Just stumbled upon this article in an old Real Detroit. The latest issue has
a pretty funny interview with KDJ.
Enjoy!
http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_2589.shtml
Takin' It to the Old School:
Detroit's New Dance Show
Flashback to a time when big hair and outrageous outfits were fashion
standard. A time when sweatsuits and boomboxes were banned from the mall.
The end of disco to the era of old school; it was a good time in Detroit
if you were a dancing machine. Detroits WGPR was the first black-owned
television station in the United States, broadcasting locally to an audience
of loyal urban and suburban viewers. The most popular show ever on the
station was The Scene, Detroits version of Soul Train. With all ordinary
Detroiters as the shows recurring cast of dancers, moves born in Detroit
were brought to viewers through funk, hip-hop, electro and early Detroit
techno.
Brendan M. Gillen of the electrobass duo Ectomorph recalls fond memories of
The Scene. The energy of the dancers, the frenetic music, it was mind
blowing
Id watch every day. The ultimate highlight for me was seeing them
mix early House music with Miami Bass; it was the first place I heard Chip
Es Like This or House Nation and the first Transmat record, Gillen
said. But, the dances they would do to [2 Live Crews] Throw That D,
phew. It was a life-changing moment the urgency, the directness, the
rudeness that has never left me or my music.
The Scene ran for 12 years, from 1975 to 1987, until new owners bought WGPR.
Its successor, The New Dance Show, aired on WGPRs sign-on WWJ from the
late-'80s into the early-'90s with its own all-local cast of dancers. The
most memorable character was The Count, a fully-cloaked vampire who strutted
his stuff down the line with everyone else. Even though the Nielsen ratings
didnt pay much attention to the local broadcasts, the producers and cast
knew they had something big. Virtually unknown Detroiters were made stars
overnight, recognizable to avid viewers from their spotlight moments on the
show.
Most of the dances on The New Dance Show and The Scene came straight from
the streets of Detroit, and are still seen in the clubs today. The Jit, the
Schoolcraft, the Prep, the Errol Flynn and the Funkateer all stem from an
original Detroit dance from the first half of the century, when the
community of the poor neighborhoods gathered at the end of a long work day
to dance out their stressors. The Black Bottom was Detroits version of
the Jitterbug, a dance taking hold of the country during the Jazz Age. The
Black Bottom moniker came from the neighborhoods on the citys East side,
a thriving yet economically stricken community of black-owned businesses.
Clubgoers enjoyed performances from the jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald and
Billie Holiday, and Jelly Roll Morton. The dance has morphed and changed
over the years according to the times popular dance music, but the
recognizable footwork has remained the same.
This Saturday, two fellow producers and DJs who share a love for these
classic Detroit dance shows and body moves celebrate their birthdays by
taking you back
back to the dance line. Brian Gillespie and Todd Osborn
(Ghettotech production team Starski and Clutch) have invited The New Dance
Shows DJ Tooshay to rock the Fi-Nite Gallery, along with other special
guests from the show.
The music, the DJing, the dancing ... everything was out of control, even
down to the crazy commercials! Osborn said. Id always felt wed
embellished too much and maybe we had been making it out to be bigger or
better than it really was, he continued. But after I had dug an old VHS
tape out of my closet and put it on, I immediately could tell that we had
downplayed the show, if anything! | RDW
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