A musical healing...Shelter in place and those we've loved and lost

The times.. they are changing aren't they! From 78's  to 45's 12",8 tracks, cassettes, walkmens discmans, cdj's, to that bastered also known as...the thumb drive. I've seen many a music lover aka a, DJ/Produce in heated battles over this thingy called a thumb drive. Or vinyl vs technology. 

Battles and beefs happen, but time has shown even in House music, battles and beefs sometimes turn into brawls. Shameful isn't it.

There is evolution in sound, and how its made, through it all we've danced. No matter what flava you savor on the dance floor., you've danced. We use music to express every emotion. Music speaks when we cannot. Music is also a healer.

And right now we need music to speak like its never spoken before. and the beefs are or should be over how the music is played who plays it or how they make that bread is being affected.

Music is our medicine, its keeping us as uplifted, connected, and is a healer to our soul. 


I started this Blog almost 6 months ago. I wasn't in the right frame of mind to pen not one word. So I shelved it. At that time I didn't know if I would ever write again. I mean so much had gone on.

Then a 6'5" inch bird dropped some jewels in my ear as he always does. So I gave it some thought, and gave it some more thought, and thought some more after that. 

2019 ended on a high note., life was looking really good I was getting out of my underground funk. You see the summer of 2019 wasn't what I would call or recall fun.. but it set me on the road to healing. Healing myself from myself and through it all I had the music, the underground sound and my House family. I made my way to The Chosen Few but I still felt like some part of me was missing. I knew my musical life wasn't going to be right until I heard the one DJ that makes it right. On the up side other aspects of my life had taken a turn towards the positive and I was finally able to be "ok" with what had been the worst spring and summer of my life. 

...but, my House family... whew alls I can say is Thank YOU! - I promise this is all going to tie together. Allow me a little latitude please. 

anywho...

In rolls 2020 and with it came something none of us ever thought we would see in our lifetimes. Our House family was in need..in need of a healing. Not by our own hands. But by the hands of the people that were supposed to be there to protect all of us. 2020 is shaping up to be the year all the walls are torn down, and what better way to break down the walls and become a global village than through music. The beat that runs through us all.. 

Doctors heal the sick, and music heals the soul. The world is in bad need of both. Tonight I found myself thinking about the summer that would never be. No MOVEMENT no MOVEMENT parties,no DTM BBQ. No meeting people from all over the world. Taking pride in our city. No, me being disgruntled with Paxahau for one reason or another. no Rick, no Norm, no Uchi, no Cordell or Vincent. No Marcellus and the saddest part for me, no Fiona and Jason. No ending up at Motor City Wine with my loves The House Gallery. No Train, no Dayna.  No going out when the sun comes up and getting home with the dawn of a new day.  No Chosen Few. No beautiful black people united in music, dance, and food all that LOVE that is shown in that ONE day experience. No Mansion party in Atlanta, no Summer Oasis, no House in the park.. and the countless other House events that take place all over the world. WE are in a global pandemic and a lot of people are hurting and in need of a healing. 

We have lost SO many, we have been unable to comfort each other. Cry with each other, share memories of our dearly departed with one another. But the tie that keeps us together is the music, and the DJs that create this underground world we are united in. 

My mind can't help but go back in time., the time I first heard Nervous, became friends with David or shared a smile and laugh with Tasha. The parties, clubs and special guest. We have all lost someone we have also lost a part of who we are and what makes us those carefree adults who still party like we did back in the day. 

Now, since we are all on global punishment we can still be united. We can mourn our loved ones. We just have to do it a different way, a new normal. And just like we can mourn we can also rejoice. Rejoice for our friends who did recover, and for the purpose of this Blog rejoice in our DJs. They have been our musical healers. Giving us the remedy we need. They have shared their collective talents via different platforms. DJs are selfish ya know. They too need a healing, they don't just play for us. They play for themselves as an outlet cause they do have something to tell us., just in their own way. There is always a message in the music my friends. Listen to the healing message., and don't forget to tip the messenger. They have to eat and pay bills to ya know. 

This global pandemic has shown us that we are more alike than not. This horrible virus doesn't care who you are. How much money you have. It wants to attack you, control you, keep you down. 
The healers and the music do the same. They don't care what your ethnicity is, how much money you have what color you are or who you chose to love. Let the music take control, let it attack you. The difference is the music pulls us up. The music helps us rejoice when we want to cry. With every track played, another page of our musical diary is read or is being written. A memory is relived., and new ones are being made. 

