Dimitri from Paris returns to Playboy Mansion

That one I swear I didn't see coming.

When Dimitri from Paris' name no longer graced the Playboy at the Mansion compilation cd series, it didn't feel right, no respect to the two djs that followed him, and Playboy wanted to diversify the dj roster nothing wrong with that, but sales speak words and in the hearts of those who got their hands on the first 2 cds, Dimitri was the man, he truly represented the spirit of the mansion, he seemed to me and most that only HE could fill the spot.

So here we are in 2008 with the 6th Playboy mansion compilation cd (and 2 disc vinyl LP) hitting stores in mid-April 2008 with THE man at the helm and what better way to do it than give the Nu Disco artist emeritus who wears hats even if is hairline is not receding, the honor to get the spot on track 1, that is Jamiroquai. Here's the complete tracklist:

CD 1

1. Cosmic Girl - Jamiroquai
2. Always There [Masters At Work 1996 mix Dylan re-edit] - Incognito & Jocelyn Brown
3. Liv And Love - DJ Fudge & Mani Hoffman
4. Keep The Fires Burning [Tony Economides mix] - Kenny Thomas
5. Hot Like An Oven - Robert Strauss & Leroy Burgess
6. Show You My Love [DFP re-edit] - Goldie Alexander
7. Feel The Need [Boogie Down mix] - Weird Science
8. Call My Name - Timmy Vegas
9. More I Get The More I Want [promo 12" mix] - Lorraine Johnson
10. Love Massage - Musique
11. Ain't No Mountain High Enough [DFP re-edit] - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
12. Cure And The Cause [DJ Meme Philly suite mix] - Fish Go Deep & Tracey K
13. Got To Have Loving [DFP re-edit] - Don Ray
14. Let's Love Dance Tonight [Leonard part sixx edit] - Gary's Gang
15. I Like It (What You're Doing To Me) - Young & Co.
16. Is It In [12" mix] - Jimmy 'Bo ' Horne
17. Midnight Interlude - Mr. Ali
18. This Is What You Are [M. Midnight Monti & G. Gotta Soul Gottardi restyle] - Mario Biondi & The High Five Quintet
19. Come Go With Me - Teddy Pendergrass

CD 2

1. Close The Door - Teddy Pendergrass
2. I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby - Barry White
3. Un Po' D'uva E Un Liquore - Pino D'Angio
4. Friends - Amii Stewart
5. Gotta Get You Home Tonight - Eugene Wilde
6. Sweetest Pain - Loose Ends
7. I Want You - Marvin Gaye
8. Can't Stop Loving You [original Marshall Jefferson version] - Richard Rogers
9. Be Thankful For What You Got - William De Vaughn
10. Don't Let It Go To Your Head - Jean Carn
11. For Real - Flowers
12. Let's Funk Tonight [DFP re-edit] - Blue Feather
13. You Are My Melody - Change
14. Your Good Lovin' - France Joli
15. Never Stop [Blaze mix DFP re-edit] - Brand New Heavies (The)
16. Standing Right Here - Melba Moore

The fun doesn't end there. The special edition package boxset comes complete with Playboy playing cards and stickers. No words yet if the girls on the cards are dressed as rabbits or if there are vintage naked 60s and 70s centerfolds.

Return to the Playboy Mansion cd
Dimitri from Paris MySpace

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Gloria Gaynor's 30th anniversary of I Will Survive

Gaynor to appear on nationally syndicated show Better TV

– February 27th Nashville, TN – After 30 years of its release, Gloria Gaynor continues to ride the success of "I Will Survive," touring the country and the world over and performing her signature song on dozens of TV shows. A few successful remixes of the song during the 1990s and 2000s along with new versions of the song by Diana Ross, Chantay Savage, rock group Cake and others as well as constant recurrent airplay on nearly all Soft AC and Rhythmic format radio stations have helped to keep the song in the mainstream.

Now in 2008, Gloria celebrates the 30th Anniversary of her Grammy Award winning song. The lyrics of this song are written from the point of view of a woman, recently dumped, telling her former lover that she can cope without him and does not want anything more to do with him. The song has become something of an anthem of female emancipation, and is still a staple of office parties and karaoke nights.

This past weekend you may have seen Gloria Gaynor appear on The Food Network as part of Paula’s Party where she and Paula Deen cooked up some Chicken ala Gaynor!! Tomorrow, February 27th Gloria will appear on the nationally syndicated talk show Better TV and in the coming weeks she will make an appearance on Fox’s highly-rated Don’t Forget The Lyrics with host Wayne Brady as well as Showtime at the Apollo.
Our 2008 interview with Gloria Gaynor
Gloria Gaynor official website

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Moby's chicken revenge under disco ball

As you probably know by now, Moby had a disco album in the works. The first single is now out and the video is ready to do damage.

Do you have an uneasy feeling when political or social conscience blends with dance music. The scenario is this. You have a dance song with a beat obviously, so dancing equals party, but how do you party when watching chickens being slaughtered. Doesn't feel right. Are we supposed to boogie, laugh or think?

In other words, Moby attacks the iconic chicken colonel, that's his right - he follows Pamela Anderson, Russell Simmons, Sir Paul McCartney, Alec Baldwin and many others. And true, the meat industry does engage in cruel practices, there's plenty videos to back this up. Moby wants to raise awareness through a music video, it's been done before so what's the fuss? Does it work? Yes! And why not.

Well for some of us, the disco ball is sacred and have no place in a video of this nature. I'm all for Moby the artist (and person) and the cause but come on, blood splatter, Was that necessary?


Moby "Disco Lies" music video on YouTube
PETA's chicken display and celebs at GoVeg
Have fun and kick the bucket: Make your own sign display

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Disco, death, greed and scandal

A very well alive Canadian disco label and its founder president -name witheld- has been ordered by a Canadian provincial Superior Court recently to annul all contracts signed on a 70s artist -name witheld- hospital death bed last year and reimburse his widow 75gs in damage.

The widow who's the manager of the 70s artist did sign the contracts on his behalf. Who's the shark? The widow, the record label, or both?

UPDATE March 1st 2008: Record label proposed to annul all contracts signed on deathbed in exchange of the check they made, widow-manager refused. I suspect the record label will win the case, while we're at it, it's Unidisc.

Even if this was published by a reputable press agency and reproduced in various newspapers, I wasn't able to track and view the court document, for this reason, I omitted the names.

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Don't call me dj, call me concierge

S'il vous plait, may you explain why some djs don't want to be refered as djs. While understandable for on-air personalities, program directors or compilers since some of them don't gig and/or don't beatmatch.

Now there are djs out there who supplement their income or (solely focus on) compiling soundtracks for retailers, stores and fashion shows. In other words, their job is to select, assemble and sequence songs to provide a mood, ambiance or setting. Some are so successful at it that they don't gig or do clubs at all.

Although looking like a dream job at first glance, it is for those who already have a huge library of records in all forms, have a broad knowledge in music and not only dance music, spread over multiple decades, they are sort of like music librairians, historians and record collectors.

Speaking of record collectors, some have collections that rivals those of world class djs, some do beatmatch, some are self admitted vinyl junkies, most have deejayed at one time or another in their bedroom or relatives' parties, some have deejayed professionally on and off.

Read an article recently about one guy having this dream job of compiling songs specifically tailored for a brand, corporation or individuals who don't have the time to search and collect, former dj Rob Wood sums it up: "Through being a DJ and my consultancy work I've always had to filter different music to different audiences. Music Concierge was just a natural progression from what I was doing earlier in my carreer."

Wait a minute, there are two definitions of concierge. There's the high end and low end of it: Hotel busboy and janitor respectively. What does that got to do with music?

dj ... deejay .... disk jockey ... turntables technician
dr... doctor ... P.H.D. holder... often confused with physician
mc ... emcee ... master of ceremony ... old school rapper
and gotcha!
mc ... music concierge? there's a clash right there! battle of emcees

and on we go:

turntablist ... scratcher... old school hip-hop dj
superstar dj ... deejay touring globally who doesn't use turntables

Disclaimer: Image not related in any way with Mr. Wood

Read "My Big Idea: Music concierge"
The former dj now music concierge's website explains why a music concierge?
Definition of concierge at Wikipedia

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Catch those disco shows straight from the air

On Long Island's airwaves live on Saturdays or from the internet 24/7, the Disco & Funk King Show on WCWP Radio from 2PM-5PM (Eastern Time) spotlights the legendary clubs of the late 70s-early 80s period.

Feb 9th 2008- Check out the DFK MixMaster All-Stars as
they spotlight the music from the Trocadero Transfer
in California!

