Month: February 1987

ODDS ‘N’ BODS

Steve Walsh learnt while at MIDEM that Boris Badenough isn’t having a go at Rocky Jones, in fact ‘Hey Rocky!’ is about TV’s cult cartoon series ‘Rocky And Bullwinkle’, and will be promoed with a new B-side for radio which has the characters’ voices (cut-up Steinski style in the actual record) answering questions left blank for DJs to fill in themselves … 19 releases on Chicago’s Trax Records label, including current stuff, have been compiled on a fast-selling German import LP, ‘Chicago Trax (Volume 1)’ (BCM TX 33-5001-43) – presumably the ‘What’s Up Rocky?’ credited to Boris Betanoff is the same as the above? … Darryl Pandy has done a vocal version of ‘Jack Your Body’, to be called ‘Work Your Body’, for D.J. International Records … Chris Amoo of the Real Thing, as probably everyone knows by now, was the proud owner of Crufts’ Supreme Champion 1987 (we’re talking dogs here), Viscount Grant – commonly called “Gable” … MC Double Def Sef launches A&M’s new dance label Breakout with a lunchtime reception at Soho’s Le Beat Route in Greek Street on Monday, March 9, conveniently sandwiched between the previous day’s International DJ Convention and that evening’s World Final of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships (also conveniently, for out-of-towners, just across the road from Groove Records shop!) … Bathgate’s Bill Grainger (0506-54305), the guy who more than anyone else “broke” Tullio De Piscopo, has started First Class Radio & Club Promotions to plug dance records in Scotland with personal DJ contact (servicing all types of dance music, not just hi-NRG/Eurobeat) … Kool Moe Dee – true to his stance as rap’s caring social worker? – hosts the second annual rap awards this Saturday (28) at New York’s Town Hall, with appearances by such as Salt-n-Pepa, LL Cool J, UTFO, Spoonie Gee, Doug E Fresh, Oran ‘Juice’ Jones, Stetsasonic … Kurtis Blow is currently guest presenter of Saturday morning kids’ TV on the US NBC network! … Damon Rochefort’s involvement as producer of Junior Gee & The ‘A’ Team actually extends to being the impersonator of Arnold Schwarzenegger, recreating all ‘The Terminator’ (and Dalek!) dialogue himself … Breakfast Club, reviewed last week, turns out to be the “nom de disque” of Madonna’s frequent collaborator Stephen Bray, so it’s surprising he hasn’t concocted something a bit sharper for himself … I know, I know: the jazz tune synched under Salt-n-Pepa ‘My Mike Sounds Nice’ is Grover Washington Jr ‘Mr Magic’ – incidentally, the girls’ UK-only 0-91⅔bpm remix will be on Champion here March 10 … Nitro Deluxe, were the UK pressing and original import similar enough in format to be combined in the chart, would have been top Disco hit since two weeks ago … John Rocca’s ‘I Want It To Be Real’ may have always meant something in Chicago but even its Ultimate Mix ’87 (not due on CityBeat for nearly a month) still seems unlikely to mean much here in its main (0-)122-122½bpm Club Vocal, although the total instrumental 121⅔-121¾bpm Farley’s Hot House Piano Mix is self-descriptive and could find takers … Arthur Baker while here has produced a secret project for Champion … ‘(You’re My) Shining Star’ is Curtis Hairston’s new US release … Dennis Edwards, still recording solo too, has rejoined the Temptations … Livewire/Top Hat on Saturday, March 14, start a monthly soul and jazz night amidst the shark tanks at Brighton Aquarium, dubbed “the night that bites back!”, with Chris Hill, Robbie Vincent, Pete Tong, Gilles Peterson, Paul Clark, Big H and Froggy, in two music rooms … Livewire (01-364 1212) at their four day Easter weekender in Prestatyn have added to the DJ bill Paul Oakenfold, Chris Forbes, CJ McKintosh (Chad Jackson is booked anyway, plus hopefully Jazzy Jeff, and now maybe Atlantic Starr) … London’s ebullient soul jock CJ Carlos had better keep a higher profile if he doesn’t want his once distinctive initials to become more synonymous with Mixing champ CJ McKintosh! … Larry Foster of Gants Hill Villa has spent the last year preparing a Music Quiz for East London, weekly heats beginning on March 18 at Walthamstow’s The Lorne Arms, entry forms being available in advance from him on 04023-75059 … Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers play three nights at Kentish Town’s Town And Country Club, March 26/27/28 … Thursday this week (26), Paul Williams, Mike Knight and Alan Coles support go go-funk group Bustin’ Loose at Georgetown’s The Kirkhouse, Merthyr Tydfil, while Chris Brown, Chris Bangs and Simon Dunmore jazz-soul the Rhythm Zone at Northolt’s C&L Country Club (just off the A40 south of the Polish War Memorial) … Friday (27) Joe Field, Bob Masters, Chris Bangs, Bob Cosby and Dave Ealand fill two rooms with soul and jazz at Hemel Hempstead’s Heath Park … Saturday (28) Jasper, Norman Jay and Martin Drake have a Seventies Funk Attack at Hackney’s Shen-Ola Nightclub, while Kev Hill souls Great Yarmouth Mole Club … Eon Irving funks London West End’s Munkberrys Wednesdays … Andy Baker funks Fridays at Bangor’s hi-tech Octagon (on a par, equipment-wise he reckons, with the Hippodrome) … Bishop Stortford’s Juicy Duck is undergoing a complete £30,000 facelift (which would probably buy a few new pygmy bulbs for the Hippodrome!), much to the delight of Les Knott and his fellow jocks … Mecca, as well as aggressively recruiting new DJs around the country, have revamped Bolton’s Cinderella Rockerfellas into the new Ritzy (with a Central Park brasserie), while Tiffanys in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Dunstable are being renovated … Paul Frettingham soon becomes a real VJ, as well as DJ at Nottingham’s Central Park/Ritzy, where an actual TV studio will transmit closed circuit programmes of videos and PAs to the club’s 34 screens … Jackie Becker (Brighton Escape Club Mon/Savannah Club Tues/The Crypt Thurs) tips that Candido ‘Jingo’ mixes well with ‘Jack The Groove’ and ‘Jack Your Body’, plus Quando Quango ‘Genius’ is good with such as ‘It’s OK, It’s OK’ and ‘IMNXTC’ … Stacey Q ‘We Connect’ topped US 12 Inch Sales, Madonna ‘Open Your Heart’ and then Mel & Kim ‘Showing Out’ topped Club Play in Billboard – whose US Black Singles Chart, now once again printed in rm, is not in fact a reflection of the dance singles that are selling, but of the singles being played by black-orientated “urban” radio … DJs are still not supporting the Eurobeat chart in significant enough numbers yet they continually whinge that it isn’t truly representative of what’s really big in their clubs – so who’ve they got to blame? … ILLIN’ ‘N’ CHILLIN’!

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HOT VINYL

BRUCE WILLIS ‘Respect Yourself’ (Motown ZT 41118)
With the part of Mavis played by June Pointer in dominating support, the star of TV’s ‘Moonlighting’ tackles the Staples Singers’ classic in similar 118⅓-0bpm style. Bruce is actually promoting his album ‘The Return Of Bruno’ with a half hour video hosted by Dick Clark as if in the US TV series ‘Rock Heroes’ (like ‘Portrait Of A Superstar’), tracing through hilariously accurate period pastiches and dozens of superstar interview clips the supposed career since the mid-Sixties of Bruno Radolini, supplying this his singing alter ego with an instant mythic past. See it if you can!

BANANARAMA ‘Trick Of The Night’ (London NANX 12)
You’d never know from hearing the dreary seven inch pop version, but for the 12 inch its producers Stock-Aitken-Waterman and mixer Phil Harding have revived their old trick, making the first half of this (0-)105½bpm jiggler sound exactly like Princess’s ‘Say I’m Your Number One’, instrumental for ages before any real vocal begins! (A separate strictly promo pressing hasn’t any vocal at all, in dub and instrumental versions, for collectors). Now that DJs are discovering this, the flip’s house-ish (0-)117¾bpm ‘Set On You‘ is helping sell it, too.

FULL CIRCLE ‘Workin’ Up A Sweat’ (EMI America 12EA 229)
Massive on import but worth buying again now, the Randy Muller-produced Lutheran soul vocal group’s piano underscored jittery roller here is without the 109-108¾bpm Special Sweaty Mix‘s offputtingly electro intro and has a new mellower 108¾bpm Album Version, just the 108bpm Dub Version being still in schizoid original form, with juddery edits. Class, more than crossover. Continue reading “February 28, 1987: Bruce Willis, Bananarama, Full Circle, Donald Byrd, Gigolo Tony”

ODDS ‘N’ BODS

Last week’s UK final of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships was plagued with equipment problems, to the extent that Bristol’s (much improved) Dirty Den and defending champion Chad Jackson had to compete twice, and Birmingham’s hotly tipped Scooby Swift was stymied by a headshell not fully rammed home – this however didn’t stop him from turning one of the pick-ups upside down to play the underside (backwards) of a record specially prepared and mounted on a spindle several inches above the turntable! … 21 judges hopefully left no room for dispute over the result, Chris ‘CJ’ McKintosh being a clear winner (his regular gig is Fridays at Escapism in New Cross’s Goldsmiths Tavern), Chad claiming second despite his bad luck, and Johnny Jay from Manchester’s Gallery coming third (using headphones most of the time, although as you see he pulled some other stunts!) … Des Mitchell, back again from Tenerife, was also much improved over his heat’s performance and only just missed a place … Glasgow’s George Little, as a photograph in my possession proves, wasn’t wearing much under it when he swirled his kilt! … Mantronik was due to spin a few in a PA but, working more with beat boxes than record decks these days, he apparently felt he’d be upstaged when the first thing he saw on arriving at the Hippodrome was Chad scratching with a chair, so he left! … Chad’s spot began blazingly with Elvis Presley ‘Trouble’, Eddie Cochran ‘C’mon Everybody’, synched over T. La Rock ‘Back To Burn (Dub)’, then LL Cool J ‘Rock The Bells’ scratched instead; at Adrian Sykes’ star-studded birthday party the following night in Mayfair’s Gullivers, Chad then did a blinding scratch set using the club’s records (in his retirement, he plans to start making records of his own this year, with fellow Mancunian mixer Rob Manley promising something different!) … EMI’s new dance label Syncopate will be launched with Lola ‘Wax The Van’ … MC Double Def Sef’s new project, the A&M Breakout dance label will kick off after the International DJ Convention next month with Herb Alpert, a coupling of Janet Jackson ‘Let’s Wait Awhile’/‘Nasty (Cool Summer Mix)’ and Vesta Williams ‘Don’t Blow A Good Thing (Remix)’ … ‘Scream’ will definitely be Mantronix’ follow-up here, and Loose Ends are reissuing ‘Gonna Make You Mine’ (in only one mix, Virgin promise!) … Jazzy Jeff’s LP on Champion is out here ahead of the US, where he’s now on Jive – who (not without argument) are claiming him for the UK too in future … Portsmouth’s Domino Records rather handily, considering its inclusion in ‘Touch Of Jazz’, are reissuing Donald Byrd ‘Change (Makes You Want To Hustle)’ … Chicago house label Trax Records’ pressings are sometimes of inferior quality apparently because the vinyl used is from recycled K-Tel LPs – what, label and all?! … StreetSounds’ albums are suddenly becoming collectors’ items, particularly the Philly boxed set (selling at £60 in some places) … Streetwave – separate from and not to be confused with StreetSounds – has a creditors’ meeting on Monday (23) at London’s New Berners Hotel to discuss the company’s probable liquidation … UKHAN? UKHANT! … Kev Hill and Simon Williams are after hip hop and heavy metal jocks for a mailing list: send work details to them at Pillar Promotions, Southbank House, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ … Martin Collins, Bob Jones, Graham Gold, Chris Bangs, Bob Masters, Joe Field, Jonathon More, Paul Clark, Paul Morrisey, Bob Cosby, Tony Fernandez, Mervyn Anthony, Alex Lowes and Richard Searling are the DJ team for Caister Soul Weekend XIX on April 3-5 (details from Netphase on 01-886 8141) … Friday (20) Uxbridge Regals has a Record Industry Party with pluggers playing their own product, and Fat Larry’s Band join Dave Rawlings at South Harrow Bogarts … The KISS-fm club is open Saturdays 10pm-4am in Haringey’s Green Lanes on Salisbury Parade (not a stone’s throw from Bolts!) … Tim Westwood’s House Of Rap chills Monday’s Rap Trap just behind Charing Cross at the Sanctuary in Craven Street … Megastar earmuff-wearer John Saunderson sparkles every Thursday at Maidenhead’s Cinderella Rockerfellas … Carl Cox, Paul Clark and weekly guests go under the name of Brickhouse when souling Sundays in Brighton, usually at the Apollo (though check on 0273-698699 for other venues) … Melba Moore is soon to join the cast of ‘Falcon Crest’, playing a lawyer … ‘LA Law’ is the yuppy ‘Hill Street Blues’, full of well dressed, attractive, sexy people in otherwise familiar situations, for the time being a fresh change … Bruce Willis excelled himself on ‘Moonlighting’ last week, walking into the office singing the entire “hi everybody” intro of Archie Bell & The Drells’ ‘Tighten Up’ – incidentally, it’s the Pointer Sisters who recreate Mavis Staple’s vocal on his US hit revival of ‘Respect Yourself’ … ILLIN’ ‘N’ CHILLIN’!

