80s Dance Classic: Nitro Deluxe – This Brutal House

This trippy little early house number was a genuine monster in clubs across the globe for a year or so in 1987 through 1988, aided no doubt by the fact that it had at least two different incarnations, released about a year apart – firstly, I think, as ‘This Brutal House’ and later, as ‘Let’s Get Brutal’. It probably wasn’t heard quite as much outside the confines of clubland, but it stayed fresh, and was instantly ripe for any amount of remixing. This one is more firmly indebted to electro than many other early house standards, which were in the main more bpm-geared spawns of what we might otherwise have called disco.

Nitro Deluxe is actually Philadelphia’s Manny Scretching, who may or may not have died earlier this year … I’m thinking I saw an obit somewhere recently.

(I googled it but my browser for some perplexing reason kept defaulting to a search term of ‘Fanny Scratching’ … and from there I kinda lost what it was I was supposed to be searching for in the first place. Plus a little bit more of my own will to live)

 

80s Dance Classic: The Valentine Brothers - Money's Too Tight (To Mention)

Simply Red took this into the charts, but that nonetheless funky version isn’t really a patch on this bass-tastic original by the far too underappreciated Valentine Brothers.  Soul.

 

80s Dance Classic: Donald Banks – Status Quo

Agit-rap? From fairly early on in the life of Hip hop, this one has a real go-go feel to it. Possibly outta Washington. Possibly not. From 1983, featuring a gruff-voiced jazzy kinda guy who from all accounts did very little else of note during his criminally underground recording career. Not to be confused with Don Banks, the Aussie dude, an actual jazz guy. But then you probably wouldn’t have made that connection anyway. One of them is clearly black. I loved this track for about a year after it turned up on a much loved mixtape circa 1986. And yes kids, that’s an actual mixtape of the antique cassette variety. Ask your Mum. Here’s 10 minutes of agitagogoprotohoprap from a funky guy with a fairly large chip on his shoulder:

 

 

 

80s Dance Classic: General Caine – Where’s The Beef

Did somebody mention beef? Getting back to true “lost” classics, here’s General Caine’s ‘Where’s The Beef’ from 1984. Pure funk. George Clinton-esque, even. The banned ‘Crack Killed Applejack’ was probably the band’s (aka General Kane) most high profile track, but quite why this one remained largely ignored by all but only the most committed of clubbers, I’ll never know.

80s Dance Classic: Gary Clail & The On-U Sound Syndicate – Beef

I’m cheating a little bit here. Calling a track from the early ‘90s an “80s dance classic”. But I can do that. I’m allowed … it’s my blog. So jumping forward a little here, and in keeping with the On-U theme of recent posts, this is loudhailer man Gary Clail and the late great Bim Sherman with ‘Beef’. Just for anyone out there who doesn’t like the idea of eating beef. All one of you. This is the dancefloor geared ‘Future Mix’. The original album version was much more menacing. Slower paced, with better bass. But it also featured spooky abattoir sound effects – so I’ll spare you that rather haunting version. Hey, I’m all heart.

Oh, and I've just noticed that this is my 50th post to everythingsgonegreen ... now all I need is a few comments. *Holds breath* ...

80s Dance Classic: Malcolm X - No Sell Out

Keith Le Blanc has spent the best part of the past 30 years flying beneath the mainstream music radar, but to many he’s considered one of the more influential beat-makers around. Whether it was his role in the formation and development of Hip hop as part of the legendary Sugarhill Gang (or at least, as part the Sugarhill label’s house band), or the work he’s produced as part of the industrial funk outfit Tackhead, Le Blanc has been at the cutting edge of dance music evolution for more than a quarter of a century. Yet he remains largely in the background, faceless, anonymous, and pretty much unheralded. I suspect he likes it that way, content to just keep doing what he does so well ... drumming, programming, sequencing, and sampling ... (plus doubtlessly a whole lot of other things ending with ‘ing’). Le Blanc has his own label, and he’s released a couple of extraordinary “solo” albums over the years but here’s something he did way back in 1983 for the Tommy Boy label:

80s Dance Classic: Laid Back - White Horse

It’s probably a bit rich to label a track that spent three weeks at No.1 on the US dance charts as a “lost” classic, but Danish synthpop duo Laid Back hit an unlikely peak with the now largely forgotten ‘White Horse’ back in 1983. Some would even argue that this track – originally a b-side – was another influential precursor to the techno scene that would dominate dancefloors across the globe by the end of the decade. It was probably only the obvious drug reference that held it back from wider (chart and radio) exposure at the time, but the 12-inch mix remains a sought after classic. Here’s the abbreviated version:

80s Dance Classic: Cybotron - Cosmic Raindance

This is from Detroit in 1981. Juan Atkins would go on to become one of the true godfathers of what we now call techno, but a whole decade earlier he was collaborating with one Richard Davis, a spaced out ex-Vietnam vet, under the Cybotron moniker.

While the history books often record that it was Afrika Bambaataa's ‘Planet Rock’ that took the white European electro sounds of Kraftwerk to the black dancefloors of the USA, we can see that Atkins was already exploring a similar path a year or so earlier.

It’s certainly true that Bambaataa took those cold crisp electronic beats to the mainstream clubs of NYC, but Atkins was already cultivating something of an underground scene in Detroit. Once disco started morphing into house just down the road in Chicago a few years later, Atkins was in a prime spot to seize the initiative, upping the bpm factor on his old school electro experiments to change the course, shape, and speed of dance music for years to come.

Here’s some experimental electro/techno from Cybotron, ‘Cosmic Raindance’ from 1981:

80s Dance Classic: Divine - Native Love (Instrumental Remix)

To celebrate the passing of the first reading of the Marriage Equality Bill – nice to see New Zealand’s parliamentarians exercising something akin to common sense for a change – I thought I’d go for something big, bouncy, and very gay today ... a fat cheesy cross-dressing slice of 80s disco heaven from someone who really knew how to party ... LGBT community icon, Divine (aka Glenn Milstead – RIP).

This is actually a b-side, an instrumental remix that isn’t really an instrumental at all, and a version that is arguably better than the a-side released as a single. So far as lost classics go, ‘Native Love’ is the real deal, with this release for some inexplicable reason being largely overshadowed by Divine’s later output, most notably tracks like ‘Love Reaction’ and ‘Shoot Your Shot’. But I love this track, particularly the percussion, and it rates in my opinion as Divine’s best work.

Again, this one takes us all the way back to 1982 – Divine’s ‘Native Love’ (Instrumental Remix):

80s Dance Classic: State of Grace - That's When We'll Be Free

I'm going to post a few lost dance classics from the 80s, rare groove and stuff. Just for the hell of it. Because I can ... and because I'm presently very much absorbed in 'Last Night A DJ Saved My Life', Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton's seminal tome on the history of dance music ... going all the way back to 1982 with this one: