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entertainment

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started reading about Paradise Garage and found it especially interesting how that whole movement interplayed with the religious doctrines of the black community back then. Not only the god stuff and the gay stuff or how Larry Levan's cult following reffered to his sets as "saturday mass", but also the presence in the actual music and how it went from this to Green Velvets "Preacher Man" in less than a decade.

 

entertainment

Well-known member
well I actually thought that Preacher Man was sort of a nihilistic statement of apathy or contempt towards the "moral majority" criticisms as exemplified by that preacher, but now I started thinking that I might have completely misinterpreted it.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
"Craner's on the piss again"

Thanks Chiefs, I saw that

But this is a beautiful Change / Jam & Lewis track

 
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Sectionfive

bandwagon house
My choon of the day is stuck in my head. 2step very much in production style of Chris Mack and samples this (belter!) vocal


Anyone recall the name of it?
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
But this is a beautiful Change / Jam & Lewis track

gotta understand, my musical background, it took me forever to come around on any kind of smooth music even long after I'd abandoned the tribalisms of youth. I'm still much more post-disco, i.e. I mainly enjoy bits of 80s R+B, jazz-funk, etc that fit into that context rather than fully embracing them, but even that partial embrace of the smooth was one of the last musical frontiers I had to cross. actually, those two Change records nicely illustrate the shift from post-disco to full-on 80s R+B, you can really see where J+L were headed w/Janet Jackson etc. tbh "You Are My Melody" doesn't really do it for me but I can appreciate the quality at least. Jacques Fred Petrus is one of the most underrated disco auteurs I reckon.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
especially interesting how that whole movement interplayed with the religious doctrines of the black community back then

"Stand On the Word" is ofc great, but funnily enough for once Larry Levan had nothing to do with it. in fact no one can even remember him playing it at the Garage.

whole backstory as to how it was mislabeled a Levan joint, but it was actually found by Walter Gibbons, who in the early 80s was a member of the same church

Gibbons (John the Baptist to Levan's Jesus) actually had the most complicated relationship with the church, and the intersection of religion/sexuality/race of any of those dudes. it's a story I encourage you/anyone who cares about the history of dance music to look up, but in short ca. 78 at the height of his powers he caught religion heavy and it destroyed his career. clearing dancefloors playing gospel at peak hour, refusing to remix or play records that were too licentious (in disco!), preaching to everyone, and so on. a very sad death too, like so many of that generation.

anyway, I'm hardly an expert but that relationship between worldly, pleasure-oriented music and the black church definitely predates disco, and post-dates the brief, glorious post-disco, pre-AIDS heyday of the Garage. there are endless examples, of which this is only one. definitely 100% my favorite gospel house record ever, a perfect hybrid of spiritual and temporal ecstasy.

Engineer: GOD
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
for my choon of the day tho I am picking the ever so lovely and incomparable Sheila Chandra

British people of a certain age will probably be familiar

I've listened to this record countless times, will never get sick of it, always makes me feel better

gods above + below but she was (and is) a beautiful woman in every sense of the word

 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
(tbc the original music video is pretty silly early 80s Orientalism but she just transcends it; also, she was 16 when they made that record!)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
This is not COTD but just a footnote for Padraig (U.S.)*:

When you feel the genius of this Jam & Lewis pocket epic, the journey will be complete:


* I still insist on the (U.S.) distinction for the reason of deep Dissensus history.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Don't forget too that Luther Vandross was one of the in-house vocalists for Change. Kick-startEd his career.
 

luka

Well-known member
formation are a funny label. i'd always assumed i liked them until i looked at their catalogue and realised that acutally i didn't like them that much.
sort of paint by number 'ardcore a lot of it. not slagging off that tune just musing like.
 

Leo

Well-known member
craner hasn't even acknowledged my special dedication post him on the previous page. i feel...sad.
 
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