought to be – huge differences of approach to dee-jaying in a club and on a mobile date. In a club you know that the audience has paid to be entertained by the musical specialty of that club, whereas at most private parties the audience is totally uncommitted. Thus in a club it would be suicide but at a mixed age probably a sensation if you managed to work in a knees-up or Scottish reel, for instance.

Let’s hear from you, the dee-jays, about some of the more lunatic records that you to liven up your presentation. Every week we’ll run a hot tip with a suggestion about record sequences or other tricks that work for you. To kick it off, try this:

HOT TIP

When you’ve misjudged and the disc you’re playing isn’t going over well, turn it to your advantage. Don’t just fade the record out: switch off the deck and let the disc grind to a halt as you start the next one. You’ll get a laugh!

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From obscure to unlikely

Together with the first weekly Disco Page, here is the Record Mirror’s very first National Disco Chart, compiled from the returns of all the disco dee-jays who recently registered as contributors to it.

It was obvious from the very first glance at all the completed chart forms that Van McCoy’s ‘The Hustle’ would come out on top . . . but then that could have been predicted anyway, right? What is really interesting is that amongst all the more usual current chart names, some of the contributing DJs have placed really quite obscure or unlikely records. All the submitted charts make interesting reading, so let’s see what some of the less likely records are.

Dougall DJ of Twechar, Kilsyth in Scotland earns my respect for including Pete Wingfield’s great doo-wop cum sweet soul parody, ‘Eighteen With A Bullet’ (Island WIP 6231), which if it isn’t a hit here will certainly be one in America, where the music trade jargon will mean more to the radio-listening public. Dougall DJ also includes A Raincoat’s ‘I Love You For Your Mind Not Your Body’ (EMI 2289), which is almost as witty although in a totally different musical style, this being kinda Roxy/Sparks/Harley-type staccato and modern . . . and good.

Pete Brown of Seasons Discotheque from Wembley, Middlesex, is right on the spot in my estimation – he’s got ‘El Bimbo’ at number one already (as an import)! As he’s evidently well into the soul sound – listing such as the Brothers, Joe Bataan, Earth, Wind & Fire and Miami – I wonder if he realised at the time that Bimbo Jet are Spanish?  Continue reading “James Hamilton’s first Disco column: June 28, 1975”