C-14

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Pride Guide 2001

Gay DJs are here, queer, and spinning dance tunes

by Anthony Glassman

In this time of Pride, at events all over the place, dance music is being spun by DJs of all stripes; local or out of town; gay, straight and transgendered; white and black, Latino and Asian, and everything else.

Yet, when people think about DJs, the image that comes to mind is a strangely dressed, intense young straight man bopping

to the music coming through his headphones as he matches beats. It seems like the only DJs that get records out-without putting out vanity projects that they pay for themselves are straight men. That's so untrue.

To prove it, for Pride Guide we're featuring four queer DJs and their latest releases. A couple are fairly big names; a couple are more up-and-comers than already-heres. The point is, they're here, they're queer, and they're spinning high-energy dance music..

Essential Mix

Boy George

Essential/FFRR Records London-Sire Records

Yes, it's that Boy George, George O'Dowd, former lead singer of Culture Club. Before he topped the

pop charts, he spun at some of the biggest gay dance clubs in London. And now he's doing it again.

Perhaps the most eclectic of gay club DJs, Boy starts off the disk with a cover of "Girl From Ipanema" that sounds like it could have been done by Dee-Lite; it's an odd, happyhouse track that provides an interesting stepping-off point for the record.

He goes through a bunch of music that, unless you are active in the U.K. gay scene, you probably have never heard. The one

Essential Mix Mixed by Boy George

exception is Boy George and Kinky Roland's Trancesexual mix of Amanda Ghost's "Filthy Mind," a pretty groovy song that always reminds me of Belinda Carlisle, the lead singer of the Go-Gos, had she continued a successful solo career and changed with the times.

If there are any real complaints about this album, it's that some of the mixes are overmixed, like the Amanda Ghost track. It could have stood on its own, or been extended a bit, but it seems to have been fiddled with a bit much.

Junior's Nervous Breakdown Junior Vasquez Nervous Records

Junior Vasquez, born Donald Mattern, has been one of the most popular DJs in the country for about 15 years. In the '80s, he was

JUNIOR'S

nervous eakdown

known on the club circuit; in 1989, on the power of his reputation as an innovative, ground-breaking DJ, he co-founded New York's popular Sound Factory dance club.

The club closed six years later due to community complaints, but while it was open, it was the place to be seen. Madonna was known to frequent the club while in town, and artists scrambled to have their singles debuted during Vasquez's Saturday night sets.

Vasquez has written and remixed for artists as diverse as Madonna, John Cougar, Cyndi Lauper and Lisa Lisa, in addition to releasing his own tracks.

Junior's Nervous Breakdown isn't his finest hour, but it has to be far from his worst. The record is basically Saturday night at any dance club, with a notable lack of big-name stars like Cher, Madonna, George Michael or whoever else is being remixed in the clubs today. If you're planning on having a party at your pad and expect your friends to dance, this would be ideal to pop into the CD player.

Inside My Head

DJ Tracy Young

SFP Records/Container Records Winter Party Vol. 4 Centaur Entertainment

Tracy Young is a relative newcomer to the world of Big Remixes. While she started DJ-

Lotus show you our true colors!

Shrubs Perennunt

Annuals

Vegetables

WestPark Gardens & Gifts 3206 Warren Road Cleveland 216-251-3111

WESTP

les:

ARK

Gardens

& gifts