Club systems were dominated by a couple of major players during the early 1980s – Richard Long Associates (responsible for Levan’s ‘Garage’ system) and the UK’s Court Acoustic’s , famous for ‘flown’ tweeters above the club’s dancefloor, huge bass bins plus DJ booth mounted 30+ band equalizers and a flexible crossover unit that savvy DJ’s would use to great effect, emphasizing peak moments in energy fueled tracks. The late 70s Disco genre however was soon to make way to an all together more diverse musical and clubbing experience. In the UK, said Disco crowd turned their attention to the emerging Brit-Jazz/Funk and Soul groove. ‘Blues and Soul’ was the most read clubbing and DJ magazine and various UK labels appeared showcasing this talent. Of course, U.S. and other global artists were already on the case and a whole ‘Soul’ generation was evolving on the world’s dance floors. The UK did a heck of a lot more though to lead the way musically for the night people of the time (so we’re looking now at ’81~’84). 80s Electronica (or Electro-Pop) birthed itself from the ashes of punk (and disco) and the ‘Alternative’ scene brought indie bands to pop stardom and dancefloor highlight as the Cure, The Smiths and New Order et al took centre stage. Of course the nation’s night-clubber’s we’re still force fed the early 80s pop too, but the more discerning and cool crowds knew which floors to hit and radio stations to ‘not’ listen to. Over in the States again, another form of electronic music hit the streets with Rap/Electro and ‘Breakdance’ offering urban vocalising over synthetic synth sounds and drum machine beats. The most ground breaking of tracks in this latter genre, and at this period would have been Afrika Bambaatta’s ‘Planet Rock’ and Herbie Hancock’s, ‘Rock-It’ I’d stick my neck out to say. So, what of the technology that started to make the DJs of the time think forward to how they could progress their DJ/mixing and music production skills plus get [performance wise] more creative and diverse, perhaps even to be considered an ‘artist’ themselves?
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:49:44 +0000
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