For those that have been roasting them on the regular, here's a list of the artists included on the mix:
1 - Lee Harris 2 - Albert Jones 3 - Andrea Henry 4 - Ike & Tina Turner 5 - David Ruffin 6 - Silky Hargraves 7 - The Soul In-Pressions 8 - El Pooks 9 - David Peoples 10 - Johnnie Mae Matthews 11 - Ann Byers 12 - The Volumes 13 - The New Yorkers 14 - The Valentinos 15 - Gene Chandler 16 - Frances Nero 17 - Betty James 18 - Nelson Sanders 19 - Fabulous Playboys 20 - Top Hat & Little Jeff 21 - Sweet Charles 22 - Margie Joseph 23 - Breakwater 24 - Larry McGee Revolution 25 - The Staples Singers
It was all supposed to start on Thursday night. Lenni, an unknown of an unknown, though clearly a known man about town - and how could he not be with that look(!) - had told me that I could spin some of my 45s that night at Makena as part of a party called AfroMama Jams. I was told to show up around 1am: I would have 45 minutes on the decks; I would not be paid. Lenni also told me to bring the heat, for the good people in Buenos Aires like to party hard. That was all fine by me, as I have sincerely missed DJing, and feel like I can let a heat rock loose when called upon. Unsure of how Northern Soul, and, for that matter Northern Rob, aka Roberto del Norte, aka DJ Good Flavor, aka DJ Buen Sabor, would be received in El Sur, I felt nervous all the same.
In the end, I had no reason at all to be nervous. There were no turntables at AfroMama Jams that night, and my debut on the Southern scene was not meant to be.
There was, however, a pretty good funk/soul/hip hop cover band at work. They even covered "I'll Bet You" by Funkadelic, which I though was pretty hip.
My favorite part of the evening, though, was when the B-Boy break dancers started making their moves. One, in particular, felt confident enough in his skills to get up on stage and dance when the band was in the middle of a "Give it to Me Baby" (Rick James)-"Thriller" medley of sorts. (Only now do I realize how the basslines in those tracks are strikingly similar, so the combination ultimately makes great sense.) As I looked closer at the B-Boy, however, I noticed that his sleeveless t-shirt had something written on the front of it. After struggling to make out the letters, in a flash it all became clear: his sleeveless muscle t simply read "The Beatles." I found this to be a supreme cross-cultural moment, and wondered aloud if the B-Boy had ever break danced to Ringo's drum solo at the end of "Abbey Road."
In the course of that Thursday night, a young man named Fabrizzio approached me to see if I would be interested in spinning records at his bar that Saturday night...
"Of course! That'd be great! What's the name of the place?" "..." "La Evita?" "..." "What? I can't hear you. Is the bar called La Evita Bar? Like, Evita Perón?" "Levitar!" "Aha, Levitar. Like the verb. To rise up. To levitate. I get it."
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Fabrizzio told me to arrive at Levitar at 1am as well on Saturday night. Parties in Buenos Aires go late, to say the least, and the function at Levitar would go all the way to 10am. Hence, very few heard my spot from 1-2:30, save those that worked at the bar and were setting things up. In fact, the place didn't really get going till around 5am. Nevertheless, I had fun, I danced, I enthusiastically sang along to Wild Cherry, Kool and The Gang, KC and the Sunshine Band, and, who could forget, Jamiroquai, and got home around 6am. I think the young people ultimately want to hear hip hop and the hits down here, and they don't really seem to care whether the music they're hearing and dancing to is off vinyl or mp3, so that's that.
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In other DJ news, at this point my Scandinavian tour looks to be set: April 18th in Malmöe, Sweden, at Club Funtion; April 25th in Helsinki, Finland, at Soul Sides; and April 30th and 31st with The Fabulous Mr. C in St. Petersburg, USSR. That's what's up!
