Dj Buddy Beaverhausen & November's Dance Music Scene

Have I mentioned to all you wonderful blog readers out there how grateful I am that my blog receives the thousands of hits it does each and every month now? You guys are the best! But Dj Buddy Beaverhausen has big news. As of last week, I am now the Dance (Music) Promoter for Queens Our City internet radio! You can also follow my articles and interviews there, PLUS there's so much great music to listen to on that station and so much to read outside of my own contributions. I love working with QOC's Barbara Sobel and Chris Colby! (You guys are the best.) Check Queens Our City out, you'll love it there! Straight from the beat of NYC:
http://queens.ourcityradio.com/ 

And attention New Yorkers! Pick up a free copy of this week's LGBT going-out guide, Next! There's a whole section devoted to "The State of Drag 2013" showcasing some of the City's fresh faces on the club scene. However, Lady Bunny is perennial and will be spinning the first Sunday of every month (including tomorrow, Nov. 3) at The Monster in a Disco Classics Tea Dance, 6 - 10 pm! No cover and $5 Bloody Marys and Mimosas. We love our disco classics and our Lady Bunny!

Also on Sunday, November 3, pop and dance-music diva, Cyndi Lauper, who is very bonded with the LGBT community and who recently became the first solo woman to ever win a Tony Award for best score to a Broadway show (Kinky Boots), brings her 30th Anniversary She's So Unusual Tour to The Palace Theatre in Greensburg, PA! My PA pal, AJ's headed there, and Edge NY columnist Kevin Scott Hall wrote a guest blog on Leave It to Beaverhausen after seeing the show in Atlantic City, NJ in July. 
http://djbuddybeaverhausen.blogspot.com/2013/07/guest-blogger-kevin-scott-hall-cyndi.html

The social season is in full swing, the holidays are coming; it's party time, people! Enjoy! There will be more interviews coming up very soon on my Exclusive Q&A spin-off blog, Blab It to Beaverhausen, over this festive season as well. Don't miss the buzz from Buddy!
http://blabittobeaverhausen.blogspot.com/ 

And, finally, thanks again to everyone reading this. Stats are strong for October, both Leave It and Blab It upwardly mobile in terms of readership. Outside of my core readership in the USA, I want to thank my readers in the UK, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Switzerland, China, Spain, Australia & Malaysia, this week, especially. Please check out Queens Our City radio (link above) and tune in to the dance sound of New York! The dancefloor unites us all over the world. Dance for peace, for universal happiness, for a better world. We are a global community and we can defeat hate. Peace, love, disco and out!

Checking Up on Our Billboard Dance-Chart Favorites

Kylie Minogue has werqd her "Skirt" into quite  a swirl -- all the way up to #1 this week on the US Billboard Dance/Club chart! Congratulations to the Aussie dance diva!

UK's timeless Pet Shop Boys all the way up at #3 this week with their new hit single, "Vocal," followed by Enrique Iglesias with "Turn the Night Up" at #4.  New remixes of "Walking on Thin Ice," the John Lennon-produced Yoko Ono classic buoys the diva up to the 6th spot on the chart.

Selena Gomez apparently isn't about to "Slow Down," at #8 in just 3 weeks. Krezwalla's "Live for the Night," new numero 12, is rather generic techo-dance. But, "Guess What?" Luciana & Cazwell now at #14. Lady Bunny takes in higher, into the 17th spot this outing, with "Take Me Up High," while Lady Gaga's "Applause" remixes bring her to #19.

And that's it from the Beaverhausen selective Billboard report this week!

Special thanks to Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia for your views this week. Peace, love, and remember: the dancefloor is a great international way of keeping us united! Thank you for your views.

Meanwhile, everyone, Dj Buddy Beaverhausen is proud to announce the birth of Blab It to Beaverhausen, my brand-new blog, already a runaway success! This will be exclusively for my interviews. Please check it out:
http://blabittobeaverhausen.blogspot.com/

Billboard in Brief

Happy Labor Day to all my fellow Americans! Have a safe and happy three-day holiday weekend. Here's news from the Billboard Top 20, skipping through selectively, for the week ended September 7.