Right now, memories and live feeds is all we got. But soon we will be able to lift our hands in the sanctuary, we will be able to hear those DJs beat that shh, the scene will be set, and our inner freak will be unleashed once again on a dance floor near you. 

Until that time, stay safe my loves, shelter in place, dance like nobody is watching, AND support your DJs. They do it for the love of House, for the love of beats, for the love of dance. They do it strictly for the L-O-V-E

I can't end this without saying something about Huck, but what can I say about someone I barely knew what can I say that hasn't already been said.  What I can say is this... I am going to miss seeing his face (that face) no matter what he was doing or who he was having a conversation with., I would always get a smile simply by saying, "Hi Huck"!  Your music will live on. Thank you for your gift/talent, your teachings and knowledge.

Rick will still have his Beautiful Sundays, Guest DJ Thursday will return. That I-94 connection will still be strong. Norm will be back to crack your cranium. and yes.. Shay will have her annual backyard shenanigans bbq(ok maybe not THIS year) but still..



Let the music Play

P~

When I fell in love

I have had my share of lovers, BUT... none like the love I have for House music, the underground community, and sound. I have loved this funky, deep, disco, spiritual, jazzifunkinnova since I was a child. 

My parents weren't big music lovers. But my aunt Rye was, (she was my mother's father's sister). My aunt Rye was the wild child of all of my great-grandmother's children. Hanging out in gin/ juke joints. Never staying in one place for long. Having babies and allowing my grandmother to raise them. My guess is, something other than the mundane life of family and motherhood pulled her away from family and into the clubs of Tennessee and happening spots of post-war Chicago.

As Rye got older she became the guardian and de facto mother of my favorite cousin Tiffany and her little brother Joseph (J.J.) and this is where my love for what would become House music began.

You see Rye had gotten sick and my great-grandmother who was well into her 70's at the time, got on a Greyhound bus and brought her baby girl back to Detroit and with her came all the sinning ( as my grandmother would say). The devil's music, hot pants, smokin, etc.. etc.. 

My great-grandma kept us in church, and Rye kept us into the hottest music. So, when did I fall I love with House? The Moment that four on the floor touched my soul and enlightened my consciousness.

Of course it was the mid 70's like '77/'78, it was Disco back then, the progenitor of House and we just couldn't get enough of it. The radio stations blasted the sounds of  Thelma Houston, Donna Summer, The Trammps etc..


.... Meanwhile, back in the windy city a few like-minded, disco loving talented teens were tinkling with machines and inventing or re-inventing a sound that would become the biggest underground movement world has ever known. But more about them later. 

I think it was the summer of '80 or maybe maybe '81? I don't recall. I was blossoming into what would become a bonafide Househead ( YES!...it's a proper noun) 

I don't think it's a coincidence that I hit puberty around 1980 and discovered a new (kinda) sound. You see, to me...House ( called Progressive back then) is sexy, sexual, provocative...alluring, primal. And when you hit puberty,  while you may not understand those feelings at that crucial part of your life but, like House that's what puberty is. A journey a discovery of self and the world around you. No matter how big your, "world" was at that time. 

Ask most people from the, 3 1 3rd and they will tell you, it took off or began somewhere off  West 7 mile, here in Detroit. But for me it started on the radio.  Mojo was/is his name. He took myself and all of Detroit on a musical odyssey.  He played music most others didn't. He played music, that this preteen understood in a way she had not yet learned how to articulate, but she understood her feelings and emotions through the music. The music of George, Fonda, Raw Silk, Dayton and many many others. Ok I don't really remember singers and groups so..yeah, there's that. So from 1980 to about 1983 I was part of what was called the Midnight Funk Association. Where most, if not ALL of us Househeads in Detroit were born.   

My parents were your normal parents when it came to discipline so going out to the disco's for kids my age was out of the question. 
I figured out how to get around that foolishness. So the nights I was at, "my friends" she and I would make out way to this club called L'UOMO'S . Just a building, a building off 7mile and John R. All you heard was music, thumping, bass, hit you in the chest music. I here I was a 12/13 year old kid hangin out with the big dawgs.  We had a DJ  by the name of Ken Collier, I am sure he played there. He had been in the game since the mid 70's and I'd like to think most all Detroit DJ's learned at the foot of that Master in some form or another.  I know Delano Smith did he was a high school kid at the time., but he played like he was born to do this. So perhaps they were the 1st DJ's I heard.  I was just a kid, all I know was the venue and the music provided a freedom, a freedom from parents, school, neighborhood beefs. The music was called, Progressive, not House... yet! House, is a Chicago thang, and I had yet to experience what would become the music that Damn near defines who I am. Progressive, New Wave, Punk, Funk, Jazz, Soul, and yes even Rock and Roll. I love them all but this thing that we now call House was different. 
But...then came Rap, and I left what I understood to discover what I wanted. 

High School circa 1983...little did I know, but our small Catholic High School would birth some of the HOTTEST DJ's/Produsers in House music today! Rick Wilhite, Patrice Scott, David Spivey just to name a few. 

So, yeah I dipped out of the Progressive music scene to venture into the world of Rap..but by the late 80's early 90's The Jungle Brothers, DeLa, they had an element  of that sound I liked. By this time I think it was called House. If my time line is correct, by this time The Warehouse in Chicago was up and running Frankie and Ron controlled the groove and a kid names Jesse had made what became known at the 1st House record. So we were well on our way to becoming a House nation. 

After the college years, and rolling full speed ahead into the 90's while I had been to many parties House and R&B.  R&B just wasn't doing it for me, Jazz clubs were filled with old men, so all I had was the radio, The Wizard, and by this time.. Earl Mixxin McKinney were playing this House music, and BOOM I left that Rap life alone. Oh sure I listened to what was being played on the radio, but when they played House, that's when I become alive! 

 from the mid 90's well into the next decade, we had a show dedicated to House once or twice a week, it's just was Teresa Hill and her, "go to" DJ was Alan Ester.  Earl had started playing more Hip hop and The Wizard was no longer on the radio. So all I had for House was Alan, and he was my god!  

So I started going back to wherever House music was being played. And there's this guy named Vernon English who changed my life. Because while I understood the vibe of the music he made me understand the force of the DJ! Sometime in 1984 two Cass tech grads went to WSU for college and that is where their DJ careers took off fast forward a few years and here they are as, The Tandem. A DJ collective that had parties all over the city, they ruled the night life from the early 90's until this very day!

Then came Bruce...Bailey and his CD's that is, as the story was told to me. It was Vernon who taught Bruce how to spin.  Don't know the validity of this but..yeah, that's what I was told. And He became what's known as The God Father. He is one of it not the biggest House music promoter in the city! 

M!X and me!  Where my life as you know me began!  Fresh off divorce and a failed relationship. Around 2008 I start hitting this club called Lola's I started going just as it was coming to an end. We didn't know it at the time though. After Lola's (around 2010/2011) closed a new club hit the ground running with Bruce as it's resident.  Earl as it's MC and DJ Lynda Carter as it's designer/owner! I had more freedom to move in the streets as I please and I met a DJ that would be my teacher, partner in crime, and in some regards my mentor. His name is unimportant, but his role in my life is, it was he who would teach me style,and the technique of the DJ and respect for the music. He took me behind the groove and, proverbial velvet rope. Somewhere I became a quasi party promoter. From 2012 on I was the baddest bitch in the room.. parties, giving and receiving that "club love"  but the shade and was really real. Thankfully, I found my calling..if you will, in writing about the scene and the players, movers and shakers there in. Its 2016 I become a street reporter for an internet radio show, I've met people from all over the world. Mark de clive Lowe, Tony Morales, Louie Vega, Glenn Underground etc..etc..

2020 by this time I have a fairly popular Vlog called Popping up on a playa where I feature short convo's with the DJs in and around the city. I think I have come a long way since the time before House, the time before progressive, it was Disco that drew me in but its House that keeps me home!

So what does House mean to me? Freedom, love, joy, acceptance, euphoria,sex, a vertical hold. It's allows me to FINALLY discover who I am, that journey that started with disco, to pubescent preteen Progressive lover, to Rap fan, all the way back home. Yes home because House is every genre's I love all rolled into that 125 bpms four on the floor. Those bpms are the same as we all hear while in the womb. So there's a comfort in House to me. A comfort I knew long before I ever heard music. And the music is  timeless. 
That you Chicago Larry Frankie and a shy quiet guy named Jessie you made me who I am...musically that is.
footnote: my most memorable moment came one summer during MOVEMENT. For a very brief moment I got to talk to Robert Williams, and if you don't know who THAT is....oh you ain't really down. I got to hang with Chosen Few DJ 's Alan King and Wayne Williams (who also double as Jessie 's  big brother). Those kids grew up  and formed a collective. Now I can tell what House means to me, but they can show you what House music does! Every July, a park on the south side of Chicago becomes a community United in dance, love, peace and harmony! And that, my friends is what House music is!

Fin