HOT TRAXXX LIVE

HOT TRAXX LIVE Tuesday November 17, 2009


Having never been a DJ but having always WANTED to be one this night was an important gig for me. 80's HOT TRAXXX live at the THERAPY CAFE in Downtown Dayton was going to be an exciting experience for both Dale and myself. We over-prepared for it with 29 gigs worth of videos ripped an saved to work from and a box full of prizes to give away courtesy of my buddy Matt over at Game Swap in Kettering (and I threw in a bunch of stuff too that I had left over from Horrorama). We ended up using some of the 80's posters from Game Swap to decorate the stage and give it a different "feel" than the usual 80's night presentation (which it was gonna have anyway since they didn't play videos and that was ALL we were going to do).


Our show was getting started at 7:00 pm on a tuesday evening and was to lead into 9:00 pm approximately when the actual 80's night DJ's would start their thing. Dale and I were prepared for little to no crowd to show up since no one in Dayton comes out to drink at 7:00 pm and frankly very few people come out for first time events. There is a stigma in this city of when an event is a first time thing people wont go to it because it isn't cool and established, yet quite often because said event doesn't get a crowd there wont be a second one, thus killing it. So the hipster vibe of "I wont be seen somewhere where I most likely wont be seen" kills most first time interesting ideas in this town.


Luckily for us, we didn't care and had the support of our workplace DATV behind us. They all showed up. Too bad two thirds of the volunteers who always show up at our events didn't because they choose to go to the FILM DAYTON meeting instead, even though there was something else that could have used some support gong on. But I digress, it still got cooking to a smallish but turned out to be very into it crowd.

We warmed them up before hand with some soft 80's rock, stuff like Sade, and Allyson Moyett with a spinkling of Samantha Fox at her most naughty to get their attention. Some Billy Idol and one of my favorites Men At Work's "Overkill" were in there too.

Then we got cooking with Dale and I talking the stage. It is kind of a blur at this point, I don't even remember what video we started with actually. I know The Plasmatics "The Damned" got played pretty earlier on to get people fired up. Rick Springfield's "Human Touch" and naturally The Buggles' " Video Killed The Radio Star" were in there too. It wasn't long before the request started coming fast and furious with stuff like Durand Duran "Rio" (I wanted to play "The Chauffeur" instead) A Flock of Seagulls "I Ran", Journey's "Separate Ways" (Requested as "the Worst Video of All Time, but luckily I knew just what they were talking about), Bryan Ferry's "Is Your Love Strong Enough" Bonny Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and some Judas Priest.

At one point someone asked if I had a David Hassellhoff Video of which I did not, but I told them I did however have a Philip Michael Thomas video that was WAY better, to hang out for it. That it would blow their minds. This prompted me to do a block of 80's craptastic muck that was the whole reason people came out. After this fetid blast of anal wind they could go home happy. Starting with Philip Michale Thomas' "Just The Way I Planned It" I surprised them with the theme to "Diff'rent Strokes" Gerardo's "Here Kitty Kitty (In Spanish) and finally Billy Squire "Rock Me Tonight" (Asked for as "that video where Billy Squire Channels Richard Simmons")

The BACK TO THE 80's acting troupe were there to promote the last weekend of their show and clearly had a blast interacting with us and reliving some of the video classics. They won a lot of the trivia and got bundles of old VHS movies, actual vinyl albums and DATV drinking mugs. We roped the incredibly cute gal into being our spokes model for a giveaway and when she grabbed the card from the box the name on it was Peter North! To which it seemed not a lot of people int he audience seemed to get the joke there, I'm not sure if she did or not, but I suspect she did. It was funny anyway, but Peter and his special hair was not in the building. But her and her red High heels are welcome to be are spokesmodel/giveaway girl if we ever do this again!



Dale and I worked it well together, bantering back and forth, but due to learning the DJ software I sort of drifted towards that end and Dale towards the giveaway end, but that worked out just fine. A good time was had by all and this way we had the technical kinks worked out by the mid point in the show, and considering we were using software we had NEVER touched before in our lives, I think that is a pretty good track record.



I hope everyone who came out had fun. We certainly did and maybe, just maybe the planets will line up and we can finagle a way to do it again!

Andy C.

Special Thanks to Jim Burns for being our Camera man for the evening too! Still photos by Dan Suffoletto!

