Today’s disc was originally a double 12 inch single (full track list here) but we ever only played one of the remixes so I seem to have only kept the disc with that mix. The record is from 1995 and at the time I’m sorry to say that I didn’t give a second thought to the artist (Alysha Warren, a soul singer and younger sister of Mica Paris, apparently) because back then, for us, it was almost always more about the remixes. The remix we played (the S Man’s Hard mix of I Pray) was by Roger Sanchez and it was one of the tracks we played most often when DJing in main rooms in clubs. This is the mix:
There were a lot of big-name DJs/producers/remixers in the 1990s (and there are probably even more now). The first names that come to mind when I think about this time, besides Mr Sanchez, are Todd Terry, Masters at Work (‘Little’ Louie Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez), David Morales, C & C Music Factory, Josh Wink, Deep Dish and Armand van Helden (but there were lots of others too). The ones I’ve just listed are all men and from the USA (they were our favourites) but there were lots of UK and other European ones as well (and gradually a few women remixing too). Around that time it wasn’t uncommon to get remix double (or triple) packs of of pop singles as the record companies desperately tried to have that illusive big club remix smash (think Armand van Helden’s remix of the Tori Amos 1996 track Professional Widow – very little of the original song but a huge success, ensuring van Helden was asked to remix pretty much everything for the next few years).
Most DJs had their favourite producers/remixers and we were no exception. We were definitely van Helden fans and played a few of his remixes and originals and we really loved Roger Sanchez’s work too. For our taste those two made tracks that were hard enough for the clubs we could get work in but were still warm, funky, enjoyable music – not something that made you feel like you’d been banged over the head with a dustbin lid multiple times. Generally speaking the clubs that booked us for main rooms (at least in part the ones that were more open to the idea of women DJing) were also the places where the music got harder and faster as the 1990s progressed, a lot of it not really our taste to be honest and a lot of it influenced by the sounds of the London after-hours club Trade* in the mid to late 1990s.
Somehow (due to writing record reviews, I suppose) I managed to get on the mailing list for the prestigious US record label Strictly Rhythm at some point in the mid 1990s. It’s funny to think that back then if I heard someone in my life say Strictly they were always talking about American house/garage (whereas now they are always talking about a UK TV show that features ballroom and Latin dancing). Anyway, getting onto the SR mailing list was a bit after their peak but we still managed to get some records (white labels no less, i.e. promos, not the ones sold in the shops) that became staples of our main room DJ sets. This one from 1995 (pictured above), was the Strictly 4 the Underground EP (and in particular the track Livin 4 the Underground) by Roger Sanchez. We played this a lot:
We never DJed at any of the clubs where Roger Sanchez played unfortunately but I did hear him play at another Leeds club (Back to Basics**) at some point in the mid 1990s. Daisy and I had played an early set at Vague (with some dustin-lid banging London DJ taking over at midnight most likely) but I knew Roger S was playing just a few streets away so a friend and I abandoned our usual ship and trotted round to the other. We didn’t have to queue (yay establishment!) but we did enjoy hours and hours of dancing to Roger Sanchez’s brilliant music and DJing (one of my favourite nights out from that period – great sound, great tunes, just dancing, no having to listen to coked-up theories and ‘great ideas’). A lot of DJs and producers are a bit overhyped and disappointing when you hear them – Roger S was spectacular.
Roger Sanchez is very much still working in clubs and production and is on social media if you want to go and see what he’s up to (some very glamorous photo shoots, but it’s Instagram so that’s to be expected I suppose).
Back tomorrow with something completely different.
*I did go to Trade once and had a great time but it must have been before we were DJing because I remember standing in a queue (and I certainly never did that once we were part of the, I suppose you could call it, establishment). I think the music wasn’t quite so full on mental at that point.
**Basics was a Leeds institution for a long time. Largely because we worked at another club in the city we didn’t go that often but I did come across an interesting (if very long) article by Basics resident DJ Ralph Lawson about DJing when I was ‘researching’ this series of posts (read it here). Also it was on another trip to Basics that we first heard Armand van Helden’s unlikely take on Ace of Bass’s Living in Danger (a great remix – we borrowed that idea and played that remix too).
For the first intro post to this series go here.
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