Kylie Minogue's "Skirt" is lifted to second place. Expect it to be next week's # 1. (Go, Kylie!) Pet Shop Boys' "Vocal" is # 3 and upwardly mobile. Yoko Ono's doing a good job "Walking on Thin Ice," now up at # 9. Expect her to skate ever higher with the new remixes of her '80s hit.

Lady Bunny sings "Take Me Up High" and the universe grants her request, landing her in the 18th spot while Cazwell and Luciana -- "Guess What?" -- are at #20.

Thanks and big kisses to my readers abroad, this week especially in France, Germany, U.K., Russia, Poland, Mexico. China, Italy, Brazil, Turkey, Mauritius and Romania.

Unite on the dancefloor! Dance music is about peace, acceptance and love!

Below, the video for the Wayne Numan remix of Lady Bunny's "Take Me Up High." Disco down y'all!

Dj Buddy B's Billboard News ~ week ending 8/24/13

Interesting developments on the Dance/Club music top-25 on Billboard (week ending August 24, 2013), especially at top and bottom where our focus will be today.

Cher's "A Woman's World," which peaked at #1 two weeks ago, holds steady in 10th place this outing. Kat DeLuna's "Stars" heavenly at #2; Kylie's "Skirt" swirling in third place. Plumb's "Need You Now" upwardly mobile at #5.

The great UK groups from the '80s, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boy, have survived and even flourished through the ensuing decades and, may I add, they are as musically relevant today as they've ever been. At #7, "Soothe My Soul" by Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys at #8 with "Vocal," both tunes seeming to be headed upward still.

At #22, the 2013 remixes of the John Lennon-produced "Walking on Thin Ice" (another echo of the '80s), sung by Yoko Ono, are skating upward. Ms Ono turned 80 this past February. Disco divas are forever! Excellent remix work, especially by Dave Aude and Ralphi Rosario.

All hail Lady Bunny as she cracks the Top 25, in the 25th spot but upwardly mobile, with producer Wayne Numan's "Take Me Up High."

That's it for this week; we'll revisit next. To my friends and readers all over the world, it's all about love, peace and disco. Boycott the Russian Olympics! We love our gay Russian comrades. Unite on the dancefloor!

Exclusive Q & A: Eight on the Disco Round

I asked each of the the following eight artists, all related in some way to the field of dance music, a similar question about the current disco revival.  Now that Disco is the theme for a series of display windows at Bloomingdale's NYC (http://djbuddybeaverhausen.blogspot.com/2013/08/disco-bloomingdales.html), it's officially trendy, hip, chic, and what's happening all over again, in my humble opinion. Here are the replies I generously received. I think you'll find them very interesting.

James Arena, author of the recently published Amazon.com best-seller, The First Ladies of Disco:

Q: Why do you think the time is right for a disco revival?

A: Many of us who enjoyed disco music in our youth have reached an age where we look back on those days with a great deal of affection. Sometimes only with the passage of time can one begin to really appreciate how wonderful the music and vocalists of this great genre and era were. 

We have also entered an age where everyone is star by being on YouTube and entertainers enjoy fame without having paid their dues. I believe all the singers featured in FIRST LADIES OF DISCO were not only pioneers, but true talents who earned the accolades they are receiving. And I believe the music is now being appreciated more for the incredible orchestrations, passionate vocals and incomparable quality that is the essence of so many disco productions.

Lastly, many of these women are still outstanding vocalists who have honed their craft to perfection, are top notch entertainers and survivors. They are proving in disco revival shows they are still in the game and every bit as exciting as their contemporaries. It's only human when we lose a legend like Donna Summer that we are drawn to recall the other great vocalists of this era. I think its much better to tell them how much we love them when they are still providing us with life, energy and inspiration! 

Put all that together and the time absolutely IS right for the disco revival!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/185-2133098-1486819?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=first%20ladies%20of%20disco&sprefix=first+ladies+%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Afirst%20ladies%20of%20disco
 

Lady Bunny, disco diva, drag legend, Wigstock organizer, journalist and Dj whose new song, Take Me Up High, is currently climbing the Billboard dance chart:

Q: How do you account for disco going mainstream right now, and did you ever foresee this when spinning classic disco was still avant-garde?

A: I was unaware of the current disco revival--is it of mainstream disco? It never went away for me, not only because it was my coming of age in clubs soundtrack. Dance music attracted the best songwriters and producers when it was making $, especially in the 70s but also in the 90s which is the other era I gravitate towards. I remember when minimal 80s sounds came along with their synth stabs and I thought: I was just dancing to an entire symphony--where did this shit come from? 