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JOHNNY JAY scratched with everything including the kitchen sink and came third in the Technics DJ Mixing Championships, CHAD JACKSON used a chair (plus his nose, a ball, and his foot) and came second this year, while “C.J.” McKINTOSH relied on just his expert flawless scratching, exciting technique, and sense of music to come out on top. Is there a moral in that?

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COLIN HUDD, having left Flicks, is now playing his choice of the very best music no matter what its type on Thursdays at Welling’s The Station (guess what that’s near!), while his twin Dennis Hudd is getting ready to start a more pop-orientated night at Ealing’s Broadway Boulevard on Wednesdays soon.

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HOT VINYL

AMII STEWART ‘Love Ain’t No Toy (Remix)’ (RCA PT 41106)
Written way back by Norman Whitfield in his typical ‘Cloud Nine’ style, this purposefully pushing 102⅓bpm gritty jitterer drives remorselessly through emulator “toy-toy-toy” chipmunks as it develops towards a more coolly grooving last half, packing quite a wallop in the beat department, with a remix of her old pleasantly swaying 94⅚bpm ‘Friends’ and the Giorgio Moroder-produced 125⅘bpm Eurobeat ‘Lover To Lover‘ as flip.

D.J. JAZZY JEFF & FRESH PRINCE ‘Rock The House’ LP (Champion CHAMP 1004)
Jeff was turned on to jazz-funk in London and went home to scratch together an explosive 104bpm instrumental ‘Touch Of Jazz’, using Marvin Gaye ‘T Plays It Cool’ (from ‘Trouble Man’), Bob James ‘Westchester Lady’, Donald Byrd ‘Change (Makes You Want To Hustle)’, Bobbi Humphrey ‘Harlem River Drive’, and Grover Washington Jr ‘Mr Magic’. The set’s standout, it’s sure to start a trend! As well as the scratch ‘n’ rap duo’s singles, other fresh cuts are the human beat boxed partying 0-102- 0bpm title track, jiggly 97bpm ‘Just Rockin’‘, 90bpm ‘Taking It To The Top‘ with brass from James Brown’s ‘Cold Sweat’, and the typical story-rap 92½bpm ‘Don’t Even Try It‘.

TULLIO DE PISCOPO ‘Stop Bajon . . . Primavera’ (Greyhound Label 12GRY 009)
In fact familiar to some holidaymakers, and DJs, for several years, it took Scotland’s gay clubs to break this infectious lightly leaping Italian jazz-funk throbber, detailed last week and here at 104⅔-103½-103⅔-103⅓-104-0bpm with a shorter 104⅙-103-103⅙-102⅚bpm instrumental flip, now destined to be a crossover smash! Continue reading “February 21, 1987: Technics DJ Mixing Championships, Amii Stewart, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Tullio De Piscopo, Boris Badenough, Juicy”

ODDS ‘N’ BODS

With ironic timing the day before he was profiled by London Weekend Television in their ‘South Of Watford’ series, Morgan Khan ran out of finance for his StreetSounds and Streetwave labels, making most of the staff redundant last Thursday while he struggled to assemble a new financial package to save the situation – hopefully his TV shot will help him … Disco Mix Club are looking for the UK’s best rappers to compete for the Shure Golden Microphone Award at March 8’s International DJ Convention – send demo cassettes to Shure Golden Mic, PO Box 89, Slough SL1 8NA, and be prepared if accepted for a rap slanging match to knock out your competitors! … Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley ‘Jack Your Body’ in its new Nomis Sirrah-mixed Monty ‘House’ Remix (London LONXR 117) clocks in at (0-)122⅓-122-121¼-122⅓-122-122⅓-121½-0bpm … Nitro Deluxe’s UK release, as well as doing away with ‘Let’s Get Brutal’ (which inevitably will be creatively marketed here in a few weeks with a remix), has been retitled for some strange reason from ‘The Brutal House’ to ‘This Brutal House’ … Paul Hardcastle’s remix of George McCrae ‘Rock Your Baby’, now that I’ve received it on 12 inch (Portrait 650312-8), turns out to be 112½-112⅔bpm and even better than the seven inch suggested … Record Shack are promoting Sadie Nine’s strangulatedly sung bounding 118½bpm ‘Let’s Work It Out’ (due Feb 23) as house rather than hi-NRG, although it’s getting support from both camps … The Jets, yet another family group who wiggle shoulders, arms and legs in a unison side-to-side three-step, have also had their Minneapolis-style frisky old (0-)125¾bpm ‘Curiosity’ re-promoted, flipped by a dub-ish 121⅔bpm ‘Crush On You’ version and the less danceable 119bpm ‘The Candle’ (MCA Records MCAT 1119) … The Real Thing ‘Hard Times’ has been much improved by a mellower more flowing (0-)110⅕bpm The Real Mix (Jive JIVER 137), although the lurching and surging song remains awfully uninspired … Steinski & Mass Media ‘We’ll Be Right Back’ has been stripped down into a dull (0-)101-0bpm Hard Sell remix (4th + B’way 12BWX 59) by the label’s Ian Dewhirst and Jon Williams, its only advantage being a backing-less Bonus Voices of the featured TV bits … Monte Moir is producing new material by Aurra … Atlantic’s new girl Miki Howard was of course in Side Effect … Maze, having sold out Wembley Arena at the end of this month, are adding four new dates on March 19-22 at Hammersmith Odeon – where Phyllis Hyman appears on April 13 … Caister Soul Weekend XIX is at Gt Yarmouth’s Seashore camp on April 3-5 … Roger Johnson, the first ever UK winner of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships in 1985, does live mixes every Monday on Radio London during Dave Pearce’s show, and otherwise works behind the counter at Hammersmith’s Spin-Off’s disco store – no globe trotting as an ambassador of mix for him … Dave’s radio guests two Mondays ago, scratching live, were Run-DMC! … Alan Coulthard would be first to admit that I was regularly using the term “Megamix” (which other people had even made my nickname in the late Seventies!) long before he is now reported to have “coined” it four years ago, when he began creating megamixed medleys as the Disco Mix Club’s original producer … Full Circle are having to be renamed as First Circle in the US to avoid confusion with another group there, although here they’ll remain the same (this means that only a very few rare copies of their now wrongly printed import LP have got through so far) … Hot House is obviously a good name for a group, except right now (with “house” having a whole new meaning) it may be the wrong name, their classy slowie sadly looking more like a turntable hit than a seller … Leeds’ Dave Hutchinson calls himself Funkmaster Hutchy, not (as last week’s caption had it) Funkmaster Hotcity! … LL Cool J is calling himself Ill Ill Cool J, as in “illin’”! … A&M’s disco man Mike Sefton now calls himself MC Double Def Sef! … Jamaican-accented the Masters Of Ceremony are from New Rochelle, just outside New York City heading north-east from The Bronx … Champion Records’ ‘Ultimate Trax 2’ compilation will feature another battle of the DJs, this one between Whiz Kid and Jazzy Jeff … Shep Pettibone has remixed Run-DMC ‘It’s Tricky’ for US release, flipped by the brand new ‘Uptempo’ … I’m pleased to see the Beastie Boys’ great ‘Girls’ is big in Liverpool! … Robbie Nevil topped US Club Play in Billboard – whose US Black Singles chart is now printed again in rm … Luther Vandross – nice for him but bad for us – has scored his first US Top 20 pop hit with the fast ‘Stop To Love’, which may influence his future release pattern … Luther did not, despite hints that he might, look in at Tony Jenkins’ welcome return to the Hippodrome (instead he was at Stringfellows) … Arthur Baker with singers Craig Derry and Will Downing of Wally Jump Junior & the Criminal Element are currently PA-ing around the country, including this Saturday in London at the Doo At The Zoo and Delirium … Friday (13) Danny Smith jazz-souls Gt Yarmouth’s Mole Club … Valentine Saturday (14) Jonathon More, Norman Jay and oldies-playing KJ & J McCray shake up Brixton St Matthew’s church crypt (opposite The Fridge) late … Adrian Dunbar’s popular Bolts gay nights have been forced to close at Bournemouth’s Academy with a farewell Valentine party this Sunday (15) … Man 2 Man meet Man Parrish are reviving Grace Jones’s ‘I Need A Man’ on import next month … Loose Ends PA at Swansea Martha’s Vineyard on Monday (16), when Jan Allen starts a weekly free admission jazz ‘n’ soul night at Eastbourn’s Bitter End … is the Limelight still burning bright? … you can stand still to anything – currently, it appears to be to ‘Almaz’! … ILLIN’ ‘N’ CHILLIN’!

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Raze topped our Disco chart for six weeks last year with ‘Jack The Groove’, which only now has followed ‘Jack Your Body’ up the pop charts too. Masterminded by Vaughan Mason (right), whose ‘Bounce Rock Skate Roll’ was a funk hit in 1980, the New Jersey-based group includes Ben Epps (who has a hunch he may be related to veteran bongo star Preston Epps), and East Orange’s frisky Wanda Sykes, four times a winning body-builder, who sings their more recent ‘Let The Music Move U’.

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STOP PRESS

Jazzy Jeff disappointed everyone (including judges Shep Pettibone, Steve Thompson, Bruce Forest and the Latin Rascals, who waited two hours for him) by failing to show up for the US Finals of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships at New York’s Hearthrob last Friday. As he’d won the North-Eastern US heat, there was no other DJ to represent such crucial cities as New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, with the result that the winner (by unanimous decision) was San Diego’s ‘D.J. Master Rocker’ Joe Rodriguez, with Chicago’s Rodger Vergara Jr second and Miami’s Tony Garcia third. Jeff’s loss is Joe’s gain, the chance of international fame in the World Finals at the Royal Albert Hall on March 9.

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Avtar Singh, after competing in the London heat of the Technics DJ Mixing Championships, returned home to find his studio (he runs a DJ school) had been burgled. £7,500 worth of equipment had gone, (drum machines, samplers, studio mixer, most items marked with “Calibar Roadshow”), plus all his record collection. He’s offering a £1,000 reward for information leading to recovery, on Slough 45521. And he wasn’t even placed in the heat.

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Joanna Plumley is that relative rarity these days, a girl DJ. When discotheques began here in the early Sixties, it was normal for the DJs to be girls – a tradition carried on now mainly by the up-market hotel-situated chains run by such as Juliana’s, which is exactly who she worked for prior to her current shared residency at Bournemouth’s new Clouds. Incidentally, Ken Brudenell is keen to hear from more female DJs for the files of Mecca Agency International, so call him on 01-631 1976.

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HOT VINYL

MILLIE SCOTT ‘Ev’ry Little Bit’ (Fourth & Broadway 12BRW 58)
Glamorous Mildred – sometime member of the Glories, Quiet Elegance, and Cut Glass (obviously from a very young age!) – is now produced by Bruce Nazarian & Duane Bradley in the shuffling and tapping typical Nick Martinelli style on a pleasantly gently jittering 102bpm smooth swayer featuring David McMurray’s jazzy sax (dub flip), already hot on import.

TULLO DE PISCOPO ‘Stop Bajon (Primavera)’ (Spanish Blanco y Negro Music MX 114)
We have Scotland’s gay clubs to thank for discovering this superb Italian jazz-funk throbber (more commonly called just ‘Primavera’) – at 104⅓-103⅙-103⅓-103-103⅔-0bpm hardly Hi-NRG despite its Eurobeat chart placing – which I’ve known about for some time but first actually heard on Radio Clyde five weeks ago, ordering it immediately afterwards, only for it finally to arrive in this its Spanish pressing a matter of days ahead of UK release on Greyhound Records! Leaping lightly along, it features jazz trumpeter Don Cherry with tympanist Tullio and one of those Falco-style unobtrusive muttering European chant-raps, or a shorter 104⅙-103-103⅙-102⅚bpm instrumental flip. Either way, miss it at your peril!

