Under The Influence

DJ U.N.I.T.Y. had us under the influence on Sunday…the influence of some serious dance therapy!!! You know when you have a bad day…or week…(or month, or even a yearrrrrrrrrr…ahem. Sorry. Just can’t do that without busting into the “Friends” theme song.)?

Well, you could always have a good cry. All you need to do is watch this Justin Timberlake video and let these old people overflow your tear ducts:

OR you could just plain dance it out. And that’s exactly what our lovely DJ helped all of us do.

DJ U.N.I.T.Y.’s playlist started out being inspired by all the different influences in her life: marriage, growing up in the inner city, faith, friends, culture, Chicago, and…DDPP. Duh. In fact, DDPP has been such a positive influence in her life that she eventually abandoned her theme and was all like “Fuck it, let’s just shake our asses!!” And you KNOW Unity’s not messing around when she swears! She turned that studio into a regular Dancers Gone Wild. Ladies be takin’ their shirts off, ladies be almost hitting other ladies in the face by accident (sorry, Catherine…), ladies be screaming and running around, and ladies be conga lining like it’s going out of style. Hell, that mix even made my hair stand on end! You want proof? I’ll give you proof! I present to you  part 3 in the series Things DDPP Has Done To My Hair, the craziest one yet:

You might need to strap on a seat belt just to lay eyes on this wild ride:

Listen here to have your face melted off (minus “Move Your Feet” by Junior Senior, because apparently Spotify hates killer jams):

It’s almost like she’s a pro at this. OH WAIT, she is. DJ U.N.I.T.Y., thank you from the bottom of my stressed-out heart for turning my bad week around. Those dog days are so over.

Getting a Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’

Holy crap, ladies. First time DJ Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’ threw down HARD on Wednesday night. It was like being taken for a ride by a pool shark. Just when I thought I was ahead of the game, she would rip out a jam that had me WORKING the floor.

 

 

DJ Lil Sumpin’ Sumpin’ effortlessly genre hopped like a legitimate bad ass. She had us shaking our shit, punching love, stomping our feet to BOYZ and and howling like she wolves. You know it’s a good time when you turn around and not just one, but THREE ladies are crawling around on the floor. I am also always very delighted to hear a little Amy Winehouse thrown in for good measure. But the most epic moment in her playlist was when she introduced DDPP to the utter delight that is Gay Pimp. I mean, just listen to this and try not to lose your mind from delight.

 

 

On a personal note, this was the first day of DDPP where I was able to make it through a full hour (car accidents suck). I was so happy to be pushed to the limit by you, Sumpin’ Sumpin’! You are my favorite kind of pool shark.  Here’s hoping you DJ again (in those killer leggings) real soon! We all totally dug the ride.

 

 

Dance Out Your Mommy Issues

Best time to explore your Mommy issues?  DDPP!!  Dance out those labor pains, thug advice, gut wrenching guilt trips and any other miscellaneous hangups right here with us.  Our Mama-Mix-A-Lot on Wednesday was regular dance hound DJ LONESTAR who happens to be pregnant with a baby girl a.k.a. Our Youngest DDPPer!  As a pregnant mama with a girl in the womb myself, I was right there with her on thoughts / fears of of child birth and raising a GIRL.  This mix was sweaty and cathartic, funny and empowering.  Just what we all needed.

Maybe she’ll be just like ME? Maybe she’ll be my antithesis.  Feels like she’s having her own DDPP in my UTE…or maybe she is intentionally crushing my soul?  I can’t wait to love and nurture her in ways that I wish I was loved and nurtured…but she’ll eventually be 13 and I’ll want to strangle her.  Mrs. Hannigan will take good care of her at the orphanage, right?

Will she LOOK like me?  Will she be my doppelgänger?  Will she look like someone I know?  Will she be a spittin’ image of Den Mother Catherine / DJ Ssssnake?  Please say YES!

We all felt connected in our womanhood, motherhood and all things GIRL this Wednesday.  With women like us for moms, our daughters are BOUND to be smart, courageous, and incredible…and hopefully doing The Worm right out of the birth canal!  Cheers to you baby mama Lonestar and all of the strong DDPP women out there!

 

ALWAYS Trust a Big Butt and a Smile

Ok, don’t get me wrong. DJ Bell  Biv deHo doesn’t have a big butt. It’s totally the perfect size. It’s like…you know, not fat, but PHAT. Like that. Wait…let me put it this way. What I’m trying to say here is…ALWAYS TRUST DJ BELL BIV DEHO’S PLAYLISTS.

Seriously, this rookie DJ injected us with some dance poison! When her namesake song came on, everyone in the room was all like:

What else did you miss if you were outside enjoying the sunshine (whatever. like it was cold for too long or something.) instead of inside enjoying the dancing and darkness? I’m glad you asked! I now present to you part 2 of the illustrious series Things DDPP Has Done To My Hair:

Even a headband couldn’t hold that shit down! What else did you miss…let’s see, how about me trying to do all the choreography I could possibly remember from Love On Top during the freakin’ warmup? Screw warming up, my body said! I need to spin around like I’m wearing a leotard and a spangled sailor cap! You also only missed a room full of ladies belting out pretty much every song in the entire last half of the playlist. You just missed DJ AWOL spontaneously double-high-fiving THE ENTIRE STUDIO. And you may have missed pretty much every dancing lady in attendance going more apeshit over Macklemore than Tyra Banks goes over Vaseline.

