Friday Dance Party

The afterparty we threw the other night went extremely well. My buddy and I started promoting around 7pm during the gallery crawl on Penn Avenue (which the afteparty was 'officially' for). We introduced ourselves to all of the gallery owners and invited them down to the party - many of them actually showed up. Around midnight The Shadow Lounge was filled to capacity ... at least 120 paying customers were through the door. Everyone was dancing to the eclectic mix of Funk, Northern Soul, Retro, R&B and Boogaloo sounds provided by the Djs ... and over $600 was collected at the door for our 'special cause'. It was a blast.

The rest of the photos can be viewed here. The party was such a success that the owner of the venue wants to discuss having it happen once a month.

I'm down with that.

Big Throwback #16

Another month, another Thursday Night and another Big Throwback Dance Party. A hot, sweaty, cramped, all 45's, Funk and Soul Dance Party.


This months Guest DJ was David Griffiths ... resident DJ at the Bumpshop in NYC.

David has worked with the likes of DJ Shadow and is currently working for Little Louie Vega ... I had a chance to sit with David before his set ... we talked about the scene and the music. He was very impressed with Pittsburgh, liking the fact that everyone was dancing and not just sitting around. He said in NYC people are more pretentious, are more worried about how they look and would be embarrassed to 'let go' like we were. Nice to hear. I could tell he was excited to play. He also mentioned that one of his latest projects is an all funk album by artists from around the Aliquippa area; my home town ... the Quip Town Beat Down. He ended up giving me a 45 of a new release on the label he's working with ... a reissue of a Mellow Madness record with remixes by the one and only Kenny Dope.

Anyway ... here are some pics of the crowded dance floor:

Photos courtesy of 'J Mall$'.

The Ring in my Ears

Two Nights ... Great Music ... fun with tons of friends and the weekend isn't over yet.

Friday night after the gallery crawl we all headed to the restaurant Trilogy for an outdoor all house music DJ event. It was so nice to be down in the city listening and dancing to music while being surrounded by the skyscrapers. Some good friends of mine pulled this party off successfully. Hopefully they can turn it into an on going thing. The weather was beautiful and the vibe was tight. Too bad my pictures don't do it justice:





Saturday night was the Shadowlounge's 7 Year Anniversary. I was in no shape to go out to this party after Friday night plus I spent 6 hours working on my backyard Saturday afternoon and had dinner with a friend visiting from out of town ... but I was on the guest list (thanks 'Jack') so I had to check it out. The flyer alone should give you some indication of how this party went off:

You know what I like the best about the shadowlounge? The fact that they have a no smoking policy. I don't reek of smoke after coming home from that place.

My ears are ringing though ... and I'm beat ...

Night Moods

Last Friday was the start of a new bi monthly techno DJ night at a club called Remedy in Lawrencville. 3 of my friends from the Technoir Audio crew are hosting the event and they have asked me to help promote so I'm using my old mailing lists from the Club Havana days* to help make people aware of the night. The first evening of this new bimonthly went well ... the crowd was mostly made up of old technoheads, girlfriends of said technoheads and a few stragglers that happened upon the night and were drunk enough to stay and dance to the throbbing 4 on the floor beat.

If we can get a regular audience then maybe the night will succeed ... and if you're from Pittsburgh you'll understand how hard the goal in that last statement actually is ...

*Back Story: For the last 7 years I was a full time promoter and part time DJ for Club Havana in Shadyside. House and Techno Music. All of this came to an end when the club was sold in March of this year.

Native Tongue

... and I wasn't even going to go out last night ...

I thought about staying in. I started to watch my BBC Planet Earth documentary on HD DVD that I recently received from Amazon.

One word. Wow.

I only got about an hour into it (it's a 4 disc set containing over 9 hours of material) and was amazed at the filming, the content, the picture, etc. It is truely amazing regarding the shots the filmakers were able to get for this documentary. My brain was certainly teased as to how they acheived some of the elaborate shots ... Crane? Helicopter? and there are some shots of places on this Earth that had me asking myself, 'does that really exist? it looks like something some Sci Fi Nerd dreamt up in CGI!' Again, wow. and the HD quality just knocks it out of the park ... Too bad they didn't give the disc series a 5.1 channel surround sound mix on the audio ... only dolby stereo here. But eh ...

I gave Evil Genius a call so we could do some catching up then I headed out to the Brillobox for a friend's party he was hosting:

Another crazy dance party at the Brillo ... huge attendance. The second floor of the place was bouncing with the weight of the standing room only crowd as usual. Tons of friends , all smiles, singing along and nodding heads to the beat. This party featured music from the Native Tounge Family; De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Leaders of the New School, etc. All 1990's Hip Hop. The stuff I grew up on back in highschool ... Yo MTV Raps!

Very nice indeed.