San Francisco, we are throwing an all night heavy Disco Party this Friday November 30th. Mezzanine is flying in 16 piece Brooklyn, NY disco ensemble Escort to perform 2 sets over the course of this epic evening. Beat Electric's own BT Magnum and Black Shag will also be performing sets as well as five more of San Francisco's finest Disco DJ's.

Escort will performing at Midnight and 3am. The cover charge is only $10.00 all night long. Prepare to lose your shit, this is going to be the party of the year.

In case you have been sleeping under a rock and havent heard of them yet, this is NYC phenomen ESCORT:



mp3: Escort "Starlight"

mp3: Escort "All Through The Night"

mp3: Escort "A Bright New Life" (Dub)

The Earons landed on our Earth in 1983 and brought an interesting sound to discos and the streets. Their sound is self described as "astro funk" that was inspired by the cosmic mythology of Sun Ra with a bit of Anthony Braxton's mathematica. The band members names are all numbers (which add up to 1.7). Their first track, 1983's Video Baby, is yet another song about the emerging world of video games and video entertainment. Their track Land Of Hunger is a reggae influenced pop-disco track that has a lot of elements to love. Sadly the band returned to their native Earon Earth in 1984.

mp3: The Earons - Video Baby
mp3: The Earons - Land Of Hunger

Although the Beatelectric DJ's are a tight and friendly bunch for the most part, occasional fisticuffs and BT pounding on my head with his Motorola Q besides, despite this there are a handful of records that we covet dearly and refrain when at all possible sharing the identity of during sets for fear that our DJ friends will be sat on gemm or making calls when the get home to track a copy down. Childish I know, but sometimes you just want to be sure that a track isn't going to be played by anyone else that night, is going to blow up and is far removed from the cannon of dance music standards from which the audience knows. These are the tracks you searched hardest for, hunted down or just lucked out upon, when someone comes over to look at the label you slip it back into your bag and should another collector come up after you play it and tell you casually that they also have one copy to play out and two spare to use as a coaster and frisbee respectively, your heart sinks.

'Its Your Love' by Special-T falls into the above category for me, its not beyond rare if you are actually looking for it, although its not cheap should you find it on the internet etc, but its a relatively obscure boogie track that does not get played out by many and whats more it is beautifully understated dancefloor heat. I heard Morgan Geist play mid way through a mix once.. I wasn't happy..

Here is a beyond crap photo of the sleeve just to add color to the post:


















Special-T - Its Your Love.mp3

Vaughan Mason is well known to many for giving us 1979's seminal roller-disco anthem "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll". What alot of people do not know is that Vaughan went on to become a proto-house pioneer in the mid to late 80's with his group Raze. In the time between those two periods Vaughan put out the sex-ed up, bouncy "Jammin' Big Guitar" single in 1981 and a fantastic EP with vocalist/ multi instrumentalist Butch Dayo called "Feel My Love" on Salsoul in 1983. "Feel My Love" has become quite sought after over the years and I am still trying to figure out who ran off with the copy I found at a bookstore in 2002. The cat food eating, hobbit-like creatures working at the store threatened to shoot me as I made out the door with my 50 cent copy of the record. Now all I have to show for it is this mp3 of the boogie classic "Party on the Corner".

mp3: Vaughan Mason "Jammin' Big Guitar"

mp3: Vaughan Mason & Butch Dayo "Party on the Corner"

Hott City was one of the amazing bands that were released on Butterfly Records. This is a slow burner of a disco track that pounds you with a big beat that doesn't stop. This is what I would want to hear in 1979 at 4am after all the lame cheesy people have left the floor. It is an absolutely perfect track in its original state, but I wanted to extend its mellow groove and slow it down a bit from its 134 bpm tempo.

mp3: Hott City - Feelin' Love (LeBaron ReEdit)

Ronnie Jones is a DJ and recording artist who released several tracks throughout the late 70 and up to the late 80's. He spent a lot of his time touring Europe and Canada. In the 80's he worked with German producer Jurgen S. Korduletsch. Video Games is a very playful track that has a killer mix of choppy vocal, funky electric piano bass and disco guitar with just about every crazy synth sound you can imagine. This track sounds like something that Daft Punk would turn into a robotic dance floor banger.

mp3: Ronnie Jones- Video Games

Indeep were your not so basic one hit wonder group that completely broke musical ground with their 1982 hit "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life". Thanks to mastermind songwriter/producer Michael Cleveland aka Cold Jam, their sound was a very unique and original blend of New Wave, Post Disco and Proto Hip Hop.