Which brings me to an executive decision. I know, I just know, that at some point in the not-so-distant past few years that one of these here den mothers named Robyn the DDPP Artist of the Year (even though I couldn’t find the blog post to prove it). And ladies, I know we’re not even halfway through 2013, but I’m gonna go ahead and do it…Macklemore is so totally DDPP Chicago’s 2013 Artist of the Year.

Whether you think Mackleless is Macklemore or not, that dude’s infectious music is an ever-present crowd-pleaser on our dance floor. Plus I mean, come on…he made everyone actually not want to fast forward through the musical guest on SNL for the first time in years. And you know he don’t judge NOBODY. Especially on the dance floor.

So that’s it. That’s all you missed. Just this fucking fantastic playlist from the fucking fantastic DJ Bell Biv deHo.

Oh you want to listen to it on Spotify? Ok. We can do that for you, because we live in the future!

Now you can re-live all the magic of DJ Bell Biv deHo in the comfort of your own everywhere. Thanks, DJ, for this musical gift that keeps on giving!

DJ Chelles Belles and Infinite Ron Swanson.

First of all, let’s note that in the last week, we had TWO DJs whose names are a tribute to AC/DC. What is it about those Aussies? True story: when I was a freshman in college (long before cameraphones or digital cameras or anything that would easily allow me to upload photographic evidence for you), I traveled to Louisville, KY to meet up with a friend and attend an all ages Yo La Tengo show. When we arrived, the marquee at the Toy Tiger (which was a natty tiger sipping a martini) proclaimed: YO LA TENGO/HELL’S BELLES AC/DC TRIBUTE. My 18-year-old self, who was still a bit of an indie shit, was horrified at the thought that my precious Hoboken trio was having to share a bill with, as it turned out, an all lady tribute band that was playing in an adjoining space right before the night’s main event: mud wrestling. My 35-year-old self of present day, for the record, would have definitely found a way to see all three.

ANYWAY. Back to Wednesday night, where we saw DJ Chelles Belles make a triumphant return to the studio with a playlist so polished, so rockin’, so cool that she was kind of like if the tiger from the Toy Tiger had hopped onstage with Helles Belles AND Yo La Tengo. (FULL CIRCLE, Y’ALL.) When we asked DJ Chelles Belles if she had anything to say about her mix, she initially replied that it was “inspired by…nothing!” Now, as we all well know, Jerry Seinfeld was able to milk that concept for nine seasons.

 

 

But one look at our DJ’s phone case made it clear what ACTUALLY served as the inspiration for this playlist: the one, the only Ron Swanson.

 

Sure, he might not SEEM like the most obvious muse for Dance Dance Party Party. He’s a bit of a loner (“When people get a little too chummy with me I like to call them by the wrong name to let them know I don’t really care about them.”). He has difficulty accessing his feelings (“Crying: acceptable at funerals and the Grand Canyon.”). And perhaps most horrifyingly of all, he doesn’t like cats (“Any dog under fifty pounds is a cat and cats are useless.”)!

 

But as any fan of Parks & Recreation knows, underneath that mustache and bravado lies the heart of a true dancer. I have to imagine if he’d been in the studio last week, this is the REAL Ron Swanson we would’ve seen:

 

Infinite Ron Swanson.

 

Behold the playlist that would’ve had Ron Swanson losing his tiny hat!

 

 

 

We will get our POP on when we want.

And there is no shame in our game!  Last Sunday we all let our inner POP Princess out to dance for that glorious hour that is DDPP.  We all let our hair down, grabbed our hair brushes (ok our figurative ones), sang into the mirror & just let it all out on the dance floor.  Dj Hellz Bellz led the way with POP music masterpiece.

Imagine the room darker & more ladies in it and you get the gist.  Well, this playlist did definitely raise HELLZ & kept true to its namesake. With hits from Olly Murs to Jackson 5, and Miley Cyrus to Katy Perry, this week’s hot ‘Hellz Bellz’ playlist kept the dance floor at the perfect temperature – on fire!

We just couldn’t stop dancing & getting down with our bad selves…

Check the play list here & remember to POP it out this week:

“Ignition” by R. Kelly
“Dance with Me Tonight” by Olly Murs
“Whenever, Wherever” by Shakira
“Bye, Bye Love” by Simon and Garfunkel
“What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction
“Breakout” by Miley Cyrus
“Fun, Fun, Fun” by The Beach Boys
“Last Friday Night” by Katy Perry
“Come on Over” by Christina Aguilera
“Country Girl” by Luke Bryan
“That Thing You Do!” from the movie That Thing you Do
“I Think I’m in Love” by Jessica Simpson
“Twist and Shout” by The Beatles
“Toxic” by Britney Spears
“ABC” by The Jackson 5
“Escape” by Enrique
“Hello” by Dragonette
“Give Your Heart a Break” by Demi Lovato
“It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette

See you on the dance floor.

