XLR8R brings us a great look into the proper way to go crate digging in Manhattan's Lower East Side or LES for people in the know. Go to Kon's blog for video at Playin 4 Keeps.

Also don't forget to check out their "Off Track" mix album featuring all the great rare afro funk and disco tracks they are know for digging from the corners of the earth.  Released recently on BBE Records. You can pick up the album at the Underground Hip Hop shop. Good luck finding it at your local record store.

Tothedisco.com is sponsoring a new night in Boston called Afro Juice. Afro Juice is a combination of DJs and live music with the jazz, funk, soul , disco asthetic in mind. Coming up on July 13th is local guest DJ Joseph Colbourne. Colbourne was recently featured on the legendary Ebony Cuts radio show out of Sweden.

Check out mix section for an exclusive mix from Joseph Colbourne.

I just wanted to draw attention to this great blog entry about mixing varied tempos and musical genres. Over at the Cosmic Boogie Collective blog they posted an intertested article on how to mix disco.  I thought it was quite interesting as over the years I've been switching from spinning the more typical house club music towards deep disco, funk, and soul. The author has some gerat ideas, escpecially on "chop mixing." Enjoy!

Here is the super rare track "We Had Enough" by Arnie Love and the Lovettes reissued by the Numero Group on the Recording Tap compilation. Arranged by Gene Redd with backing vocals from the "Lovettes" (Roberta Bivers and Linda Green) this track reminds me of UNiversal Robot Band's "Barely Breaking Even" for some reason. Perhaps its the subject matter of being without money and barely getting by. I can relate to that.

 Arnie Love and the Lovettes - We Had Enough

It's one of those great genres that is recently getting a lot of exposure at moment with many have been compilations released recently. One great artist of this genre is Buari, who grew up in Ghana and is a a singer, dancer, percussionist, composer and co-arranger. The track from the album we've picked is "Advice from Father" which features heavy drums from legendary drummer, Bernard Purdie.

Buari - Advice from Father

The documentary by filmmaker Gene Graham has finally made it's way to Boston via the premiere at the 24th Annual Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I've been anticipating this film for months now and to see it along with fellow Paradise Garage and West End Records enthusiasts was amazing. 

For those who aren't familiar with this film, it's about the life of Mel Cheren, based on his autobiography "My Life and the Paradise Garage: Keep On Dancing." The story follows in chronological order his rise through the music industry along with his discovery of dance music and his own sexuality.  The story tells some astonishing feats that Mel accomplished in his lifetime which were: the release of the first instrumental only B side on a 12"; the creation of West End Records leading to the release of some of the greatest dance tracks in history including Loose Joint "Is It All Over My Face", Sesso Mato's "Sesso Matto", and Taana Gardner's "Haertbeat" ; and financially backing and helping to create the Paradise Garage.

On a socially conscience level he also created the first AIDS music industry activist group, 24 Hours for Life whioh later became Lifebeat and gave the Gay Men's Health Crisis its first headquarters. One thing the film does not include is his passing on December 17th, 2007.

If you don't know much about Mel Cheren then this film is a must and if you own every record in the West End catalog the film is still great to hear the stories Mel tells and the accolades today's DJ superstars such as Louis Vega and Danny Krivit give to Mel's legacy.

If you haven't checked out this great lecture from the Theo Parrish at Red Bull Music Academy then check it out below.  Theo sends a strong message about the importance of DJs taking time to gain the knowledge and experience of music through digging for records rather than just downloading thousands of files of music.

Theo Parrish Lecture

I decided to start a new column I will feature regularly called "Recent Classics." These of course, are recent records that in my mind have become classics.

 Different Gear's remake of "When the World is Running Down (You Can't Go Wrong) was played by everyone at the Miami conference from DJ Sneak to Lil' Louie Vega before it was even cleared by The Police's record label, A&M.

Originally released on the 'Zenyatta Mondatta' album in 1980, the track first drove clubbers to the dance floor at the Paradise Garage. It wasn't until January of 1999 that Gino Scarletti realized the true brilliance of the Police track when DJ Mass played the tune at Home bar in East London. Gino immediately called up his studio engineer Quinn and they produced the track in two days. Soon after a 1,000 promo copies were shipped out to the A-list DJs with no labels on it but the words "You can't Go Wrong" and a picture of an english policeman.

The track makes it onto Mixmag's Big Tunes show and Pagen Records boss Richard Breeden was keen to release an official version of the track. Meanwhile bootleg copies are all over the place. It just so happens that Pagen is owned by Miles Copeland, Police drummer Stewart Copeland's brother. Finally after many conversations the track is cleared by A&M Records. The track goes on to chart in the U.K. and remix offers come to Different Gear from all corners of the dance world.

Different Gear v.s the Police - When the World is Running Down

Portishead is not really dance music by any means but I've been a huge fan of them since my college days and in America today is the official release of the album. So it's finally time to get excited about an album release again. I know it's been  a while. And the album isn't to bad either. It's hard to live up to hype of waiting ten years. Tracks like "Hunter" and "Plastic" are classic atmospheric. brooding Portishead tracks while "Machine Guns" adds some 808 sounding drum rolls to the Portishead palette. Go to their website to get more information at Portishead.co.uk or better yet go visit a record store and pick up a real copy.

Here is a great italo techy cover of MJ's Thriller by the next genre mashing dude, Curtis Vodka. Born Spencer Shroyer there isn't much info on Mr. Vodka yet but his mixes have been circulating the web via Blentwell and the Hype Machine.

Curtis Vodka - Thriller