The European Journal of American Culture has published a long and generous review of Life and Death on the NY Dance Floor.
Resident Advisor was live inside Giant Steps, a summer hangout run by brilliant corners and Analogue Foundation.
The music was handled by the All Our Friends crew. You can watch & listen here.
Creativity, Collectivity, Convergence: New York City Party Culture, 1970-83
Red Gallery, London
May 31, 2018 - June 14, 2018
The opening night of the "Creativity, Collectivity, Convergence: New York City Party Culture, 1970-83" show at Red Gallery, Shoreditch was fun! Thanks to everyone who came along, to Juan Leal for organising and hosting, to Angela McRobbie for chairing the panel, to Josie Berry, Monique Charles and Juan Lealfor joining the panel, and to the audience for their great contributions to the conversation.
For those who didn't manage to get, the show is open for a couple of weeks. Juan Leal suggested that I offer a tour of the show, so watch this space for more on that. As part of the exhibition Martin Beck will be screening his 13-hour film Last Night, midday to 1am (approx.) on the 9th. The film features the records selected by David Mancuso (always in conversation with the Loft crowd) at the penultimate party at the Prince Street Loft in 1984, so bring a cushion, a balloon, whatever you fancy! On the 10th Martin and I will discuss the making of Last Night and the symbolic importance of 1984 in the history of NYC, beginning at 6pm, I think, so please come along to that if you're free.
Jeff "Chairman" Mao has published a momentous oral history of David Mancuso's Loft for Red Bull Music Academy. The history is comprised of interviews with Vince Aletti, John Benitez, Barbie Bertisch, David Felton, Fred Flores Ernesto Green, François Kevorkian, Louis Kee, Hiromi Kiba, Danny Krivit, David Liu, Tina Magennis, Colleen Murphy, Paul Raffaele, Mark Riley, Josie Ritondo, Alex Rosner, Douglas Sherman, Nicky Siano, Will Socolov, Elyse Stefanishin, Yukihiro Suzuki, Luis Vargas and Donna Robbins Weiss--I hope I'm not leaving anyone out. Jeff even spoke with me; I have fond memories of an intense interview conducted on a scorching hot day in NYC in early May last year. It's a huge piece of writing and a valuable addition to the historicisation of the Loft--thank you, Jeff!
While I'm here, I'd very much like to flag up a crowdfunding campaign organised by Ben Goldfarb on behalf of the wonderful Judy Russell, a longstanding employee at Vinyl Maniac and Downtown 81, a regular at the Paradise Garage and a close friend of many in the scene, including Larry Levan, who fell on hard times after becoming ill. It was wonderful to be able to interview Judy and include some of her memories and insights in Life and Death on the NY Dance Floor. Please donate!
Lastly, the New York Times has published an obituary of the magical Boyd H. Jarvis, already much missed. The article ends with sister Yvette Jarvis recounting how Boyd made and recorded music until his death. What else was he going to do?
To mark International Women’s Day, Colleen Murphy, one of the most important DJs on today's dance scene and also a co-partner in Lucky Cloud Sound System, invited me along with many others to chose a recording that features a female artist and provide a Twitter-friendly description of the reason for our choice plus a photo.
I chose Marlena Shaw's live rendition of "Woman of the Ghetto" and wrote: 'Addressing feminism, blackness and poverty, Marlena Shaw’s “Woman of the Ghetto” was ahead of its time when it first came out on 7” in 1969. The vocalist’s subsequent nine-and-a-half-minute delivery of the song during a live show at Montreux in 1974 took it to the next level, and remains as radical and relevant as ever.’