Take off to NIGHT FLIGHT

My whole life may very well owe a psychic debt to the USA network, Stuart Shapiro and their late night creation NIGHT FLIGHT. This late night counter culture program that aired on Friday and Saturday nights starting at 11:00 pm until 3:00 am and then repeated again for the next four hours was a touchstone in my youth. Through this show I discovered things that I would have never seen any other way. Things that I love to this day.

NIGHT FLIGHT was cutting edge TV that is still unparalleled on today's television. The only show that ever came close was not ironically USA Networks Reel Wild Cinema in the late 90's and it only lasted a few shows.

NIGHT FLIGHT consisted of Alternative music videos before they were considered that, cult movies, performer profiles, experimental video, and short films all hosted by the sexy disembodied voice of Pat Prescot . In one evening you might see a concert from Kate Bush, a video profile of Duran Duran, a video collage about Atomic war, and some short experimental animations. They were the first place to air things like the Firesign Theater's overdubed film experiments, or Lenny Bruce's animated sicko film "Thank You Masked Man". They aired old 40's sci-fi adventure serials and 70's avant garde gor comedies such as "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein or Dracula" (though highly edited for television). In fact this was the place I first saw these epic bloodbaths. The Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" even played at one point. One of the mainstays of NIGHT FLIGHT was New Wave Theater where the most outrageous punk and no wave bands played live. This show hosted by Peter Ivers broke many a young act such as The Circle Jerks.

NIGHT FLIGHT lasted from 1981 to 1988 and bent many a head in the process. In 1988 USA Network replaced it with USA UP! ALL NIGHT a show that was at first hosted by the cute Carolyn Schlitt, then was taken over by Gilbert Godfried and Rhonda Shear and her boobs. Though up all night was often great fun, and played some awesome films such as Basket Case, they were no replacement for NIGHT FLIGHT.

NIGHT FLIGHT was ressurected in Syndication in 1990 with an on screen host named Tom Juarez but it was basically just a best of show of moments from the previous years. It lasted on and off on various cable systems until as late as 1996.

In 2007 creator Stuart Shapiro announced he had finally obtained the rights to the show and planned to revive it somehow, either on satalite or on the web. Lets hope...

Remembering the 80's

Music videos were the background to my childhood. While I don't specifically remember the MTV moon launch in 1981, I remember it hitting our cable system not too long after that. I had an older bother and sister so the channel went into heavy rotation in our house almost instantly. Naturally it caused a furor in our home because my Mom at that time was in a fundamentalist Christian phase (which thankfully only lasted a couple of years). Her and my brother would argue about his choice of music constantly since he leaned more towards the hard rock side. So whenever a video from Dio, or an old Black Sabbeth clip played it was mayhem. But funnily enough my Mother and Sister's musical tastes seemed fairly in sync, so if Bob Seger came on it got turned up loud and proud. "Old Time Rock and Roll" "We Got Tonight" and Surprisingly "Fire Down Below" were songs on constant rotation in my household from both my Mom and Sister. Fundamentalist Christian or not, my Mom was a music lover, so she let us watch MTV even if she didn't always approve of all the videos.

At the time I was pretty young and music wasn't a focus in my life. Toys were. I had my legos, linkin logs Micronauts and Star Wars action figures and would spend hours, maybe even days at a time creating intricate worlds to play in. MTV was my background while I did this. I ended up absorbing hundreds of music videos in the process and began to love music while I did. I liked the big hits like anyone else. My first music cassette I ever bought was naturally "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. But my follow up was a not so obvious pop group The Hooters (which is appropriate considering my hooter obsession as an adult!). Soon I discovered you could tape songs off of the radio and taped all the hits making my own mix tapes (and maybe I'll do a blog about making mix tapes at some point). My love of music was in place.

The 80's was a wonderful time to be in love with music because there was so much of it, and so many different types being played. A lot of people felt that music videos sounded a death knell for real music as it pushed how a band looked instead of the music. Bands like Duran Duran seemed to push that that fact. But the fact of the matter was that the music still mattered. It was just a new medium helping to present it. You had punk, new romantic, no wave, new wave, pop, soul, R&R, rock, metal and the birth of Hip Hop all happening at the same time. It was exciting and diverse and you never knew what kind of song or video you would get next.

MTV wasn't the only outlet either. There was TBS Night Tracks, The incredible and much missed Night Flight on USA, then there was Friday Night Videos on NBC plus things that came and went like the short lived cable attempt called The Box. Music videos became a huge part of our culture and our lives. Of course this ultimately became not such a good thing at some point, but in the 80's it was still fun, exciting and new.

So scroll down to check out some of my favorites I found, and feel free to comment and request others.

Thanks
Andy