fourfour

Happy birthday to us

Today I turn 28. For the first time since my 21st birthday, I'm OK with being a year older. I'm either getting more confident with age, or more apathetic. Same thing kinda.

Anyway, I mention this not only in hopes of a comments section brimming with LOL-/OMG/HB!!!-filled sentiments, but because I think it's cool that I share a birthday with two of my all-time favorite contributors to pop music: Roxanne Shanté and Steve "Silk" Hurley (at least I do, according to their Wikipedia entries). Part of me hates to be so queer and all like, "Birthday twins!!!" But another part of me really is that queer. The latter part wins today: below is a sampling of some of their music.

Roxanne Shanté was responsible for one of the first big hip-hop novelty records, 1984's "Roxanne's Revenge," an unprovoked answer to U.T.F.O.'s "Roxanne, Roxanne." She was 14 when she cut it, and her barely pubescent voice makes for most of the novelty. The video's below -- it's a shame about the quality, but her cuteness shines through. Do I even need to add that I love how cheap this shit is? I'm swooning at the shots that catch her from the chest and up.

(Download the track)

Wouldn't it be awesome if, instead of singing "Happy Birthday," people rapped "Roxanne's Revenge?" That's what I want, anyway. Not even the whole thing. Just a couplet! Just a, "Every time you sayin' somethin' just-a like-a this-a / It ain't nothin' that I don't wanna miss-a."

Anyway, fast forward to 1992. Shanté had made a career of calling out bitches (JJ Fad, Salt-N-Pepa, Sparky D, the Real Roxanne in a counterattack), but nothing predicted just how acidic a turn she'd take. Inspired by an appearance on a talk show (I think Phil Donahue) with other female rappers, in which Shanté felt disrespected (or not respected enough or...something), "Big Mama" called out the major female rappers of the early '90s (Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Monie Love, Yo-Yo) who, by that point, were much more visible than she was. This was sort of an articulate precursor to Flavor of Love's begin-every-sentence-with-"Bitch..." approach to communication. I love this track a lot. It's garbage-dump nasty in its funkiness (it, like most of Rox's output including "Roxanne's Revenge," was produced by Marley Marl). At this point in her career, Shanté had been rapping for so long that picking up the mic was like breathing to her. She just sounds so natural. Also, I love how far she goes with her shit talking -- this track is equally uncalled for and unabashed. She totally succeeds in her aim to agitate. (The only really regrettable bit is the homophobia directed at Lyte. "To me a butch don't deserve a mic in hand"? That's just stupid, as it eliminates about 75 percent of her competition, which she doesn't even seem to realize. Too easy, too easy.) Anyway, this kind of self-righteous indignation only works when diving off such a nimble tongue. And looking back on everything, I kinda think she was right.

I won't say too much about Chicago house producer Steve "Silk" Hurley. I already (over-) wrote about him (seriously: shut up, me!). Even though I listen to much less soulful house than I did a year ago, he's still my favorite house producer -- his balance of light and dark, masculinity and femininity, sweetness and grit, really appeal to me on principle. I've said a few times that his remix of Jomanda's "Got a Love for You" (1991) is my favorite track ever, and I think that stands -- again and again, even when I haven't heard it in months, I'm reminded of how much I love it, how catchy every single element of this track is. His remix of Ten City's "That's the Way Love Is" is almost as great. The quick cut in and out at the 2:08 point never fails to thrill me.

So yay. Girl rap and house music, two of my favorite things in the world. Happy birthday to us.

Notes from above ground

Eminem, shut up. And by shut up, I mean stop doing shit. And by stop doing shit, I mean you couldn't make me more sick of hearing about your family if you set up camp in my throat and triggered my gag reflex every time you knock-down-drag-out fought or had make-up sex. I don't care about your fucking mother. I don't care about your fucking ex-ex-ex wife. And I certainly don't care about Hailey or Lainey or whatever fucking little girl you're raising to hate herself.

Eminem such a boring exhibitionist that it's like, "Oh, I no longer get radio play by airing my dirty laundry? 'Mockingbird' and 'When I'm Gone' didn't become the heart-string tugging classics I tailored them to be? I know! I'll get married and then, three months later, I'll get another divorce! From Kim! You all remember Kim, right?" Madonna, whose exhibitionism never even reached the atrocious heights of Em, was once rightly accused of not wanting to live off camera. Eminem doesn't want to live off record.

Oh, and speaking of swapping holy vows, LL Cool J's new album Todd Smith (in stores Tuesday) contains a recap of his wedding, "Down the Aisle". Who knew Cool James settled down and got married? Oh wait, I did, 11 fucking years ago when it happened.

The once and future Prince

Prince's 3121 hits stores this week and, whoa, it's actually good. Really though -- it's his most consistently enjoyable (and wildly erratic) disc since 1992's . Maybe that's like saying, "This case of gonorrhea is the best I've had in over 13 years," but whatever -- take purple majesty when you can find it.