Dj Jandry, amazing remixer of disco classics and dance-music graphic artist:

Q: Why do you think classic disco music is making a big comeback?

A:  I think Disco is coming back with bands like Daft Punk and with the collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rogers playing everywhere; they're gonna rule the Disco world. I've loved disco since I was 12 years old when I discovered Donna on the movie TGIF. I just fell in love with her voice and music and her personality. 





Amber Dirks, dance-music diva extraordinaire (hear her great dance number, You're the One, below):


Q: Why do you think classic disco has become relevant again? And, if you could cover one classic '70s disco song, what would you choose?

A: I believe disco is becoming relevant again because people are missing the real musical element of the genre. All the instrumentation that's required to make the magic happen is a masterpiece within itself. It's quality which provides longevity.

In regards to remakes, anything Donna Summer, just loved her!! 




Dj Rusty Yardum, in NY, dj'ing great dance music from the '70s through the '90s. He recently returned to spinning dance classics for dance floors.

Q: How do you account for the current classic disco revival? When you dj, who are the audiences for this music? And why is it making such a powerful comeback?

A: Disco is making a comeback because the music of today is not the greatest. I spin to an older audience, although young people enjoy this music also. The music of today is DARK and not happy music like Disco was.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Disco-Nights-DJ-Rusty-Yardum/360099494074136 


Glenn Rivera, celebrated dj/Vj/remixer:

Q: What do you think has prompted the current revival of, or nostalgia for, classic disco, that is now part of mainstream media?

A: I believe it is the music itself. Songs like "Last Dance", "I Will Survive", 'Y.M.C.A." are the staple to disco music and continue to draw people into the fantasy and nightlife that was a time in our history which was about feeling good. Who doesn't want to feel good? 

That is why the disco feeling will always be around - it is the formula for success. No matter how the music may come and go and influence today's and future artists, the aura and meaning of disco is feeling free and good. That will never go away!  




Martha Wash, dance-music diva, ex-Weather Girl. (Martha's new single, It's My Time, posted below):

Q: Why do you think there's a classic disco revival right now that has gone mainstream?

A: Dj Buddy Beaverhausen, here you go darlin'.

1. You hear classic disco songs in commercials. 2. They are being sampled into new songs 3. People who were younger at that time want to dance and feel that sense of carefree fun, and they can do it with their kids now as well.




Johnny Morgan, author of what I consider my "Disco Bible," DISCO: The Music, The Times, The Era:

Q: It's been a year and a half since we did our Q&A regarding your book, DISCO, and since then, the phenomenon of a new embrace of classic disco music has taken place, working its way into the mainstream (Bloomigdale's trendy windows). You were ahead of this trend. How do you view this new disco nostalgia and what do you think prompted it?

A: What goes around comes around (albeit doing The Hustle this time), everything gets rediscovered after a convenient period of amnesia has passed—you'll doubtless find former macho jocks who wanted to burn disco records reminiscing on blogs about their days as the Tony Manero of Nowheresville in Suburbia when they were growing up. Lady Gaga started it, and the recent publication of Nile Rodgers' autobiography plus Daft Punk's hiring him for their new album has opened a lot of ears to the great work Chic did back in the day. Plus there is a new generation of kids for whom music snobbery of any kind is weird—they just like what they hear and don't care what genre it is, where it comes from or who's playing it as long as their friends dig it too. I think a lot of the new disco lovers believe that it was an 80s thing, too, and the 80s are so now, aren't they? The fashions in Bloomy's windows looks more 80s than 70s to me…

http://djbuddybeaverhausen.blogspot.com/2012/03/dj-buddy-bs-q-with-author-johnny-morgan.html 

Dj Buddy Beaverhausen wishes to thank all of the above artists for taking out the time to be part of this survey. It means so much to me to have their input on this topic. I admire them all, and their respective talents, very much. 

Disco lives!


 

Billboard's Dance/Club Hits of August 10

For the Billboard magazine week ending August 10, Cher's new single (with remixes), "Woman's World," usurps the #1 spot on the Dance/Club chart, as anticipated! It's really Cher's world; we just live in it.

Inaya Day will "Make Some Noise" if she damn well pleases. The perennial house music diva is back, up at #4 with Dj Escape on that number.

Plumb's "Need You Now" is now nestled in the top ten at 10th place with Kylie close behind as "Skirt" shakes it way to #11.  And "Soothe My Soul," by the UK's very durable band over the decades, Depeche Mode, is up at #12 . UK's equally durable Pet Shop Boys this week find their "Vocal" in 14th place and rising.

Upwardly mobile, though currently much lower on the Club chart, are the new Lady Bunny song (who was a Lady long before Gaga), "Take Me Up High" by an unfunny, serious Bunny as house music diva; Yoko Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice" 2013 driven by top-notch remixes from Dave Aude and Ralphi Rosario; and the 2013 remixes of Sylvester's "Mighty Real."

Billboard Beefs Up

Finally, there's some hope on Billboard's dance-music horizon now that "A Woman's World" by Cher is in the #2 position for the club chart ending August 3. It's poised to top the chart next week.

The always remarkable Inaya Day and Dj Escape's "Make Some Noise," is a true floor-filler, up at 6th place this week, while Jennifer Lopez's "Live It Up" is down at #8. The JLo tune peaked in first place, and was at #5 last outing. Fading but still strong.

Ciara's "Body Party," also a previous #1 (last week, in fact), steeply fell to 11th place but it was nice to find the girl charting for the dancefloors again.

"Need You Now" by Christian Contemporary singer, Plumb (nee Tiffany Arbuckle Lee), features strong remixes by RedTop, WaWa and Dave Aude. It's upwardly mobile on the dance/club chart at #15, as is venerable Depeche Mode's "Save My Soul," now in the current 16th spot.

Kylie Minogue works her "Skirt" into the 17th spot, and she's always a welcome presence on the gay club scene, this being no exception.  In the 18th spot, we have Anton Clamaran's "This Is My Goodbye" featuring diva Fenja. It's a pop-friendly high-NRG, trancey number that will seduce you to the dancefloor. Unfortunately, it peaked on Billboard at #13 last week, so it's falling now. Still, it's recommended. (Radio edit posted below.)

Dance/ Soul music idol Chaka Khan's "It's Not Over" truly deserved to be a #1. It peaked at a respectable #7 and is now at  #20.

And "Vocal" by Pet Shop Boys just cracks the Top 25 this week in the 25th spot, but moving up for sure.

Meanwhile, bubbling up in the Top 50, Lady Bunny gets even higher (#43) with the fabulous, ascending "Take Me Up High." New, 2013 remixes of Yoko Ono's "Walking on Thin Ice" (#47) and Sylvester's perennial disco classic and gay anthem, "(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real," is at #50, rounding out the chart.

Pre-"Drag Race" with Lady Bunny

I thought the warm-up for RuPaul's "Drag Race" tv series, linked below, is hilarious.

Go, Bunny!

Getting Higher with Lady Bunny

Drag icon Lady Bunny, whose appearance is inspired by Dusty Springfield, has been around since gay pre-history. I think I recall seeing her pass me by while we were riding our disco dinosaurs. She organized NYC's Wigstock in 1985, an event that lasted 20 years (and deserves to be brought back). It was pretty much a victim of its own success.

Bunny is truly a drag legend, out of Atlanta, starting her career there along with RuPaul and Larry Tee. She was in the movie, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.  She is a star!

I loved her dj work as she often spun dance music close to my own heart. I often danced to her appearances at New York City's LGBT Center. (http://www.gaycenter.org/)

I've also been a big fan of her dance cd singles; her covers of "Shame, Shame, Shame" and, especially, "The Pussycat Song" were marvelous. ("Pussycat" video posted below.)

But now, she returns with a new, original number that puts some adrenaline back in dance music, "Take Me Up High." The Lybra Records release will feature remixes by Subgroover, Wayne Numan, Timmy Loop, Sweet Team, Edwin Reyes, True2life, Tocco, Edson Pride, Klubjumpers and Julian Marsh.

It is #1 this week on Billboard's Dance/Club Breakouts chart and has cracked the bottom of the  official Dance/Club chart. Let's see how high she can take it! Hop to it, Bunny!

Hear the sample:



2013 version of "Pussycat Song" as a country number: