DJ Fairy Punk Mother Gets Around!

It was Den Mother and DJ Fairy Punk Mother’s BIRTHDAY on Wednesday and she brought a sac of goodies that never quit!  First it was the incredibly fluffy, amazingly sassy lavender tutu!  Then she busted out a mix of punk heavy tunes with a twist of birthday flair.  We fist pumped, we shimmied, we sang, we DANCED OUR BAGUETTES OFF!!  The Birthday girl has taken belly dancing classes and busted out her shimmering coin belt that had us rockin’ like we were Moroccan!  If you can’t picture it in your head – Iggy Pop crossed with a belly dancing queen just ask THESE kitty cats!

Talk about a LUST FOR LIFE!!  meeooooowwwwwwww!

Another discovery made by our beloved birthday girl Den Mother was that there has NEVER been a song by the band Heart ever played at a Chicago DDPP!  …not until Wednesday May 25th that is.  Amazing, right?!  All in all it was a great night for all of us.  I definitely unlocked the PUNK in me and enjoyed the sweat and sisterhood that came with it.  Happy Birthday, Jill – we love you!

This blog post has been approved by Punk Bob Square Pants – an official sponsor of DDPP.

NO DDPP Sunday, May 29th!

It’s almost time to kick off the unofficial start of summer by getting your Memorial Day weekend on! Which means that you should grill, go to the beach, wear white with abandon, but please, don’t show up at Perceptual Motion on Sunday! We’re taking a tip from Madonna and going on a holiday.

Feel free to dance on your own for the whole long weekend, in patriotic gear if you prefer.

We’ll see you on Sundays in June!

Bringing sexy (and near heart attacks) back

You guys.

I’m about to get serious for a minute.

As serious as the heart attack I almost suffered yesterday between the hour of 4 and 5 pm.

I am SO SERIOUS about this.

DJ RUBBER HIPS RULEZ!!!

Seriously.

Where to even begin? How about with these fun facts: Not only did DJ Rubber Hips show up with a posse that blew our expectations for a rare beautiful Sunday afternoon out of the water, but that posse included her mom and grandma! In case math isn’t your strong suit, that’s 3 generations of Rubber Hips women! Possibly a DDPP first.

Also, there’s the matter of her playlist. Prepare to start sweating just by looking at it.

Yeah. She was not messing around. Even us 3 den mothers, seasoned vets of the relentless playlist, were (in my case literally at one point) brought to our knees by this non-stop powerhouse playlist. One came close to vurping up her late lunch, another soaked an entire towel in sweat, and I smelled like a construction worker by the end of it all. I can’t even begin to imagine how our extremely pregnant dancer felt! Please refer to this artist’s rendering for an estimate of how us lucky attendees felt at the end of the playlist:

In a good way, of course. In the BEST way possible. Like in an I’m-so-high-on-endorphins-that-I-just-got-my-4th-wind-let’s-dance-for-another-hour kind of way. (Also, I need to share that when I went to save this image off of Google, it came up as “exercise wobbly legs.” Indeed.)

Basically, the crazy amazing vibe in the studio yesterday was palpable, from the slippery floor to the minutes-long screaming, stomping, clapping ovation at the end of the playlist, and everything in between. DJ Rubber Hips had her mojo workin’ allllll over us. If there were a plethora of sparkly capes on hand, it might have looked a little something like this:

Oh, and did I mention it was her FIRST MIX?! I know.

DJ Rubber Hips, we can’t wait for your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th mixes and beyond!

Drops Of Sweat From Around The World

Wednesday’s crew of  dancers trickled in slowly but HIT LIKE A MACK TRUCK!  Not to say that we created a sweaty ladies-only mosh pit, but we may as well have!  Our naturally nervous VIRGIN mixxxologist was DJ Knitta-WHAT…and WHAT she did was amazing and clap-tastic!  A worldly mix of never-before-heard-at-DDPP music from India to Detroit to France, y’all!  My personal favorite was a Charlie’s Angels throwback remix.  A few of us instinctively sprouted pistols with our hands and stealthily crept around the studio in search of some HOT criminals to take into custody.  If dancing our asses off to some bass pounding tunes in a dark room lit by seizure inducing tube lights were a crime – Kelly, Jill and Sabrina would’ve tossed ALL 12 of us in the slammer!

Dance Dance Bama Bama: Good For a Girl AND a Boy!

Most of you probably know that on April 27^th one of the worst tornado outbreaks in history hit the Southeast.  Most of you probably know that Alabama was the hardest hit state, with the largest number of injuries and fatalities.  Small towns were wiped off the map, and whole neighborhoods in larger cities were completely destroyed.