Robert - You know, it's like sometimes these waiters in these restaurants, they look at me funny. Like they anticipate that they're not going to understand what I say before I even say it. They give me this look, then, and they look at me not as if I were a foreigner (extranjero) but rather (sino que) an alien (extraterrestre). Leo - It's because you don't have the face of an Argentine. Robert - Really? You don't think so? I don't look that different do I? Leo - Well...I take back what I just said. It's not that you don't have the face of an Argentine, but rather a face from a different decade. Robert - Ahhh. Leo - So it's not really a question of the geographical zone, you see-- Robert - It's a question of the temporal zone. I get it! Leo - Yes, and not a question of the time zone, mind you. There is a difference.
I had intentions to eat lunch out. It was a hot day. I recalled a place named Bar Sitio (Bar Place) that wasn't too far away and always seemed to have a group of girls eating in front of it. I made my way, arrived, took a seat outside, but only a pair of teenage boys sat drinking beer at a nearby table. Oh, well. I was hungry. I had my book with me.
Not too long thereafter I reckoned that it was indeed too hot to sit outside, so I let the waiter know of my desire and changed tables and moved inside. The ceiling fans made their cool noise, no doubt; yet I started to sweat with greater intensity. At that point I looked up to the ceiling and noticed that I had unwisely chosen to sit under the one ceiling fan that did not work. It sat there motionless, clueless, much like myself. Furthermore, the clientele was solely comprised of men over 50. No women, no girls. I took out my book - Amuleto by Roberto Bolaño - and started to read.
It was a nice lunch: steak sandwich w/ lettuce and tomato, french fries, agua mineral sin gas. Just what I had wanted. I only had some thirty pages left in my book, so I thought I might stay there and finish it, despite the heat. My earlier buzz had by then completely faded. (Dani, one of my hosts, and made me a mimosa around 1pm, when I was still in my bedclothes, my thin arms covered in mosquito bites from the night before in spite of our best efforts to keep them away. Later that afternoon I would ask him if he had any insect repellant that I might use to spray in my room. He did. "Do you know how to use it?" Dani asked politely. I did.) I had heard once that when it's hot outside it's better to drink something hot, which made me then remember how an ex-girlfriend once told me that hot tub water is good for your complexion (this latter piece of advice being a true bourgeois remedy). Red wine seemed like the closest thing to a hot and alcoholic drink that I could think of, so I asked the waiter for a glass.
"We don't have any right now," he started. "Wait, actually, we have _____ in either half bottle or full bottle. Which would you prefer?" "Well, can I just have a single glass?" I replied, not sure if I had heard him right or not. "No! Half bottle or full bottle!" "Ah...Half bottle then, por favor."
I had thirty pages left in the book and 7/8ths of a half bottle (7/16ths of a full bottle) in front of me. I went to work. Who knew what I would finish first. Red wine tends to go straight to my dome.
DINNER I had just bragged to my father in an online chat session about how I hoped my next meal would be "something other than steak." I was serious, though. Steak the night before, steak sandwich for lunch earlier that day. So, I went to a restaurant that I had been to for the first time just days before called Bar España (Bar Spain), where I had had a tasty fish dish for lunch and received excellent service. The fish had been one of the daily specials that day, which meant a cheaper meal, and I went for the daily special again this evening, not really knowing what it was: riñoncitos al verdeo. When in Rome! I knew I recognized the word riñon, but couldn't exactly place it. The dish arrived. It looked stranger than I had expected as the waitress served some on to my plate. It smelled strange, too. It wasn't until I took my first exceedingly chewy bite, however, that I remembered what riñon meant in English: kidney.
Estas ubas berdes no están muy vuenas; es muy posivle que lleben la vacteria esa de la cual havlavan hoy en la nobela que salió en la telebisión. Vueno, no es berdad. !Sólo estoy vromeando! No es que estoy vorracho, amigos míos, ni mucho menos. Son estas las vromas povres de un bagavundo vigotudo, vonaerense, y pequeñovurgués, no más. Ahora me boy. ?Bale? Tengo barias cosas que hacer. !Que les baya vien!
Y, si se puede saber, ?cómo es que te consume esa revista que vas leyendo? Te hablo, te hablo en serio, americana, rubia, cuerpo de ex-gimnasta. (Bueno, te hablo telepáticamente, pero, igual, te hablo francamente también.)
A ver, ?es que Vanity Fair sea tan ineresante de verdad, o es que estás disimulando?
