I'd like to know how this message board came about, i.e. was there something that precipitated it being created (other than the stagnation in today's music)?
With regards to "da old skool......", here's my brief history:
I grew up in the South Bronx in a typical Black american household in which music was an integral part of life. Being born in 1965 my earliest remembrances of growing up are probably when I was about 4-5 years old but of course getting a couple of years older I took note of the music being played. Lots of r&b/soul being played. Grew up on groups like The Impressions, Temps, Tops, Spinners, EW&F, Kool & The Gang, and artists like Aretha, Stevie, and so on (you get the picture) and of course the Philly/Motown sound. I remember my first exposure on turntables, which was in 1977. I was fortunate to grow up and into hip-hop when it was getting started. I caught the DJ bug when I was 11-12 years old. When I first got on the turntables, it just felt right, like I was born to play records.
Started collecting records in the early 80's. I was down with a group of friends in the 80's and we did lots of local parties. Got my first set of real turntables in 1988 and started really buying and collecting records then. I was playing r&b, rap/hip-hop, reggae, classics, and I was really getting into house music because of Tony Humphries' KISs-FM mastermix shows. Each week when I went to the record stores, I was able to find the r&b/rap/reggae records, but I noticed that it became harder finding the house tunes that I heard Tony play, but I wasn't fully aware of the fact that Tony was playing records 6 months to one year before they got released, and that he was playing a lot of promos, reel, etc., and especially a lot of UK vinyls. So, it became more of a task for me to find the house tunes and the r&b/rap/reggae started taking a backseat. Now, it's around 1990-1991 and rap is turning into gangsta rap, and I started getting really turned off of rap music then. It was also more fun to blend/mix house tunes and it pretty much took off from there.
I see that tastes in music are really wide and are varied here, which is a wonderful thing. Although at the time I played a lot of different types/sounds of house music, I started to migrate to the more r&b flavored / gospel-style house music. What made me start to not like the direction that house music was going into was when the whole "NuYorican / spiritual / afro rhythm" sound started to become mainstream and every house tune started sounding like one of these. At first, it was a welcome change, but then it started getting irritating. When my favorite remixers/producers started churning out records more and more with this sound, I started to buy less records. So, with a lack of good new records coming out, I started to play some of my older records because that sound was much more palatable for me. As I was playing more of the older records I noticed that I slept on a lot of the additional cuts on the records, so in a way it was like playing something old but new. I wasn't really big into collecting the promos and test presses of records, but I soon really noticed that there were a lot more unreleased mixes on the promos and tests, and as I was going through my collection more and more, I realized that I had a lot of the records that I did like were retail copies, so I started searching for the promo copies of those records to see if there were unreleased mixes, and it took off from there.
Over the years, a lot of people tried to criticize me for playing a lot late 80's and early 90's house music, but I didn't care. I've said before and I'll say again and again that the best house music (and I mean soulful, techno, Detroit/Chicago/Jersey sound, tracks, Italo/Balearic/Mediterranean and everything under the umbrella) was made from 1988-1994, so I continue to play a lot of music from that time along with a lot of todays music.
Which again is what brought me to this website. I wish I had more time to read through the threads here, and in due time I am sure I will, but I'd like to get an idea as to why a lot of you are here on this message board. I suspect (in a good way) that many of us probably share similar backgrounds with music. I'm really interested to know your thoughts.
With regards to "da old skool......", here's my brief history:
I grew up in the South Bronx in a typical Black american household in which music was an integral part of life. Being born in 1965 my earliest remembrances of growing up are probably when I was about 4-5 years old but of course getting a couple of years older I took note of the music being played. Lots of r&b/soul being played. Grew up on groups like The Impressions, Temps, Tops, Spinners, EW&F, Kool & The Gang, and artists like Aretha, Stevie, and so on (you get the picture) and of course the Philly/Motown sound. I remember my first exposure on turntables, which was in 1977. I was fortunate to grow up and into hip-hop when it was getting started. I caught the DJ bug when I was 11-12 years old. When I first got on the turntables, it just felt right, like I was born to play records.
Started collecting records in the early 80's. I was down with a group of friends in the 80's and we did lots of local parties. Got my first set of real turntables in 1988 and started really buying and collecting records then. I was playing r&b, rap/hip-hop, reggae, classics, and I was really getting into house music because of Tony Humphries' KISs-FM mastermix shows. Each week when I went to the record stores, I was able to find the r&b/rap/reggae records, but I noticed that it became harder finding the house tunes that I heard Tony play, but I wasn't fully aware of the fact that Tony was playing records 6 months to one year before they got released, and that he was playing a lot of promos, reel, etc., and especially a lot of UK vinyls. So, it became more of a task for me to find the house tunes and the r&b/rap/reggae started taking a backseat. Now, it's around 1990-1991 and rap is turning into gangsta rap, and I started getting really turned off of rap music then. It was also more fun to blend/mix house tunes and it pretty much took off from there.
I see that tastes in music are really wide and are varied here, which is a wonderful thing. Although at the time I played a lot of different types/sounds of house music, I started to migrate to the more r&b flavored / gospel-style house music. What made me start to not like the direction that house music was going into was when the whole "NuYorican / spiritual / afro rhythm" sound started to become mainstream and every house tune started sounding like one of these. At first, it was a welcome change, but then it started getting irritating. When my favorite remixers/producers started churning out records more and more with this sound, I started to buy less records. So, with a lack of good new records coming out, I started to play some of my older records because that sound was much more palatable for me. As I was playing more of the older records I noticed that I slept on a lot of the additional cuts on the records, so in a way it was like playing something old but new. I wasn't really big into collecting the promos and test presses of records, but I soon really noticed that there were a lot more unreleased mixes on the promos and tests, and as I was going through my collection more and more, I realized that I had a lot of the records that I did like were retail copies, so I started searching for the promo copies of those records to see if there were unreleased mixes, and it took off from there.
Over the years, a lot of people tried to criticize me for playing a lot late 80's and early 90's house music, but I didn't care. I've said before and I'll say again and again that the best house music (and I mean soulful, techno, Detroit/Chicago/Jersey sound, tracks, Italo/Balearic/Mediterranean and everything under the umbrella) was made from 1988-1994, so I continue to play a lot of music from that time along with a lot of todays music.
Which again is what brought me to this website. I wish I had more time to read through the threads here, and in due time I am sure I will, but I'd like to get an idea as to why a lot of you are here on this message board. I suspect (in a good way) that many of us probably share similar backgrounds with music. I'm really interested to know your thoughts.
I`m sure you`ll get to like the place as much as all us lot do, its a wealth of info for all oldskool lovers!!
