Always in my mind I think of how it was in the Music Box. All the time when I make a track, I think of what Ron would do to the track. When he played at the Music Box, he would mess with the EQ and pump the system, and each song he would play for eight or ten minutes, and by the time it went off you’d feel that song, you’d know everything about that song, that song would get into us, and we would get into the song and just allow our minds to just go away to anywhere in this world or universe. You can’t do that if people only play songs for just three minutes and then they’re into the next one or they’re doing a lot of tricks with it. So I would try to play my music with feeling and meaning and that’s why the slow build-up from the beginning, and in the end it turns into something you’re just hype about, and that’s how you felt when Ron Hardy played.
—DJ Pierre to Jonathan Fleming, from What Kind of House Party Is This? (London: MIY Publishing, 1995). P. 206. (via theundergroundismassive)
Grace Jones—Feel Up (Larry Levan Mix)
Part 2 of DJ Tony People’s video taken at Detroit’s Club Heaven in 1991. For the story of Club Heaven look here.
Thanks to DJ Tony Peoples for uploading this video of a night at Club Heaven in Detroit to youtube. Part 1 and 2 are both amazing. Taken in 1991.
Original “rules” from The Sound Factory. #VII is priceless/fabulous.
Submitted by Chris Martin
Alvin Munk remembers a night when he was so overpowered by the experience of dancing — in a club so hot that the walls sweated — that he simply blacked out. He does remember walking out hours later, soaking in sweat and hoping that when he got older he would be able to get a club gig like Collier’s. “To have a home base like that. It sounds like a cliché now, but it really was magic. Heaven was special.
Dancers at Heaven Photos from: http://epiphany2005.blogspot.com/2005/12/ive-been-to-heaven.html?zx=6e458e001db29f08
Club Heaven: Detroit, Michigan 1980’s-1995
It is difficult to find reliable information about Detroit’s legendary nightclub, Heaven. Maybe because it was located in Detroit or maybe because most of its patrons were black and gay. Maybe because people have only recently started to realize how important the club was in the timeline of Detroit’s musical heritage. Still, information about Heaven remains elusive and is inextricable from the biography of the club’s resident DJ Ken Collier. Most of the current musical luminaries of Detroit techno cite Heaven and Ken Collier as early influences on their sound, and the history of Heaven needs to be uncovered and dusted off if we are to figure out what happened between the heyday of motown and the invention of techno.
All photos by Robert Carrithers, who can be found online at http://www.robertcarrithers.com
Club 57, 57 St. Mark’s Place, NYC 1979-1983
The late 1970’s and early 1980’s have gone down in counter-cultural history as the time when New York City was at its most challenging, energetic and artistically innovative. The city was broke, rent was cheap and there was plenty of space to create and party for those who were not afraid of tagged up subways, muggers and the used hypodermic needles littering the streets of the Lower East Side. A well-defined narrative names the important artists, musicians and scenesters of the time, as well as the places where they hung out and partied: Max’s Kansas City for the rockers, Studio 54 for the wealthy and famous cocaine people in glittery clothing; The Mudd Club for new wave hipsters and CBGB’s for anti-fashionable downtown punks and students. For some reason, Club 57 is rarely mentioned although it was an important meeting place and venue for much of what made the downtown scene so vibrant during that era. Artists such as Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and occasionally Jean-Michel Basquiat hung out there, lots of crazy performances that straddled the boundary of art, poetry and music went down. There were wacky activities like Tuesday night monster movie showings, Elvis birthday parties, lady wrestling and reggae mini golf in the basement.
WNYC presents “Vanished Venues” Oct. 18-23
Beginning on October 18, NPR station WNYC will be dedicating it’s Soundcheck showtime to presenting a “week-long series about the rise (and fall) of great nightclubs and concerts halls that helped shape New York City’s cultural life.”
Monday’s show was about Max’s Kansas City. You can tune in or stream the archive on the WNYC site: http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2010/oct/18/
Amazing footage of the Boccaccio. At 2:10 the mayor of Destelbergen speaks to reporters about the nuisance of the club…which remained open sometimes from Sunday evening all the way until Monday evening. Even after closing, he says, club patrons would continue to hang out in the neighborhood around the club. The mayor calls in the Rijkswacht (National Guard?) and forces the club to close on Monday night. Eventually, the owner of the club, Dirk De Maesschalk, pushes the DJ off the decks to catcalls from the clubbers. A reporter asks him “why did you shut off the music” and he replies “because the neighbors are complaining.”
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