MEL & KIM ‘Respectable’ (Supreme Records SUPET 111)
Due commercially on February 23, the girls’ follow-up is a beefily bounding 0-121¾bpm house-type churner created once again by Stock-Aitken-Waterman (so it’s not the Isleys’ oldie!), with a deadly commercial Eurobeat-ish singalong vocal melody, and more sparsely Chicago-style (0-)119¼bpm Extra Beat Version jack track flip. Continue reading “February 14, 1987: Millie Scott, Tullo De Piscopo, Mel & Kim, Taurus Boy, Herb Alpert”

ODDS ‘N’ BODS

DAVE THOMAS (Shrewsbury Oak Hotel) reckons Robbie Nevil’s ‘C’est La Vie’ was first recorded by Beau Williams on his 1984 LP ‘Bodacious’ … Technics DJ Mixing Championships heats came to an end last week, Dudley’s Des Mitchell (Newcastle winner last year) flying back from his Tenerife Bananas residency to win at Bournemouth Clouds, with Angus Kemp from Ealing Lucky’s second and Warren Aylward from Portsmouth third (Finchley’s smooth Mark Savva couldn’t keep up the pressure on the night despite being best in the preliminaries) … Norbury’s Sussex (home of Les ‘Mixdoctor’ Adams) hosted with great hospitality the London heat, which saw a surprisingly low standard among 24 entrants to the preliminaries, being won by Hitchin’s Edwin Brome, with Kiwi from Croydon Easy Street second and Captain Kirk from the Bacchus circuit third, South East London’s Mark Ryder and Slough’s Avtar Singh deserving mention too … Midnight Star ‘Midas Touch’, Grandmaster Flash ‘Style (Peter Gunn Theme)’, Masterdon Committee ‘Funk Box Party’, Trouble Funk ‘Pump Me Up’, MC Shy-D, the Ovaltineys and ‘Snow White’ soundtrack songs ended up alongside ‘Jack The Groove’ and others already mentioned as the most mixed records by the time all the heats were over! … £350 worth of Technics CD-based SL-PJ20 hi fi midi system, including twin cassette decks, tuner, graphic equalizer and speakers, was the prize for each heat winner, while at the UK final next Tuesday in London’s Hippodrome (with Arthur Baker among the judges) the main prize includes a set of Technics SLP 1200 CD players, the first vari-speed compact disc decks! Numark, manufacturers of rival turntables which didn’t seem up to the job last year, will evidently not be sponsoring the US mixing competition at the New Music Seminar in New York this July (12-15, again at the Marriott Marquis hotel), during which UK and European DJs will be invited to play in that city’s discos … Herb Alpert’s upcoming Jam & Lewis produced ‘Keep Your Eye On Me’ is the first DJs-promoed club remix CD single in the US … Cooltempo white labels of the February 16-released Taurus Boyz ‘Looking For A Lover‘ have been selling like hot plates, a homegrown funkily lurching 115¾bpm house bounder with a pop edge (and is that Dancin’ Danny D on Darryl Pandy-ish vocals?) … Bruce Forest, while jocking live at New York s Better Days, added keyboards to a ‘House Mix’ of Jesse Johnson ‘She’, which may well be promoed here … Hot Chocolate ‘You Sexy Thing’ is now also flipped by a pop hits medleying 100-104⅓-105⅓-107-109-111¼bpm Megamix (EMI 12EMIX 5592), neatly edited together by Froggy … Level 42’s chunkily lurching 124½bpm rock chugger ‘Running In The Family‘ (Polydor POSPX 842) is pure pop as usual, though doubtless with some ‘soul’ support too … 12 inch copies of Sam Moore & Lou Reed’s 114bpm revival of ‘Soul Man‘ (A&M AMY 364) are flipped by ‘The More Sam Mix’, which not surprisingly leaves out Lou’s clashing vocals to give you more Sam, making it closer to Sam & Dave’s original … Experience “E.U.” Unlimited’s review last week should of course have read as 96-96⅓-97⅙bpm … Martin Scorsese has made a multi-million dollar video for a track called ‘Bad’ from Michael Jackson’s still unscheduled new LP, presumably its first single – Michael this time does not join his brothers for their chugging 106¾bpm formularized soundtrack-pop seven inch, The Jacksons ‘Time Out For The Burglar’ (MCA Records MCA 1129), theme song from the Whoopi Goldberg movie ‘Burglar’ … DeBarge as a group have left Motown to sign with its ex-president Barney Ales’ new label Striped Horse, although Chico, Bunny and El DeBarge may not be part of the deal as they’re still recording solo on Gordy … US snowstorms continued to delay import deliveries last week … Expose ‘Come Go With Me’ (Latin pop-disco peculiar to America’s Hi-NRG biased new “HOT” radio format) topped US Club Play, Sylvester ‘Someone Like You’ 12 Inch Sales, and Cameo ‘Candy’ Black 45s in Billboard … Run-DMC’s example has been followed in the US by the Beastie Boys, whose album has been made a Top 10 smash by the release of an out and out rock single, ‘(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)’ – how long before hip hop gets a chance there to cross over in its own right, without compromise? … Man Parrish has evidently remade the Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’ in hip hop style … LWT’s edition of ‘South Of Watford’ shown in the London area this Friday (6) at 11pm will be the one about Morgan Khan, while Steve Walsh (who somehow turned up at MIDEM as “promotion liaison officer” for Record Shack!) was the subject of a similarly local BBC2 programme last Friday … Radio Luxembourg next year links with Radio Telefis Eireann to start broadcasting from the east coast of Ireland on long wave, covering most of Britain as well as Ireland even during the day! … Thames Valley DJ Association somehow managed to award Citronic for an amplifier model that they don’t even make – one of several mistakes at their annual exhibition, not least being their failure to inform me of the whole show this year … Luther Vandross, currently appearing at the Hammersmith Odeon for at least eight nights, had to add ‘See Me’ to his repertoire as he had no idea it was so much more popular here than his other new material … Second Image have disbanded, former members George Bromfield and Frank Burke forming Return To Go instead, managed by Marie Birch – who has relocated with Sound Promotions to 363/65 Harrow Road, London W9 (01-960 6999) … Mantronix play Kentish Town’s Town and Country Club on Tuesday (10), Terry Davis celebrates a year of real soul at Bermondsey’s Bugles in Grange Road Thursday (12) … James Lewis has already moved his successful soul night to Swansea’s Martha’s Vineyard on Mondays, following the sale of Harry’s Dance Bar, and Paul French has started a Monday soul night at London Leicester Square’s Empire Ballroom … Joe Field souls Hemel Hempstead’s free (but smart) White Horse Tuesdays, pub hours … Paul Anderson and the Meltdown Party funk the Word Fridays at London’s Oxford Street Spats … DJ support needs to increase dramatically for the Eurobeat chart to continue in rm – unless we start receiving many more regular weekly chart returns from gay clubs (ones that break new material), to give it more substance, it will only be compiled on a monthly basis for publication in JOCKS … ILLIN’ ‘N CHILLIN’!

