Ssense feature

Alex Needham of the Guardian has published a far-reaching feature about the writing of Life and Death on the NY Dance Floor in Ssense, drawing on an i/v conducted in HER (Haggerston Espresso Room) a month or two ago, https://www.ssense.com/en-gb/feature/the-club-is-a-church.

The intro runs:

"According to legendary house and disco DJ Danny Krivit, in the early 80s around 4,000 licenses were issued for nightclubs in New York City. In 2016, this number had fallen to around 120. The decline of New York club culture is a wearingly familiar refrain, chalked up to gentrification, the club-killing policies of Rudolph Giuliani during his 1994-2001 mayoral tenure, or smartphones replacing dancefloors as the primary focus and obsession of young people’s lives. Yet the New York nightclub isn’t finished yet, and in these times of political despair could be due a renaissance. Tim Lawrence’s new book Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983 reminds us that nightclubs can be generative spaces of art, community, cross-cultural pollination, experimentation, and pockets of resistance to the oppression of the daytime world."

Alex generously concludes:

"Lawrence’s three books are widely renowned to be as accurate a depiction as we’re likely to get of that moment in time. More importantly, they serve as a call to arms to those of us who still believe that nightclubs are important, a place where you can find your people and open your mind to new possibilities."

Brilliant Corners Valentine’s party to mark the NYC Loft 47th anniversary

Happy 47th anniversary to everyone associated with the NYC Loft. Today, the first without David, is bitter sweet, but will be marked by what I'm sure will be a beautiful ceremony in NYC (to be led by Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy and Mark Riley) and an evening of Loft classics at Brilliant Corners in London. The photo is of David at the Light in London in 2005. When we first started searching for a space David always said that the most important thing was for it to feel comfortable. When I asked him what he meant by that he replied that comfortable meant that you'd feel relaxed if you ended up needing to sleep the night in the space. This, remember, came after David lost his space on Avenue B in the very late 1990s and so started to think of how the Loft could be staged outside his own home. Several years later David looks comfy in his socks, standing next to a newly-acquired klipschorn. Good times...

Brilliant Corners 14 February 2017: well that was fun and also cathartic. At the start of the night I assumed I'd while away the time playing some great music on a exquisite sound system to people who were primarily focused on eating fine Japanese food and gazing into the eyes of their partners. By the end the space had transformed into a full-on, sweat-drenched dance party. Music-wise I stuck to records that David Mancuso played at the Loft in NYC and London, many of them classics, some a little less well known. Any feelings of ventriloquy-weirdness were brushed aside by the total enthusiasm of those gathered to mark the 47th anniversary of the Loft through music and dance. The toughest part was working in "What's Going On" and "Law of the Land", but the times seemed to call for both, and perhaps it's time we started to address Trump with the line "Girl you need a change of mind." As the end approached, some five hours later, the records were pretty much picking themselves, which was cool as I was itching to get onto the floor, where I belong. Thanks to everyone who showed up--it was special to get to spend time with a bunch of folks who up until yesterday I only recognised in passing from the Lucky Cloud Sound System parties. Double thanks to Amit Patel and Aneesh Patel along with the music and dance-savvy staff at Brilliant Corners for being so hospitable. I left with a smile on my face...

14 Feb 2017, Brilliant Corners tracklist:

Bob Marley “Exodus” From Dreams of Freedom: Ambient mix translations of Bob Marley in Dub
Ravi Shankar “Raga Abhogi”
Chuck Mangione with the Philharmonic Orchestra and Esther Satterfield, “Land of Make Believe”
Alfredo de la Fé / the Latin Percussion jazz Ensemble “My Favourite Things: Live Version”
WAR “City, Country, City”
Karma “High Priestess”
Barrabas “Woman”
Eddie Kendricks “Girl You Need a Change of Mind”
Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On”
Temptations “Law of the Land”
Brass Construction “Movin’”
Manu Dibango “Soul Makossa”
Fela Ransome-Kuti and the Africa ‘70 “Shakara”
Peter Brown “Do Ya Wanna Get Funky with Me?”
Ednah Holt “Serious, Sirius Space Party (Club Version)”
Led Zeppelin “Whole Lotta Love (album version)”
Chicago “I’m a Man (album version)”
No Smoke “Righteous Rule Dub”
Eddy Grant “Nobody’s Got Time”
Joakim “Spiders (Ewan Pearson Remix)”
LCD Soundsystem “Get Innocuous” 
Dinosaur L “Go Bag! #5 (François Kevorkian mix)”
Undisputed Truth “You + Me = Love”
Lonnie Liston Smith “Expansions”
T-Connection “Do What You Wanna Do (Disco Version)”
Crown Heights Affair “Say a Prayer for Two”
D Train “Keep On (Vocal)”
Âme “Rej (original)”
House of House “Rushing to Paradise”
Celestial Choir “Stand On the Word”
Patti LaBelle “Music Is My Way of Life”
Stevie Wonder “As”
280 West featuring Diamond Temple “Love’s Masquerade”
Sun Palace “Rude Movements”
Ozo “Anambra’

LSD x

Wire review + Tidal playlist

Still physical, still sharp as nails, Wire magazine has published a super-generous review of Life and Death on the NY Dance Floor that’s left me wondering if it can really be my work that’s being referred to. Niels Van Tomme writes:

“Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor is a remarkably intense piece of ‘community writing’. It breathes life into an iconic historical epoch and sociocultural scene without ever retreating into nostalgia or naive celebration. […] In fact, there’s something unexpectedly electrifying about reading Lawrence’s exceptionally well-researched historical studies [Love Saves the Day and Hold On to Your Dreams as well as L&D]. It is the sensation of remotely yet meaningfully becoming part of something hitherto only secretly known. One comes slowly yet unequivocally aware of how that specific era’s cultural and sociopolitical conditions, so thoroughly reconstructed in these works, resonate with the current sense of cultural and political impasse. […] Lawrence truly performs an act of captivating scholarship, without ever falling into the pitfalls of academic-speak. […] Lawrence is a master of relating these developments [Reaganomics, AIDS, the crack epidemic] to the sonic worlds other have shaped. Despite his narrative being shrouded in loss and anger, you walk away with the idea that ‘given the right conditions, a different city can exist’. This is both energising and politically apt, with that decade’s unscrupulous New York real estate mogul now dictating today’s unforgiving global political climate.”

On request I’ve written a short piece about the music of the 1980-83 era plus created a 46-track playlist for Tidal:
http://bit.ly/2ml1Xto
http://bit.ly/2mlvHGv

Between the Liner Notes interview

Matthew Billy, who tracked me down during my NYC L&D trip and interviewed me on my return to London, has published a radio doc about the history of disco, “The Dance Floor Doesn’t Lie”. It features the insights of the disco promoter legends Ray Caviano and Joseph Carvello plus added thoughts from me and co-host of Sound Opinions Jim DeRogatis. I haven’t had a chance to listen yet but the feedback on Ray’s FB page was very up:
http://bit.ly/2mANPwA