ODDS ‘N’ BODS
KEVIN ASHTON (St Austell Quasars) queries the date that Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley ‘Jack Your Body’ first reached the UK on import; it was just before Livewire’s Bognor weekender, where it was an instant hit, so presumably during the week ending April 12, 1986 — I certainly bought it then, too late for review in our issue of April 19 although not for the chart (where its entry at 60 was accompanied by full BPM details, the review following a week later) … US import deliveries were running late last week, so similarly check the Disco chart for the very hottest numbers, as usual! … Jackie Wilson’s follow-up, with unadventurous predictability, will be ‘(I Get The) Sweetest Feeling‘, complete with modelling clay video, whereas something less obvious like the exciting ‘Baby Workout‘ (already much played by radio and great in stereo) would surely help expand his marketable catalogue? … Technics DJ Mixing Championships heats last week saw the strongest line-up to date at Birmingham’s Millionaire, where the charmingly beatific Scooby Swift (from the Fox & Goose) was the crowd-pleasing winner — in fact, something the competitors in unruly Bristol could have copied, he actually shushed the crowd so his mixes could be heard! — with Phil Docherty (from Exchange One) second and Dave Evans (from Manchester’s Saturdays) third … Scooby so impressed the Millionaire’s management that he starts Mondays there this coming week, and is with his Friday Fox & Goose partner Paul Dixon plus Kenny B at Bonkers from this Sunday, too — the fruits of success … Bristol’s heats at Kingswood’s Chasers by contrast were the lowest standard so far (almost everyone that failed the preliminaries in Birmingham would have qualified there), being won by local favourite Dirty Den with Burnham-on-Sea’s hip hopping Martin Eccles a worthy second and Tristan Bolitho (from Bristol’s Studio) a Chad Jackson-copying third … February 10’s UK finals at the Hippodrome look like being a hot night not to be missed, while DJs of the stature of Jazzy Jeff are competing in the US heats for a place at March 9’s world finals in the Royal Albert Hall! … Raze ‘Jack The Groove’ has definitely been this year’s most mixed record, while ‘Set It Off’ still crops up, and others we’ve grown used to are ‘Holiday Rap’ (only at preliminary stage!), ‘Showing Out’, ‘House Nation’ … I find one hazard of wearing a specially tailored promotional baseball jacket emblazoned with MCA’s logo on the back is that DJs keep asking me to put them on the mailing list! … Cooltempo snapped up the sizzling Nitro Deluxe ‘The Brutal House’ (here 114¼bpm with a UK Edit flip) for release next week … Full Circle’s UK re-edit of the Special Sweaty Mix will be minus its electro intro … Paul Hardcastle has given the Siegfried Ipach-revamped (and ruined) ‘Frankfurt Mix’ of George McCrae ‘Rock Your Baby’ (Portrait 650312-6) a much stronger tight 112⅔bpm remix of his own, closer to the original in flavour … Midnight Star ‘Engine No. 9‘ (still too trite for my taste although I concede it is catchy pop) is already flipped on promo by the 0-119-119½-119¾-120-119⅔bpm ‘Les Adams Megamix‘ (MCA Records MAX 117), which sandwiches it between ‘Midas Touch’ and ‘Operator’ with some clever links … Robbie Nevil ‘C’Est La Vie’ is now in yet another creatively marketed remix, the extremely stark 103⅔bpm Steve Street Mix (Manhattan 12MTXS 14) … Swing Out Sister is also in less floor-aimed new (0-)52-103⅚-0-103⅚bpm Roadrunner Mix, laughter introed and slow to get going before then being rather abrupt, with an accelerating car effect instead of jets … George Benson’s follow-up next week is a Nick Martinelli & David Todd 111⅔bpm remix of ‘Teaser’ … Howard Hewett ‘Stay’, due here in two weeks (UK pressings being ⅓bpm faster), on US 12 inch with revised accuracy should be 98⅓bpm in the Before Midnight Mix and – I