Feb 16th 2008 - Spotlight on the Legendary 2001 Odyssey

And there are many other clubs to be highlighted every week.

The "Funhouse" and "Studio 54" were spotlighted January 19th and 26th respectively...


Catch the DFK MixMaster
All-Stars MixMaster Max, Delmar Browne, Tony Rocca
(ARBITRON RATED Number 1 IN NYC RADIO), Joey Luciano,
Frankie Dinella, Vinnie Campisi and others as they
work the mix beat2beat and back2back as they do each
and every week on The DFK Quick Mixx at 2:20pm, The DFK
Hott Mix at 3pm, and the DFK Hidden Track Mystery Mix at
4pm.

PLUS all show long DFK MixMaster All-Star's Delmar
Browne and Tony Rocca will be
in studio with Jay Mirabile picking tracks from their own
personal record vaults.

Catch the Disco and Funk King show (Disco, Freestyle Dance, 80's/90's Club
Tracks, Slow Jams and Today’s Hottest House Beats )live on the internet at:


www.WebRadioWCWP.org

or the podcasts at www.dfkwcwp.podomatic.com

Make your requests by:
E-mailing them to – DFKWCWP [at] Yahoo.com
Calling Into The Show – 516-299-2038
or through their MySpace www.Myspace.com/DFKShow

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Disco Book: guide to bootlegs vinyl 1974-1986

Over 28 years of collecting and research into the business of bootleg disco era vinyls has now been documented, and Disco Patrick's website from the Netherlands has been converted and redesigned into a book just published and titled "The Bootleg Guide to Disco Acetates, Funk, Rap and Disco Medleys."

This is the first reference book that covers disco acetates and bootleg vinyl medleys released between 1974 and 1986.

In its 384 pages, there's ...

Listings of the most famous acetate bootleg labels - Sunshine Sound, Melting Pot Sound and Disco Queen.
Histories and interviews with acetate mixers John Morales, Rick Gianatos and Rich Flores from the people who were there.
Over 500 full colour, high resolution pictures of acetate labels and vinyl bootleg medleys.
Unique, previously unreleased pictures of djs, Walter Gibbons memorabilia, disco flyers.
Tracklistings of more than 400 bootleg vinyl and acetate medleys.

Book is printed standard and limited. Limited edition numbers to 100 and has a laser cut vinyl front and back cover signed by authors Disco Patrick, Patrick Vogt and producer/mixer Jonh Morales.

You can find out more about this book as well as order your own copy at:

www.discopatrick.com

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Death of Hip-Hop part 2

Rap sales have been waning over the last several years. For instance, 107 million hip hop albums were sold in 2000, but by 2006, sales had declined to 59.5 million. Insiders know the industry is in trouble.

Before 2007, big name rappers like Jay Z, Ludacris, and The Game were able to sell a respectable quantity of albums. But in 2007, not only have the lesser-known emcees (Ray Cash, Lupe Fiasco, etc.) been unable to push units; even the top-selling rap artists have had a hard time moving albums. There were no platinum rap albums through the first eight months of last year.

A new book, The Post Hip Hop Generation: 20 Things You Should Know, takes a closer look at the decline of hip hop and answers three critical questions ... (1) What will come after hip hop; (2) How will the decline of hip hop affect the next generation; and (3) When hip hop artists like Jay Z and TI leave the scene who will be the new icons?

Authored by gospel rap activist Kymo Dockett, "The Post Hip Hop Generation: 20 Things You Should Know" should hit stores across America in the summer of 2008.

Mr. Dockett also wrote the e-book "Lost Generation" about why today's urban youth don't go church as much.

Post Hip-Hop website

Don't think hip-hop will entirely die, it's the bling, hoodies and guns stereotypical culture that will. Time takes care of things, fads, trends and movements come and go on their own.

Related Post:

Hip-Hop is Dead, numbers are in.

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Chic Live at Budokan DVD to be re-released

The concert was filmed in Japan in 1996 and was to be the group's last with Bernard Edwards shortly before he passed away.

Before 2008, the only way to get the DVD was to buy it used, in the coming weeks, Liberty Entertainment in the UK will re-issue "Chic Live at the Budokan" with extra features and new packaging...

Guest performers Sister Sledge and Slash also appears both on the concert and in the extras: Biographies Of Chic, Sister Sledge and Slash, Chic Discography, Concert Commentary By Nile Rodgers, Tribute To Bernard Edwards From Rolling Stone and Bass Player Magazines...

TRACK LISTING:

Do That Dance, He’s The Greatest Dancer (feat. SISTER SLEDGE), We Are Family (feat. SISTER SLEDGE), Dance Dance Dance, I Want Your Love, Good Times, Le Freak (feat. Slash of GUNS AND ROSES), Chic Cheer, Just One World.

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Disco dancing horse found in China

A certain Mr. Liu in Sichuan China claims his neighbor's horse can "disco dance and do other kinds of dances".

source: China Daily

The proud owner was surprised that Dashanyang, purchased for a mere 1000 Yuan 5 years ago could easily be trained to perform tricks and steps....

Mr. Dong Yongfa's horse wouldn't be the first dancing horse in existence, but certainly the first to do a disco dance ...

Considering that the claim comes from a Chinese man, what exactly is a disco dance? The Hustle? Pop and Lock? Break dancing? Unfortunately, haven't come accross a video of this. If this is indeed true, then soon enough, we'll see Dashanyang in a music video soon!

Dashanyang could very well be the famed white horse of Studio 54, one of very few horses to have had actually lived an active nightlife, stepped on a disco floor and mingled with the hottest female celebs.

To ride the white horse, one had to be female, naked and rich, therefore demystifying the meaning of the disco not disco tune "White Horse" by Laid Back.

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Jamiroquai new website

Jamiroquai has gone purple on his revamped website.

Recall visiting his website a while back on dial-up, very slow loading and lost patience, lots has changed since.

His MySpace page was the prefered destination to go, but like his former website, was taking forever to load, all had been remedied on his newly launched website shortly before the Holidays.

Navigation is smooth, and site flyes as fast as his collection of Italian super cars. Jay Kay said ... ...
, "The internet is shaping the future of music and I'm excited by the potential it offers artists. The new Jamiroquai.com site takes advantage of the internet's growing ability to connect and share more intimately with our fans. They are now more involved building and sharing what they wish from the content on our site, even creating content themselves to share with us and each other."
Siim Vips, CEO at Modera, a software company specialising in content management software development explains, "The Jamiroquai.com site is extremely flexible and intuitive and embraces the social media culture that has been prolific of late. The site works in tandem with the bands profiles on MySpace, Virb, Netvibes, Imeem and a branded YouTube channel to name a few. All of Jamiroquai's photography and imagery is available on the new site and is pulled from Flickr so fans can catch the latest snaps of the band at gigs and on tour."

Fans will be able to interact with Jamiroquai, enabling them to place popular widgets and Jamiroquai content on their own social networking and/or blog pages easily. The website employs new technologies, including a calendar with updates on where the band is and what they're doing.

Jay Kay and the band are presently in the studio writing tunes for the upcoming album.

Check out Jamiroquai's website

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Tommy Boy 2008

How many record labels from the 80s are still around today? I'm amazed Tommy Boy still exist. Haven't seen much Tommy Boy vinyl releases in recent times, there was the Ultra Nate single "Love is the only drug" a year ago, some classic re-issues from Digital Underground, Naughty by Nature and Afrika Baambaata.

On the digital download front for late 2007 early 2008 comes remixes for singles by Ultra Nate, Bob Sinclar and Xpress-2. Promos have been issued on cds...
"Give It All You Got", the third single from Ultra Naté's gleefully received "Grime, Silk & Thunder" features ­singer Chris Willis, who wrote the hits "Just A Little More Love", "Love Don't Let Me Go" and "Love Is Gone" for French superstar DJ/producer, David Guetta. Delivered in a glittering package of top drawer remixes, there's a version of "Give It All You Got" to suit every taste. Redtop delivers downtempo retro-funk, a tough
little electro-inspired mix comes from Risque, the unstoppable Matthias
Heilbronn bring it with full on house heaven and big room mixes from
original producers Andy & Glen Evans and Chris Willis, the UK's Soulcast duo
and smoking production trio Bimbo Jones (Ciara, Annie Lennox, Gareth Gates,
S Club 8) are all on the money.

In the accompanying video, our delicious diva (ya, we can call her that),
continues to amp up the glam quotient. (How much did you love that
Automatic Video?) Working a serious glamazon/Mad Max vibe, Ultra once
again prevails, though instead of cracking a whip to keep frisky, oiled,
nude internet hotties in line, she prevails amidst flying fire-spitting
acrobatic muscle studs, spears, and not a little architectural mascara.