What I love most about 3121 is that it's sort of Prince's homecoming to the world of electronic music (at least, in part). In a conversation, Bill derisively called the second single "Black Sweat," "Prince doing the Neptunes doing Prince." I couldn't agree with that more, except I think it's a great thing. There's something excitingly comfortable (in a retro-futuristic way) about the reclaiming of voice via machines.

It's easy (and fun!) to mock Prince's post-'80s output, but looking back, I followed it really closely maybe for much too long (I bought Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic at the Virgin Megastore at the stroke of midnight of its release date). But that's the fun of remaining loyal to Prince (and, presumably, any artist passed his or her prime who isn't a total embarrassment -- Bowie, for example). Being a Prince fan is like being a horror movie fan -- wading through copious garbage for the odd gem is your duty that becomes your sport. Yeah, it's a little frustrating, but whatever. I have time.

So much time in fact, that I went back through his post- material to find four tracks worthy of his legacy (unsurprisingly, other conversations with Bill gave me the idea for this -- we talk about Prince a lot). And by "went back," I mean jogged my memory and looked at song titles. You really think I'm gonna sit through Emancipation again?

"Acknowledge Me" (1995) - Many argue that Prince's artistic unraveling started when he began closely adhering to increasingly popular musical genres (rap, house, etc.) instead of messing with and/or blending them. Still, new jack swing was everywhere during the first half of the '90s and you can't really fault him for attempting to show 'em how it was really done. "Acknowledge Me" is my favorite of Prince's swing offerings -- it originated in the Come/Gold Experience era (it was bumped off the latter to accomodate titty-bar smash "Pussy Control," and eventually turned up on '98's Crystal Ball rarities comp). While the melody is sturdy (especially the dizzying pre-chorus bridge), the lyrics are his usual I-want-you fluff and the production is just weird enough to avoid new-jack anonymity (that keyboard sounds like a 303 converted into a laser gun). A sample from The Black Album's "Down On It" is looped throughout -- that track made fun of gangsta hip-hop, while this one sort of aspires to it. Irony? Maybe. Prince's rap (all 40 bars of it) is the type of crap I'd usually say the song would be better without (and then take matters into my own hands -- see "The Sun, the Moon and Stars" below), but shit, "titties swingin' like a door" is great and that he means it as a compliment is even better. I miss his dirty mind.

"I Hate U" (1995) - Speaking of: there's that kinda nasty and then there's just plain nasty. A usual Prince sex-jam tempo and arrangement are subverted on this first single from The Gold Experience (unless you count "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," and, uh, please don't), via lyrics that make hate, not love. Exploring the thin line between the two is trite. Turning a song that does that into a court deposition that then shifts into a bondage session is not. It's as though he's so messed up from bouncing between love and the hate ("I hate u / Because I love u," he predictably reveals during the mini-suite's third act) that he can only manage this stream-of-consciousness ramble. He doesn't even hit his melodic peak until the fourth minute (those gorgeous ascending "be"s). It's like it took him the whole song to realize that melody, but it's such a payoff that the long road to it doesn't even matter. It should be noted that the actual title of the song uses an eye icon instead of an "I" ("(Eye) Hate U," you could say -- I think this originated with Lovesexy's "(Eye) No"). It was another one of those Prince-isms (like his "2"s, "4"s or, as you see elsewhere in the title, "U"), but Christ, a drawing instead of an "I" does not constitute shorthand. It just makes things harder for everyone. Eye hate that.

"Don't Play Me" (1998) - One of the few gifts that a long tenure in youth-obsessed pop culture yields is that of public self-reflection. The greatness of "Don't Play Me," from the largely acoustic album The Truth, lies in self-conscious examination that can only follow a rich past ("I put my ass away," he reveals, no doubt a reference to his infamous 1991 MTV Video Music Awards performance of "Gett Off"). He's as captivating as ever, stripped down to just a guitar and a few effects, as he riffs on the song's title (the best couplet is enough to make anyone want to be rock star just so they can claim the same thing: "Don't play me / I already do in my car"). Even more amazingly: for someone as eccentric and spacey, he seems keenly aware of his position on the pop landscape. "My only competition is, well, me in the past," he reveals. Who really thought he had that in him?

"The Sun, the Moon and Stars (Rich's Edit)" (1999) - This was of the few bright spots of Prince's mess of a one-off Arista release, the guest-stuffed (thus, Santana-esque) Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. The Timbaland-lite drum programming combined with the dreamy, romantic lyrics and delivery makes for a setup akin to "I Would Die 4 U" (though that earlier track is darker and admittedly cooler) -- he returns to the hyper-ballad template he created (sorry, Björk). This is really so lovely that the gushing, cinematic strings and dippy cosmic imagery don't even bug me. His ragga-lite toasting, however, does and so I edited it out (you can hear him start it up at the 2:40 point -- "Do ya like I do!" -- before I cut him off). Believe me, it only gets worse from there and destroys the song. If all it takes for him to stay on point is a snip here or there then, believe me, I'm glad to help out.