hadn’t expected Shep Pettibone to be so inconsistent! – 100⅔-98⅔-98⅙-97⅓-97⅔bpm in the After Midnight Mix … Neil Rushton’s new label Kool Kat has picked up Denise Motto ‘IMNXTC’ for UK singles release with a Scooby Swift scratch mix, plus Hollywood ‘Funk Me, Jack Me’ (again with a Scooby mix), and they’re readying a radical remix of Risky Business, all for a new deal via PRT … Wolverhampton’s Revolver Records is starting a new FM Dance label, launched by Detroit’s aptly named chantoosie, Tiger … Steve Walsh’s chantalong version and the four years old original of Fatback ‘I Found Lovin’’ are being treated like a newie in provincial discos (it’s taken this long to catch up with London?) … Walsall’s 17-year-old Andrew Brevitt has created some remarkably sophisticated studio-recorded megamixes, using digitally repeated bassIines and the like, a name to look out for … Tony Monson has quit his Saturday chart show on Essex Radio to concentrate on London’s relaunched Solar 93FM … Hammersmith Palais is currently closed for four months while Mecca gives it a massive £2½ million refit, the ‘Ask The DJ’ DJ Barry Upton therefore moving to Bedford’s new Sweetings … Midlands DJ Paul Anthony, still on crutches following a motorbike prang, has metamorphosed back into Mike Nunnerley (his real name) as general manager of Bournemouth’s new Clouds disco complex, where Paul Brady and Lorenzo Jones start a weekly soul night this coming Monday (2) with Mary Wells as special quest … Tuesday (3) Steve Walsh joins Chris “O” Kaye at Tonbridge Harveys, and Robbie Vincent souls Bexleyheath’s Drayman in Crook Log … Darlene Davis’s mother Rosetta Davis sang with Duke Ellington, while her stepmother Dee Dee Kenniebrew was an original member of the Crystals … DJs on mailing lists currently seem untrustworthy about some of the records they report in their charts as being “floor fillers”, things that by everyone else’s common consensus are more like floor clearers, with no sales support at all — please be honest! … KEEP CHILLED!
TONY DeVIT, from Birmingham’s Dome and Nightingale clubs, at that city’s heat of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships appeared to be using glass slipmats! These unfortunately didn’t help him win a place (he’d come second in the two previous years), as his flawless hi-NRG mixing seemed too orthodox and tame by today’s raunchier standards.
HOT VINYL
RISKY BUSINESS ‘Jammin’ To New Orleans’ (Kool Kat 12KAT 1) Due soon for a more widely available remix too, this Paul Hardcastle-ish good juddery slick 0-114bpm electro-backed piano instrumental (in three mixes) is the creation of three Midlands disco DJs, (left to right) keyboardist Kevin Roberts from Halesowen’s 42nd Street, scratcher Scooby Swift and drum programmer Paul Dixon, both from Birmingham’s Fox And Goose. In addition, Scooby was the winner of last week’s Birmingham heat in the Technics DJ Mixing Championships!
MILLIE SCOTT ‘Ev’ry Little Bit’ (US 4th + B’way BWAY-432)
Mildred seems to be Millie in the States too, slowing down to the Martinelli tempo for a Nazarian & Bradley-produced pleasant gently jittering 102bpm smooth swayer that’s had hot response as it’s in a popular format, the still fairly vocal Instrumental and Dub oddly making only the same use of David McMurray’s slick sax as does the A-side.
MR. K MIX BY SPECIAL K ‘Rock The House (Medley)’ (US T.D. Records Inc TD 801)
Reputedly connected with Chicago DJ Vince Lawrence, although not house, this fast-selling 113-114½-115-114¼-115⅔-114bpm mix medley, with a punchier 113¾-113½-113¾-113⅓bpm flipside variation, synchs and scratches James Brown, Hamilton Bohannon and others over what appears to be Magic Disco Machine’s ‘Scratchin’’, to far more smoothly flowing effect than some mixers achieve. A hot one! Continue reading “January 31, 1987: Risky Business, Millie Scott, Mr. K Mix by Special K, Lola, Sweet Tee & Jazzy Joyce”