Indeep released two full length LP's and a grip of singles before the project folded in 1985 most likely due to the fact they simply could not score another hit single. Vocalist Rejane Magloire went on to have success in the techno pop group Technotronic, but I am still trying to track down whatever happened to our man Cold Jam. I recently picked up the groups third single "The Record Keeps Spinning" and was blown away by the production value and the timeless, almost modern feel to it. The cut has a slower groove than most dance tracks of the era, but the melody is so infectious and the sonic mastery completely spot on.

mp3: Indeep "The Record Keeps Spinning"

The thrift store is always a good place to find rare gems, but it is an even better place to find something unlistenable. You can get a feel and actually make crates of records that were likely donated from a single source. You will get your Chrystal Gale and Ronnie Millsap fans, and then our hip-hoppers who tried to be scratch DJs in the early 90's. Once I see that promo 12" from T.K. Disco, ZYX, or Butterfly records I hope I will find a treasure trove of records that one gay unkle decided to finally donate. What is more likely is getting a face full of dust and touching record jackets that are soaked in urine and eaten by rats. Or sweet album covers but no record, or thrashed records that are unplayable. I found all of the above today, but for $3 I left with some great vinyl. Among the six records I bought was a 6 track Italo comp from the label Mobile Disco Records in the Philippines. It isn't the best quality recorded vinyl, but there are some some cute lovable tracks on it. Here are a couple of tunes.

mp3: Ken Laszlo - Tonight
mp3: Magic Fire - Body Dancer
mp3: Joy Peters - Don't let Loose Your Heart Tonight

Addendum: Bobby Viteritti sent us a very nice email, the mix is indeed by him, and whats more he has now very recently released several of his classic mixes remastered on CD, available at his website http://www.bobbyviteritti.com/

The Trocadero was the US west coast’s most important dance club of the disco era and was one of a small pantheon of truly taste making venues around the country that included such luminaries as Paradise Garage, The Saint and The Trocadero’s sister club in New York, 12 West. I ride past what was the Trocadero every day, now a restaurant/bar called the Glas Kat on San Francisco’s 4th Street, on my way to the Caltrain station to take me south into silicon valley.

This mix was taken direct from the sound board of the Trocadero one night in 1980, recorded directly to quarter inch tape, it is a rare, high fidelity piece of history and indicative of the Trocadero sound a few years before high nrg diluted the format, the selection is underground and soulful but to me seems slightly more electronic for its time than mixes and snippets you hear from contemporary clubs of the era on the east coast.

There is a mystery attached to this mix though, the old veteran in San Francisco’s Castro who passed it on to me did not know who the DJ was that night, so I can’t give the correct credit to whomever executed it, but the resident DJ at the time would have been the venerable Bobby Viteritti so indicators would point to him, still it could still have been any one of a handful of well known DJ’s that passed through the booth to play on that famous sound system. Here is the track listing, enjoy!:

Change – The End
Sabu – We’re Gonna Rock
Erotic Drum Band – Touch Me Where It’s Hot
Ann Margret – Midnight Message
Wardell Piper – Super Sweet
The Ritchie Family – Quiet Village
Dive Grey & The Oyster Band – Hotel Paradise
Cerrone – Call Me Tonight
Erotic Drum Band – Pop Pop Shoo Wah
Theo Vaness – No Romance Just Wanna Dance
Theo Vaness – Sentimentally It’s You
Persia – Inch By Inch
Vera – Take Me To The Bridge
Don Ray – Got To Have Lovin
Sylvia Love – Instant Love
Lust - Rinder & Lewis


Trocadero Live Mix 1980.mp3

Sam Records was a classic disco label founded on Long Island City, New York in 1976 by Sam Weiss. Sam had a really strong seven year run until its demise at the end of 1983. In the late 70's The label scored early hits with The John Davis Monster Orchestra and Gary's Gang and for a time between 1978 and 1980 was distributed by Columbia records.

After the Columbia deal ended Sam returned as an independent label in 1980 with a bold new look for their 12 inch singles and a fresh sound. The crossover Italo sounding "Don't Stop" by German group K.I.D. was released in 1981. "Don't Stop" had a pumping bassline, sequenced synth's and a wicked vocoder line.

Later in 1981 Vicky "D" put out the massive cut "This Beat is Mine". In my opinion, this track is a sort of disco precursor to electro hits by Shannon and Debbie Deb. Vicky's raw, soaring vocals and the unfadeable synth hook are pure gold.

Husband and wife team Mike and Brenda Sutton put out several 12 inches on Sam culminating with the disco boogie burner "Don't Let Go of Me" in 1982. The dubbed out/pitch shifted vocals send this track into deep space.

Sadly, Sam Records folded in late 1983 as disco's star was commercially fading. The unfortunate thing is as disco's popularity waned the tracks only got better and better. damn.

mp3: K.I.D. "Don't Stop

mp3: Vicky "D" This Beat is Mine

mp3: Mike and Brenda Sutton "Don't Let Go of Me (Grip My Hips and Move Me)"

As the 70's ended and the 80's came, the face of disco changed. People had thought that they had gotten rid of disco, but they just traded it in for a different type. Long gone were the huge arrangements and talented session musicians and in were the new synthesizers and a highly polished electronic sound. One of the sub genres to emerge was HI NRG. These dance floor bangers are part electro and part disco and often came packaged in bright colors and parachute pants.

mp3: Hazell Dean - Searchin' (I Gotta Find A Man)

Veteran DJ/ Remixer/ Rollerskate champ Danny Krivit did a near perfect edit of the track "You Got Me Running" by Lenny Williams as featured on James Murphy and Pat Mahoney's (LCD Soundsystem) new FabricLive Mix. I put it back to back with the original recording from '78 so you can see for yourselves the difference a good disco edit really makes. The original version is excellent but it suffers from a long winded arrangement. Krivit's edit kicks off with a pumped up bass loop culled from nearly six minutes into the original track and stays in high gear all the way to the finish.

mp3: Lenny Williams "You Got Me Running" Danny Krivit Edit

mp3: Lenny Williams "You Got Me Running" OG