My name is Prince, and I am crappy

That isn't just funk you're smelling, when you listen to Prince. The "two sides" that the proud Gemini often touted (most awesomely by dressing as Batman and Joker at the same time in the "Batdance" vid) were probably meant to make him seem somehow balanced sexually or morally or something, but I think anyone who's paid attention to his career knows of a much more immediate two Princes: the Great one and the Crappy one.

For some reason, people have a hard time with this duality -- instead of seeing how his capacity for garbage makes his brilliance even a more amazing feat, public perception of the man tends toward one side. He spent the good part of the 10 years after '93 totally maligned, considered a joke who wrote things on his face, did weird things with his name and made entirely too much music. But then, for some reason (nostalgia?), in '04, the wind changed and Prince could do little wrong -- he released a typically mediocre album, Musicology, that was surprisingly well-received (and high-charting, even if his giving it away every chance he could get effectively cooked his books), he launched a massively successful tour and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Good Princeyboy!

Things may have cooled a bit for him (he hasn't received the public lashing he deserves for "Te Amo Corazon"), but I wouldn't be surprised if mass fawning occurs whenever 3121 hits stores. Well, I'm here to tell you there's something else: garbage. What follows are four songs from his initial nadir, the early '90s (I chose one a year, starting with '91). If Prince is irritating when he's tossing off some masturbatory album track or extended jam, he's practically absurd when he's at his most commercial-minded and attempting to craft hits for others. If his proteges of the '80s were notoriously goofy, those of the '90s were mostly excruciating (Tevin Campbell excepted, obviously).

I believe that Prince loves women. I really do. And I think that's exactly what makes him such a sucky pimp.

Martika "Martika's Kitchen" (1991) - The table is set, baby, and on it is a cloth that looks a lot like Babyface's. With a limp swing beat, Prince attempted to convince us not just that Martika was new jack, but that she was also sexy. The kitchen analogy is undeniably sexual ("Get some, get some, get some"), but it serves a similar function as his little red Corvette -- sometimes, it seems to refer to a vagina ("Come on get some, in Martika's kitchen"), sometimes not ("The oven is hot"). At least if the metaphor of "Little Red Corvette" is mixed, it has a creepy air of mystery. This is just bright, boring nonsense about Stepford genitalia (it's, at least, very domestic). Martika was a lot of things: a Kids Incorporated alumna, big in Japan, Jennifer Beals-esque. Soulful was never one of these things. Not that anyone could spin this shit into gold -- even Prince sounds like a fool when doing this one (check his demo of it).

Carmen Electra "Go Go Dancer" (1992) - Joining the highly esteemed company of, well, Icy Blu and, uh, I guess Deborah Harry kinda, Carmen Electra tried to corner the white-girl rapper market with this early foray into fame whoreishness. Once again, Prince attempts to to mimic contemporary hotness, and this time tries his hand at house. He crafts a stomp for Carmen's born-to-strip persona -- she's an update of his irresistible bitch with her unstoppable body and "primal vibe." Carmen prowls like she's relishing the fact that sooner or later, she was going to have to sell it. I think this insatiable portrayal of a dancer's life is what got Prince the Showgirls gig (his "319" and "Rippopgodazippa" both can be heard in the movie...with hilarious results). "...In a taxi cab / If the radio's on / Off goes the top / And I'm going going going gone!," says Carmen, and by that time, I'm sorry that the song's inclusion here implies that it's shit. It's totally fucking awesome.

Lois L. "Qualified" (1993) - More new jack crap -- this is truly Prince at his worst because he's virtually undetectable. At least when he's turning out junk, it has personality. Every second of this, however, hurts. Seriously, Carmen Electra's cartoon stripper has more soul in her g-string than these two sisters from the Netherlands, put together. They ended up posing for Playboy, I think, which, OF COURSE THEY DID.

Mayte "The Most Beautiful Boy in the World" (1994) - If you have any question about a nepotist's inherent hubris, look no further than this, a note-by-note remake of Prince's most useless chart hit. Why did he let wife-to-be Mayte cover this track so faithfully? Maybe it's because he was in love...with himself. Whatever, this did not kick off her career the way it was supposed to, but no surprises there. This version's major deviance from the original ("The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" gets a penis in Mayte's version) totally throws everything into confusion. "Could you be / The most beautiful boy in the world? / It's plain to see / You're the reason that God made a girl," sings Mayte and...what? God made a girl only so that she could give birth? Is that what Prince meant all along? I always thought he was much more interested in vaginas as inputs. But maybe I'm being too harsh and what this remake really is saying is that man and woman can unite entirely via music. How of him (that symbol means man + woman + music, right? Right?!?).

As a palate-cleansing bonus, and a way of proving that not all of Prince's '90s output is worthless, here's 1991's "Insatiable". It's gorgeous, probably my favorite of his sex jams. Hate the game, not the cameraman.

Diddy really?

Diddy "Jack U (Felix Da Housecat Mix)"

"Jack your body to the bass / Jack it all over the place / Don't let no one get in your way / Tonight's your night / Today's your day / I'll jack you / I'll jack you / I'll jack you / I'll jack you."

If you don't know specifically what it means to "jack your body," it may seem Diddy's foray into house music finds the sexless-up-to-this-point mogul switching all kinds of teams. It's almost disappointing to report that men will not be getting the full-release treatment from the Did (disappointing, not because he's hot, but because that'd be, y'know, funny). On "Jack U," a track that bounced around DJs' sets and mixes for over a year before being issued last month on Germany's International DeeJay Gigolos, Diddy is instead telling (and perhaps showing, depending on how much you like the track) you that he'll make you move old-school style, like they used to in Chicago in the mid-'80s at places like the Music Box and the Warehouse. "They" being mostly gays and "moving" meaning "jacking," a dance that crossed simulated stand-fucking with acting electrocuted. Maybe Diddy's getting in touch with his homo side, after all (the resemblance to Amanda Lepore only tends to support the theory).

But really, I doubt he even pays that much attention to what he's saying -- the often-useless Felix da Housecat at least knows his old-school house and it's possible that he directed this whole affair (he's certainly more aware than dim Diddy, who stumbles over the names of dance subgenres at the start of "Jack U" before declaring, "I just know good music, man. I just wanna hear some shit that's good music"). A master wordsmith Diddy is not, and even if he were, it's doubtful that he could even come up with the nonsense lyrics of "Jack U." Instead, he's essentially remaking Jungle Brothers' "I'll House You" from 1988. "I'll House You" is one of the earliest examples of the (commercially) successful merging of rap and house music, a style that would come to be called hip-house, and then, just as quickly, would come to be laughed at.

Hip-house is the red-headed stepchild of house music, a subgenre that drummed up very little respect while thriving (its popularity peaked in '91 when Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch hit No. 1 with "Good Vibrations," and that says a lot) and gets even less respect now. And that's with good reason, really. Hip-house marked one of, if not the, earliest examples of rapping taking a back seat to its musical backing. Hip-house vocalists didn't need to be proficient or clever because the main idea was to get people to move, and of course, the track's rhythms were much more propulsive than any voice. The hip-house rapper, then, was mostly an ornament -- at best, he (and in rare cases, she) was a hype-man; at worst, a relic of novelty.

And that's exactly why Diddy's "Jack U" works so well -- it only makes sense that such a deficient rapper (I mean, does he really even have what you'd call fans? If you're a fan of Diddy, please speak up -- I have many questions for you) should choose such an undemanding genre. And really, what is he if not a hype man? "Jack U" might be the least pretentious thing he's ever done because by doing it, he's essentially saying, "Look at me: I have nothing to say and I can't even say it well. So, chuckle at me -- I'll even get a little camp. And most importantly: move!"

If I sound anti-hip-house, I'm not doing my taste justice. Truth be told: I love the stuff. Its charm is in its stupidity and there's always room for stupidity. This record is among the most prized in my collection:

I mean, god, look at them. They took this shit so seriously. For further proof, check out the essay in the album's liner notes:

 

God, did they know how right they were with that last line?

The funny thing is that although the DJ International Crew were attempting to draw the divide between hip-house and "rap house," it's not really clear what constituted what. Certainly, the track this essay credits with starting the genre, Fast Eddie's "Yo Yo Get Funky", provides little help: "Hip-house is a new style that I created / All around the world they're devastated / By the hip, which is short for hip-hop / And by the house, which is rising to the top." Uh, thanks, Eddie. Further in-song definitions would prove just as unspecific, either spelling things out via influences ("Hip-hop house, hip-hop jazz, with a little pizazz," says Queen Latifah in 1989's "Come Into My House," perhaps the finest hip-house record ever as it was delivered by someone who could actually rap) or defining via exclusion ("It's not hip-hop or hop-hip, it's hip-house," says Fast Eddie in a song that followed "Yo Yo Get Funky," "Hip House").

Maybe there is no real difference between rap house and hip-house, and really, who cares? Certainly not Diddy, who can't be bothered to pay attention to "definitions an' shit." Maybe what the DJ International Crew were really going for was a brand, a minor distinction that they could call their own. Diddy's spiritually (or soulessly, whichever) with them right there, too.

Even if he has no idea of its history, Diddy's bold for taking up such a maligned genre in such a broad way (is it any wonder that the version above is relegated to the B-side of the 12", while DJ Hell's more electro-fied -- thus cooler -- rub is on the A?). He is as willfully unhip as his mohawk in his picture above. Current mainstream rap barely flirts with hip-house (though Rah Digga's too-slow-for-house "Party & Bullshit 2003" came close -- she gets my undying respect for referencing not one, but two Chicago classics -- Farley "Jackmaster" Funk's "Beat That Bitch With a Bat" and Cajmere's "Percolater"). Gone are the days when almost all mainstream hip-hop was jingling, if not dancey. What passes as "club" music in hip-hop is barely worth dancing to (as most hilariously illustrated in last year's would-be-banger "Lean Back" by Terror Squad -- not even the song's rapper, Fat Joe, wanted to dance to it!). But then, Scott Storch is no Todd Terry, and really, Diddy is no Fast Eddie. But goddamn, moving from Bad Boy to just plain bad is about the most natural thing Diddy's ever done musically. Welcome to hip-house, Diddy. Welcome home.

Do the zombi

What happens when fear, instead of hitting your stomach, takes a loop and smacks you on the ass? I don't know either, but the following four horror disco tracks attempt to find out.

Cerrone "Supernature (12" Version)" - One of the best disco tracks of all time is also the scariest -- go figure. France's Cerrone made song after song of plush, highly orchestrated disco, but in 1977, he dropped this Eurodisco track that was just about as pioneering as Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (note the dual bass lines of "Supernature," one live-sounding one and one that's electronic and arpeggiated -- if this came out in 1980, we could say it was tangible evidence of disco's conversion from traditional instrumentation to being electronically programmed; since it came out in 1977, we instead just say wow). The brilliance of the actual track aside, the lyrics detail an attempt at genetically engineering flora that ends up inflicting the fauna with an insane vengeance. ("Once upon a time / Science opened up the door / We would feed the hungry fields / Till they couldn't eat no more / But the potions that we made / Touched the creatures down below / And they grow up in a way / That we'd never seen before.") Why Cerrone thought anyone would dance to a don't-mess-with-nature tale is dumbfounding -- that it actually works so is practically inexplicable. Maybe God was on his side, too?

Anyway, the track is made even scarier by the album cover. Aaaahhhh! Rubber masks!!!!

Legowelt "Congo Zombie" - I don't know why it never occurred to me that two of my favorite Italian imports of the late '70s/early '80s (disco and horror) should be combined, but I'm glad it happened. I'm not sure if the Netherlands' Legowelt has a specific reference point on this track from 2004, but the cheap his atmosphere falls totally in line with the sounds of grindhouse cinema. The feeling that he gives you that his rotting synths may collapse mid-song as his disco beat pounds is more effective than anything on last year's Disco Undead, a spotty compilation that attempts to disco-ify the scores of obscure horror, including themes from Italian "classics" like Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, Dario Argento's Suspiria and Ruggero Deodato's reviled Cannibal Holocaust. The compilation fails as often as it succeeds, as not all of the tracks are danceable (it's probably no coincidence that one of the tracks that works -- a revamp of the Halloween 3 theme -- is by Legowelt, as well). "Congo Zombie" is a non-stop pummeling that not even the geeky narration can undermine -- by the time Legowelt is chanting "Congo, zombie" repeatedly, he's hypnotizing. This is no dead undead disco.

"Theme From Friday the 13th Part 3 (12" Version)" - Of course, you didn't need to travel to Italy (or even the Netherlands) to soak in the cheesey disco -- Jersey's own Michael Zager (of "Let's All Chant" quasi-fame) helped write and produce this for 1982's 3D installment of the Friday the 13th series (it's uncertain, though, exactly who the performer is -- the film's composer, Harry Manfrendini, gets a co-writing credit, Ed Newmark gets a co-production credit, and various releases have attributed the track to being performed by, alternately, the Michael Zager Band and Hot Ice). Despite its robust bass line, this is as corny as the theme of a 3D movie needs to be, featuring the "cha-cha-Jason" call among its seeming thousands of effects. I mean, it kind of had to be over-the-top to accompany this kind of title sequence:

It's almost hilarious how the movie will take any opportunity to flaunt its 3D technology. Something like this I can understand:

But a yo-yo?

Fucking popcorn?!?

OK, I do admit that the last one is really a clever use of technology. Just like the theme.

Paul Johnson "Dr. Frankenhouse" - Sometimes, the freaks don't come out at night, they enhance it. Chicago (where else?!) producer Paul Johnson made tracky tracks for years before giving his music the boost of gimmickry that has made his past few 12"s so addictive. On 2003's "Dr. Frankenhouse," he compares his production style to that of a mad scientist, and his stream-of-consciousness lyrics are simultaneously clever and slapstick (I especially love his description of his bass line as "dunk-a-dunk-guh-dunk-a-dunk"). He's obsessed with invention, and really, few even attempt to pull of his brand of house with a twist of Italo and a side of soul. "Dr. Frankenhouse," like the Frankenstein story itself, isn't very scary, but it is dorky and completely unafraid to sound stupid. And isn't unabashed foolishness what Halloween's about, anyway?

Funky

C'mon man. Aww aww aww aww. (And with the local DBC news, Rich with a triumphant comeback). Don't call it a comeback -- call it a re-teaming of the minds. On Friday, I'll join Dan Selzer (again) and Jeremy Campbell (for the first time) to DJ at the Beat Club party at Capone's in Williamsburg. Dan, Jeremy, Rob and the inimitable PappaWheelie have pulled off the nearly impossible task of getting Billyburg kids to dance to music made by black people. Billyburg kids dancing to black music, without irony. It's really kind of amazing.

Details are much the same as the last time I spun there. Capone's is at 221 N. 9th Street (between Roebling and Driggs). It's a sneeze away from the oft-maligned Bedford L stop. Capone's serves pizza that's as good as the idea of serving pizza to a bunch of drinking, dancing fools is weird. The party goes from 10-4, but you could have guessed that.

The type of shit I'll play should be obvious, but just to give you a full picture, here are four tracks I consider to be classic that I didn't play last time I was there, but probably will on Friday. If you're good.

Sharon Redd "Beat the Street" - I can't get enough of Ms. Redd (I posted Michael F. Gill's "Activate" revamp just a week ago). She was the uglyhot voice of the post-disco generation, singing along as black dance music turned completely electronic (echoes of her open-arms embrace of technology were apparent in the career of Aaliyah, another soul diva who died much too soon). "Beat the Street" is as classic as boogie gets and it adds a dab of social consciousness to the mix (beat the street, ya gotta beat the street), effectively paving the way for house music's eternally bleeding heart. And really, with songs like this filling clubs, who wanted to be out on the street, anyway?

Jamie Principle "Waiting on My Angel" - Another pre-house classic (from '85), this time with a more Euro/Italo bent. Jamie seems to be continuing Patrick Cowley's homo-in-space routine, and that flaming giggle sample throughout -- which seems like some time traveling gank from a dancer in 1991's Truth or Dare -- only enhances the gayness. Yeah, except Jamie wasn't a practicing gay around the time of this song's release (his other Frankie Knuckles-produced classic from this time period, "Your Love," he says was written about a woman). In fact, I don't think he ever really came out, as such. Waiting to exhale, I guess.

Lil Louis "French Kiss (The Songbird Sings Long Vocal Mix)" - Chicago's Lil Louis was the most gimmicky man of early house and he always got away with it because along with the hyper-cleverness and large-scale concepts were great tracks. He could have turned out tracky house that worked on hook and groove alone, but putting the lil' something extra into his work almost always paid off. The gimmick to "French Kiss" is that it slows down in the middle, putting on breaks and coming to a stop with the finesse of a Union Pacific, only to start chugging again all the way back to normal speed. It is, in a word, exhilarating. Oh yeah, "French Kiss" is also a orgasm-y sex track. Yay for orgasms.

Stevie B "In My Eyes" - I like to laugh at a lot of freestyle, but not Stevie B (at least, his music -- his fashion sense is a different story). As a writer/producer and vocalist (who could actually sing -- a rarity in freestyle), he's often just short of genius. "In My Eyes" is my favorite track by him right now -- I love how creepy and dark it is in its romantic longing (it's this side of molesty). Also, the chorus provides at least a slice of comedy gold (I guess I do like to laugh at him sometimes): the response after every line is "In my eyes." So when main-vocal Stevie goes "And when you kiss me girl," the back-up chorus Stevies go "In my eyes." Kiss me in my eyes!

Anyway, here's one final test you can give yourself to get a good idea of whether or not you'll like my shit. If you can identify the movie the following screenshot comes from (without squinting), then the stuff I spin will make you jack. Also, if you can identify it, you are probably gay. Just saying.

So, yeah. Make like Robin S. and come show me love. I'll let you see my ass or something (note: "something" may include keeping my ass in my pants the whole night).

The fourfour four: Re-interpretive dancing

Sharon Redd "Activate (MF Gill Re-edit)" -  Oh shit! A fourfour exclusive! After reading a mostly negative, but nonetheless intriguing review of late boogie diva Sharon Redd's Love How You Feel (1983), downloading it and falling in love with its first track, "Activate," I shared it with the armed-and-extremely-dangerous Michael F. Gill. He wasn't so into the main vocal of the 8.5-minute synth epic, so he chopped it off and otherwise toiled to reconfigure the track into an icy dub. I love that by Michael's touch, you don't get a sense of what is too be activated (a bomb? bleach?) until much later in the track (it's actually your "love machine," which, ew). But also, yay, as this song's simultaneous combo of slick and tacky is what I love most about it. It's kind of in love with itself -- all dolled up in the finest effects '83 could offer, sounding rather fuchsia and whorey. Michael rinses off some of the studio wizardry, and slightly de-gays it by snipping off most of the diva-growly verses. He makes up for the chopping with his intro that stamps his and fourfour's names on the track. It's about as entertaining as the track itself and totally over-the-top. That's my boy.

Annie "The Wedding (Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Remix)" - Despite having been temporarily been hypnotized by Anniemal's charms, and still believing that "Me Plus One" is among the best pop songs of the past 10 years, I kind of hate Annie. I hate white chicks who can't sing but do anyway and I hate, hate music that's disproportionately treble-y. Annie and the currently fawned-over Robyn are headache inducing with their sonic equivalents of fluorescent lighting. I feel like the ridiculously reliable Lindstrøm and partner Prins Thomas are right there with my hate, though, as they scrub clean Annie's mess of an original (which appears exclusively on her DJ Kicks, a dire collection that doesn't even deserve to be called a mix), and then shit all over her. Is their invocation of the ode-to-almost-legal-ass "My Sharona" a jab at Annie's age, which she hilariously says is 26? (A side note: a friend that works at a magazine saw untouched proofs of Annie's shoot for said rag and says that she does not have the face of a 26-year-old.) Even if the "Sharona" reference isn't meant to mock Annie, plenty of the remix's elements do -- the passé, "House of Jealous Lovers"-esque percussion, the parade of irritating synth lines that spiral into key clashes, the fucking cowbell at the end. Because it's so damn ugly, I don't know if I could even consider this a dance song, proper. It'd certainly be a risky track to drop into a DJ set, though if I heard this shit playing faintly at a convenience store, I'd totally ask the cashier to turn it up so that I could dance in the aisles.

Vitalic "The Chase" - I'm really confused about this one, mainly because Vitalic was said to have remixed Giorgio Moroder's "The Chase" a few years ago. But the remix circulated is very different than what's here (the remix is twice as long and four times as noisy). This track is billed not as a remix, but a cover, which is also confusing. If Vitalic did, in fact, remix this track a few years ago (and there's no listing on Discogs to support the claim, btw), it's bizarre that he'd tackle it again. Where's the line between "remix" and "cover" in electronic music, anyway? Regardless, this track, which closes out his mostly underwhelming and under-blended Colette mix, is awesome -- it speeds up the Midnight Express until its pistons pop in your face. In another stroke of genius, Vitalic adds a high hat so as to connect the pretty distant past (Italo) with the not-as-distant past (early Detroit techno). This "Chase" (if pitched down) could work alongside the year's best track, Lindstrøm's "I Feel Space," which should serve as a reminder of how far we haven't wanted to come. And that's Vitalic's point with this aggressive salute to genres that have served as his inspiration, a sort of love letter designed to give you paper cuts.

New Order "Bizarre Love Triangle (Richard X Remix)" - Yeah, "Bizarre Love Triangle" wasn't exactly screaming for an update, but if it were, this would be the way to do it (and certainly not that tweetronic version that currently can be heard on that commercial shilling cars or whatever). Richard X is all about beautification, adding a more robust 4/4, turning up the original's busy, hi-NRG bass line and pushing its driving guitar to the back (what used to be a steering wheel is now just part of the scenery). If Vitalic's "The Chase" was a love letter, this is a muscle-worshiping massage. What I find most endearing about Richard's remix is his affinity for the mechanized voices that sing the chorus during the original's breakdown. Here, they underscore Bernard Sumner on every chorus. Richard X also pulls back the sonic slingshot so that on his own robot-voiced breakdown hurls the song to heaven. This is gorgeous, gorgeous stuff that undoubtedly comes from a place of respect and adoration for the original.

Ashley feels love . . .

. . . do you?

The fourfour four (plus one)

Four faces of disco and one additional example to start the weekend pounding:

The Juan MacLean "Give Me Every Little Thing (Putsch 79 Disco Dub)" - I'm not the most ardent supporter of DFA's endless Matchbox-car treatment of rock and disco -- the two genres are constantly rammed into each other in different configurations, as though at the hands of some genius toddler too sophisticated to pull the legs off bugs. This is not to say that James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy are killing anything. What I find most distasteful about dance rock or disco punk or whatever you're most likely to hear on the LES right now, has little to do with DFA's experimentation. It's the effectual suggestion that in order for dance music to be cool (thus, accepted by Williamsburg wimpsters), it has to RAWK, as though the precise, obliterating, good-old 4/4 of disco isn't butch enough. I don't fault Murphy for this effect, since he seemed pretty OK about making potentially gay music when I asked him about it for his MAGNET interview. The world is big enough to contain dance music that's driven by guitars, even if hipster myopia is basically trained to only that strain right now.

DFA acts get extra points for their willingness to gay it up via remixes. I already posted the best example of this we're ever likely to hear (Lindstrom's gorgeous take on LCD Soundsystem's "Tribulations"), though Finnish duo Putsch '79 spin a worthy successor with their leaner, bitchier take on the Juan MacLean's "Give Me Every Little Thing." It's like music's answer to Queer Eye, minus the mincing and your resulting cringing. Putsch tidy up the oddly commercial, Euro-leaning, "One More Time"ing original by stripping it down to its bikini-beats underwear and live-sounding bass line that slips around it. Synths hung all over the original, and it's as though now there's only room for one in this carry-on bag of a track. What once was a mess now wails with timed flamboyance and aplomb that old-school boogie and latter-day disco offered in the early '80s when producers were so eager to show off their keyboard's sounds of now. It's as urgently retro as anything in the tents at Bryant Park, and you know how gays love a fashion show.

Evelyn "Champagne" King - Let's Get Funky Tonight (12" Version)" - Dlisted's Hot Slut of Monday, Evelyn King, gets some more love for the week's closing. Plenty of King's tracks made bigger marks than "Let's Get Funky Tonight," but few are as wonderfully idiosyncratic. "Funky" arrived in 1980, a time of crossroads for disco (though it "sucked" according to tastemaker racists and homophobes, it existed unfazed in the underground and on black radio, where it was making the transition from live to programmed). It was also a time of change for Evelyn, whose future surely looked uncertain as up to this point, she'd mostly proved herself as a disco diva (and an uber one at that -- she sounded so natural and free floating over the confines and cliches of the genre that singing disco might as well have been programmed into her DNA). "Let's Get Funky Tonight," then has almost contradictory charm -- its most endearing musical quality is its intergalactic synth, while its live four-on-the-floor beat keeps it grounded. Evelyn says nothing of consequence, but is damn convincing nonetheless. She worked hard for her shrinking paychecks and her relevance and thank god she stuck with it -- "Funky" was a bobbing bridge into her wholly electronic future that would prove to be the most essential period of her career (specifically 1981's I'm in Love album with its perfect title track and 1982's Get Loose, with the almost-as-jaw-dropping "Love Come Down"). America tried its best to wipe disco off its pop landscape, but nothing could shake Evelyn.

Tony Touch featuring Total "I Wonder Why (He's the Greatest DJ) (Soul Central Remix Extended)" - A bizarre confluence of not only the past and the present but of individual disco styles occurred in 2000 with this track, essentially a fawning commercial for Touch and his The Piece Maker comp. He enlisted the butchiest girl group of the '90s, Total, to redo Sister Sledge's "He's the Greatest Dancer," a somewhat played-out choice, seeing as Will Smith had already done much to resurrect destroy it by making its sample the backbone of 1997's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It." No matter, Total handle the task efficiently, but it was Soul Central's Italo-disco injection that pushed the song into beguiling greatness. Prominently showing off the fits-and-starts bass line and a synth melody ganked from Kano's "I'm Ready", a source track that's so Italian, it'll make you see red (and green and white), "I Wonder Why" barely had a chance of serving its ad-ish function in the mainstream (keep in mind that this was created before the single most vital bit of Italo retroism, I-F's flawless Mixed Up in the Hague DJ mix, even had a chance to catch on underground). But wow, Italo on the relatively open (-minded) airwaves urban radio? What a beautiful possibility.

Janet Jackson "R&B Junkie" - See, even Janet loves Evelyn, as "R&B Junkie" speeds up and guts King's "I'm in Love" to replace it with a celebration of the old school. While Janet's lyrical affinity for sounds of the past matches the theme of this post, and while Damita Jo was so slept on that I feel it my duty as a fan to share share share it, neither of these are the main reason I'm posting it.

The truth is that after watching the fun-filled Beauty Shop last weekend, I've been amused all week just by replaying one particular part in my head. Andie MacDowell, in her ATL belle role, looks around at the mostly black employees of the shop and, in her white-girl attempt to strike up conversation, asks, "So what do y'all think of Janice Jackson?" The girls proceed to chide her for her error and imply that she's lezzie for mentioning the sun-tittied one in the first place. With good reason -- Janice Jackson!?! That's totally what I'm calling Jan from now on. The best part about this is that it was a genuine mistake on Andie's part, a dangerous side-effect of an ad-libbing whitey. I always knew she had her head up her ass, but I never knew it could be so endearing. Play this one for Andie.