What you probably don’t know is that two of our denmothers, Kelley Clink and Catherine Carrigan, hail from the Heart of Dixie.  Their families and friends were all gratefully okay, but they’d like to do their part to help the thousands of people who weren’t so lucky.  Here’s where you come in:

DDPP is proud to announce their second fundraising dance party, which will also be their second CO-ED dance party!  Once again we will be opening our doors to dudes, so ladies, BRING YOUR MEN!!!  Boyfriends, husbands, brothers, fathers, friends—we want to see some man meat on the dance floor!  And keep reading, because this just keeps getting more and more exciting…

We will be using a special space for this fundraiser—one FOUR TIMES the size of our usual studio.  This means we are hoping to pack in at least four times the amount of sweaty, gyrating bodies!

Oh, and did we mention, we’re reverting back to a 90 minute mix for this bad boy!  We know, right?

The organization we’re raising money for—Compassion Coalition—is based in Tuscaloosa, one of the hardest hit areas and Kelley’s hometown.  Compassion Coalition is an organization of 50+ local church congregations (non-denominational and non-proselytizing) whose mission is disaster relief.  It’s been in existence since before Katrina.  The focus of the organization is presently on creating as many transitional homes as possible to get people out of the shelters.  Transitional housing is an intermediary step before permanent housing is available.  It could be created by repairing existing, but vacant current homes, or ”retrofitting” vacant storefronts.  There are volunteer crews on the ground working on this, but they need funds for materials.  Compassion Coalition is solely operated by volunteers, so all donations go straight back to the community instead of into salaries.

Here are the details:

WHEN:     Sunday June 12, 2011, from 3:30 to 5 pm.

WHERE:  Church of West Ridge, 6015 N Francisco Ave, Chicago, IL 60659.  Parking lot is behind the church, off of Francisco, as is the entrance to the gymnasium where we’ll be dancing (awww yeah!)

Visit our page at Eventbrite to RSVP for the event, to make a donation even if you can’t make the party, and, if you’re feeling funky, to buy a t-shirt (featuring the logo below, designed by the lovely and talented Ross Zietz).

We’re suggesting a $20 dollar donation per person. If you want to give more, rock on with ya bad self! If you can’t afford $20, come anyway and bring what you can—every dollar helps.  Shirts are 15$, and must be ordered by JUNE 5, 2011.  Can’t make it to the jam but still want to help out?  Buy a donation ticket on Eventbrite, give your cash or check to one of our denmothers any time before June 12, or send a check directly to the charity at:

Compassion Coalition

P.O. Box 1507

Tuscaloosa, AL 35403-1507

Hope to see you and all the people you love with Y chromosomes on June 12!!

DJ Arsen making DDPP Truly OUTRAGEOUS!

Trust me when I say we were not a bunch of “Misfits” when we converged on the dance floor for DJ Arsen’s fantabulouso mix….no Diggity, no DOUBT!   We Naughty Girls were looking for love (cause we need it to YO!) while applying our Lip Gloss cause we like to Party all the Time (but NOT with a Short, Short Man)…wondering What have you done for us lately?!?!?  We Around the Way Girls know how to Do it Like a Dude & Say it Right while humming along to the NCIS theme song, so Baby you know you Won’t Forget Our Number.  We wondered ”Where is My Mind” while Jump jumping to pick up our Passengers on the highway to dancing nirvana…Der Kommisar!

Hey if you don’t believe my tale of the TRULY OUTRAGEOUS Sunday Funday gathering…check out the playlist below (it was a booty shaking good time).  Thanks DJ Arsen for bringing the HEAT!

That Evil Muppet Feeling

“It’s a mid-tempo mix,” our DJ–the irrepressible DJ Michelle Leslie Brown–said tonight.

Liar.

DJ MLB’s funky beats busted through the studio like Cookie Monster on crack:

All work and no dance make muppets GO CRAZY!  And what do these crazy muppets do?  Why they make beautiful music with Kanye West, of course.  Which makes us all ridiculously happy.  Do yourself a favor: if you weren’t here on Wednesday, listen to this (Kanye Mahna).  DJ MLB, as always we’re powerless in the face of your complete and total originality  (still no repeats, after like 30 something mixes!!!).   We couldn’t stop the feeling we got, and it was warm and fuzzy as kittens in tea cups.

DJ Kling-On Say Relax

Watch out Dear Abby, Dr. Phil, and maybe even Oprah! (Actually, ESPECIALLY Oprah. She’s forsaking our fair city.) DJ Kling-On used her rockin’ playlist to hit us with an hour full of sage advice- all through the power of song! Our Sunday afternoon crew left the studio smarter and possibly even more…dare I say…relaxed? than whence we came. How is that possible, you ask? Let me lay out a few of the gems DJ Kling-On laid on us:

• Don’t change.
• Be your own personal Jesus.
• RELAX! (Don’t do it…when you wanna go to it…  I just got that song in your head for the rest of the day. You’re welcome.)
• Never let your best friend down- take a ride with them instead. Who doesn’t love a good bestie road trip?
• Don’t get lost in the supermarket.