Out December 18th 2007
View "Give It All You Got" the video €

From the Bob Sinclar album "Soundz of Freedom", the single "Together" featuring Steve Edwards comes in various flavors with remixes by Robbie Rivera, Gregor Salto, DJ Madskillz, Eddie Thorneick, Friscia and Lamboy in addition to the original radio edit.

Out January 22nd 2008
View "Together" the video

"Give it" by X-Press 2 featuring Kurt Wagner sounds like a rehashed classic, it's not. Was quite surprised to find out there's no sampling there. It has that old country meets Gospel church 70s feeling, sort of like Joe "Cockerish". Remixes by Friscia and Lamboy plus the radio edit.

Out January 22nd 2008
View "Give it" the video

All are available on iTunes and various top
digital retail sites.

Thanks to Andy Reynolds for the Ultra Nate material

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Piano in the house

In the early days of house music, piano was the backbone typical of the genre, now play "Move your body" in your mind without the piano and the intro is gone.

House music has evolved since, some say it has lost its essence, it's been robbed of its soul and "blackness", true. What happened to the piano?

Want some piano then ... head to the jazz or lounge section genres of your favorite record shop. But we want dance floor piano, piano to make you move your feet, a hurried piano riff like in early house music records or in the disco days on numerous O'Jays hits, even Voyage, the French disco group had a killer piano disco monster in "Lady America" wayback in 1978 and like "Move your Body", the intro is the piano.

SK Radikals is a jazz-house group from the UK who never fails to deliver the goods, and I mention them here cause many times pulled out their singles "On the street" from 2002 and "Someday" in 2005, dropped them on the platters in order to get a dance floor piano high.

For 2008, BBE will be distributing "North Wind" by Rhythm of Elements bringing together the underground club heritage of DJ Uchikawa and classically trained jazz piano of Makoto Kuriya who played with some of the finest jazz musicians of the 20th century including Chuck Mangione, Nathan Davis, Billy Cobham and Donald Byrd to name a few. He has recorded numerous albums and performed across the globe.

The upcoming 12inch release will also contain the Disco Dub Remix and Dub Beats. Expect a deep tech house groove, laced and sweetened by fine musicianship from Kuriya.

Now let's move the piano from the lounge area and bring it on the dancefloor with a nod from Ray Charles up above.

image: Tribe 2 - North Wind by Rhythm of Elements upcoming 12 inch vinyl

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Mouse Disco

Not refering to Mickey Mouse here - as a side note, did stumble upon the Mickey Mouse disco album from '79 shortly before x-mas -, but your computer's mouse.

Everytime you close a window, open your computer, save a file, your computer
will emit a sound. That can be easily customized, the trick is to have the desired sound as a wave file ...

Did play around this 2 years back. Took a snippet of a Salsoul release from 1977, "Can't turn you loose" by Anthony White. All that was needed was to play it back on the computer's cd player and record with Windows Sound Recorder that can be found in the accessories section. Although quite fun, didn't want to risk getting tired of a much love record and eventually scraped the thing.

Now you're probably surfed on Disco Guy's website Disco-Disco.com at one time or another. Lately, he went as far as recording and customizing 19 disco snippets specially for the computer. And he's offering them to you for your enjoyment.

Disco pc sounds at Disco-Disco.com

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Strut returns part II

Strut is now officially alive and its first new release is available for pre-order.

As mentioned in an earlier post, the printed media were the first to get the promos for review, so expect to read all about it in your local entertainment weekly newspaper this week.

Here's the tracklisting... :

1. Vivien Goldman - Launderette
2. Delta 5 - Mind your own business
3. Shriekback - My spine is the bassline
4. Konk - Your life
5. Isotope - Crunch cake
6. James White and The Blacks - Contort yourself (August Darnell remix)
7. Quango Quango - Love Tempo (remix)
8. Gina X Performance - Kaddish
9. Material - Don't loose control (dance version)
10. Kazino - Binary
11. Liaisons Dangereuses - Los ninos del parque (12 inch mix)
12. A Number of Names - Sharevari (instrumental)
13. Six Sed Red - Beat'em right
14. Maximum Joy - Silent Street/Silent Dub

Disco not Disco 3 at Amazon.com
Disco not Disco 3 at Amazon UK
Disco not Disco 3 microsite
Strut Records website soon!

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