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The heats are over, and these are the eight finalists who will be competing against the 1986 UK champ Chad Jackson at the TECHNICS DJ MIXING CHAMPIONSHIPS next Tuesday (10), at London’s Hippodrome. The winner there then takes on the World, at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday, March 9. May the best mixer win!

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HOT VINYL

JOCELYN BROWN ‘Ego Maniac’ (US Warner Bros/Jellybean 0-20469)
James (D-Train) Williams’ producer Hubert Eaves III whips up another ‘Misunderstanding’-like ultra-infectious jiggly jumping 104⅔bpm go go-type beat (so go go at the start that you’ll begin singing “in the capital of the nation”!), through which Jocelyn soulfully squalls and roars to incredibly exciting effect — certainly her best since, and every bit as good as, ‘Somebody Else’s Guy’! (Useful instrumental dub and vocal percappella too, plus a spine tingling pure acappella of her old ‘Love’s Gonna Get You’).

NITRO DELUXE The Brutal House’ (Cooltempo COOLX 142)
Not strictly house but so massive already right now that DJs are mixing it with the jack tracks, this Hamilton Bohannon/BT Express-ish ever shifting bass and jittering percussion boosted 114¼bpm instrumental has a catchy little synth figure that cuts straight through your brain, making it impossible to ignore! Here, for some reason the US copy’s possibly more popular shorter ‘Let’s Get Brutal’ version (and dub) are replaced by a UK Edit that amalgamates elements from all.

SURFACE ‘Happy’ (CBS 650393-6)
Already an album track smash, the soulful guys’ ‘phonecall-interrupted naggingly jogging 98bpm swayer (written by Surface although first recorded by Hi Tension) is shaping up as an anthemic singalong classic, with the tenderly impassioned jolting 33⅓/66⅔bpm ‘Let’s Try Again‘ as smoochy flip. Continue reading “February 7, 1987: Jocelyn Brown, Nitro Deluxe, Surface, George Benson, Gwen Guthrie”