And sometimes, people, just…

• Shout, shout, let it all out. (Especially if you’ve just gotten through playing the crying game.)

Now I’ve been known to call DDPP “dance therapy” before, but trust me, DJ Kling-On took it to a whole new level. Ladies were so caught up in the moment that they were practically speaking in tongues during “Personal Jesus”- and one tutu-ed den mama even took it allll the way down to the floor!

Now by a happenstance of some sort of computer glitch, Sunday’s masterful mix was apparently one song shorter than intended, but not only did that round things out to a lucky number 13, but no one could even tell! We were pooped and perfectly happy as-is! And I didn’t get to hear the name of what song missed the par-tay, but I can only imagine that maybe it was this one…and that if we had gotten to dance to it, it might have looked something like this…

Rock on, DJ Kling-On! Thanks for all the advice!

Do you love your monkey (thumbs) or do you love me?

There are times in life that it feels good to make a decision. Like when you’re at brunch after a late night and you and your bestie resolve the “sweet vs. savory” debate in no time by agreeing to go 50/50 on the french toast and the chilaquiles. Or when  you finally pick your college major or commit to a new paint color for your bedroom (I went with Twilight Gray, y’all, and it looks awesome!). When it starts to get tricky, though, is when George Michael spends a whole song speaking in euphemisms:

Thankfully, loving DJ Monkeythumbs, her playlist AND ourselves on Wednesday night required no such internal struggle. Though she admitted that the process of compiling her first mix was a bit nerve-wracking, our DJ quickly had the crowd of 15 bopping around the room to an eclectic selection of her favorite songs.

Including, I’m not gonna lie, a song that totally got me tearing up MID-PLAYLIST. For those of you who don’t know “This Year” by the Mountain Goats, let’s just say it’s one of those uber-inspiring autobiographical tunes about making it through hard times and emerging triumphant. We know (because you tell us!) that there are so many reasons you show up to DDPP: sometimes it’s to catch up with friends or make new ones when you’ve just moved to town. Sometimes it’s to keep a great week going. Sometimes, as one woman shared with us on Wednesday night, it’s because getting back to exercising after some time away is pretty scary, and it feels safer to do in a truly judgment-free zone. And sometimes it’s to elevate our mood, to remind us that, goldangit, we ARE gonna make it through this year if it kills us. And this song just brought that all to the forefront for me in the best, BEST way. It was a special private moment, is what I’m saying, so I had to share it with the rest of you.

And if that wasn’t enough, DJ Monkeythumbs followed up the song that will forever be known as “The One That Makes DJ Ssssnake Go All Eeeemo” with a gem from the New York Metro Mass Choir that featured not one, not two, but FORTY-SEVEN HUNDRED false endings. Such. A. Jam! Hatin’ that I can’t find it on the Youtubes to share with you all, but trust.

We can’t wait for you to come back and DJ for us again, Monkeythumbs, but in the meantime, let us register our approval in the way we best know how: I Can Has Cheezburger style…

Hot dog! It’s DJ Sex Frosting!

When you arrive at DDPP and the DJ is wearing a tiny gold sequined hat, you know you’re in for something special. So seeing DJ Sex Frosting rocking the tiny tophat pictured below (though sans side ponytail and gold gloves) was the harbinger of a truly spectacular mix.

“Like totally, my mix was radical! A-DUH!”

It could turn a timid adorable hot dog like this:

Into a sassy in-control on-the-go business lady (who just happens to be wearing a hot dog hat) like this:

Because DJ Sex frosting wasn’t the only gal in attendance wearing an incredible chapeau. Den Mother, DJ Fairy Punkmother brought her very own HOT DOG HAT to rock during Hot Dog (Watch Me Eat) by the Detroit Cobras. And rock she did!

Also, N.E.R.D. may want to rename their song Everybody Nose (All The Girls Standing In the Line for the Bathroom) because the way we do it is definitely All The Girls DANCING In the Line for the Bathroom. If anyone has Pharrell’s email, please let us know so we can give him our lyrical notes.

(Tiny sequined and hot dog-shaped) hats off to DJ Sex Frosting for a killer mix!!! Killer, as in it almost killed me. Good thing it didn’t, cause then I’d need a ghost writer. Ha! Now I kill me! Alf? Anybody? Oh boy.  I’m gonna quit typing so you can move on to the awesome booty-shakin’ playlist below.