Who’s laughing Now?

DJ Bow Chicka Wow Wow…that’s who!  She made the whole room bounce, jiggle & shake our rumps to an hour (of power) of non-stop dancing goodness.  Trust me…she ain’t no ONE MINUTE DJ!

This conversation goes a little something like this:

baby 1: DDPP was off the hook last night…no seriously!  Baby 2: NO effing way…how could have I missed it?  (DAMMIT…I must stomp my foot in protest!).  Baby 1: It was off the chain…the whole studio was a rocking! Baby 2: giggle…I bet it was. Baby 1: yeah, oh man I was a sweating mess…she even played my favorite song: Thrift Shop Baby 2: WHAT (puts hand up in his face)?!?!?!  that must have been “effing awesome” and hey what do you know about rocking a wolf on your noggin?  Baby 1: (waving hands frantically) YOU JUST DON’T EVEN KNOW!  Baby 2: Shut your face…I just want to cry.  Baby 1: Ain’t nobody got time for that. Baby 2: I hate missing DDPP! Baby 1: yeah, that dj really knew how to throw it down (bending down with excitement)…IT WAS AMAZING!  Baby 2: #$%@& ACK…will NEVER MISS AGAIN!

Well, who knows what the heck those 2 are talking about but let me tell you what I’m talking about…DJ Bow Chicka Wow Wow had the studio going bananas with her mix.  Arms in the air, body swaying, singing, and hand clapping were the order of the day.  It was the best work out this gal (and all the others in the room) could ask for…plus there is this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/why-going-to-the-gym-is-a-huge-waste-of-time  DDPP is way better than going to the gym!

Check out the playlist here:

Mies on Macklemore.

I can understand how it might have been confusing for some folks. There were no first-timers, they knew how this was supposed to go. And yet a dozen dancers walked into the Perceptual Motion Dance Studio last week and realized that they had somehow been transported to an underground bar in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood.

That’s right: DJ Antonym’s mix made the twelve regulars who showed up on a kind of crummy, drizzly Wednesday night ALL feel like Norm Peterson (absent the nagging wife). It was comfortable, it was friendly and we all wished we could have had our own barstool to rest on by the end of it. Because with no elaborate instructions to give, and with room to really streeeetch out and move freely, we were able to get down to the business of body movement like it was our dang JOB. For a bit more on what that (might have) looked like, let’s consult everyone’s favorite businesswoman, Liz Lemon :

But seriously, let’s talk about this mix (minus the excellent tracks that aren’t available on Spotify *huge sigh*):

DJ Antonym has a knack for digging deep with her warmup songs, and last week’s was no different. If you hadn’t known it was from the “Snatch” soundtrack, this groove would have STILL made you want to go out and try your hand as a sexy cat burglar.

And from that moment, all bets were off with this playlist: it had current hits, it had oldies, it had new wave, it had Brazillian big band/swing AND Brazillian indie rock. You cannot pin DJ Antonym’s musical tastes down…and nor should you want to!

Oh, and a final note: our DJ admitted that she had almost issued a warning before her mix started that there was–gasp!–no Macklemore on it. While, true, that thrift-shopping, ceiling-busting, PNW-livin’, red suit-wearin’ weirdo has been a staple of recent playlists (check the database if you need proof), let me say that we did not feel his absence one bit. Not with a playlist as great as this and dancers as footloose and fancy free as those we had last week. Mies van der Rohe was right:

Grits, Tits, and All the Hits!

You guys. Guess who rocked the house on Sunday?

You can’t guess? Maybe this sausage dick will help you.

 

That’s right. DJ Brunch Slut stomped into the studio for her debut trailing a veritable sequined, afro-wigged army behind her. And when asked to tell us about her mix, she made me laugh so hard that I almost couldn’t finish the spiel. Let’s go to the transcript:

Me: “Is there anything you want to tell us about your mix?”

DJ Brunch Slut: “Yeah. I actually didn’t make this mix…MY ASS DID!!!”

Yes. That happened. And then her ass transported us all to magical places where we were eating Reese’s Pieces with Mystikal, throwing everything on the ground (including ourselves), and doing the Harlem Shake with Morla (the giant turtle from the Neverending Story. Duh.) (Hot tip: Scroll to 2:10 in that last video for the good stuff.)

Seriously, we went places. I can’t even. We went so many places that I actually fell in love with the Harlem Shake, which I had really been trying hard to hate. We even went to the disco with this hot bitch:

There was truly nowhere we didn’t go. Even to the hotel lobby.

DJ Brunch Slut, your ass can DJ anytime it wants! Just as long as it takes us out for a respectable frittata in the morning.

Kickin’ It Back to the Old School

[Editors' note: What follows is DJ Incredible Zulk, aka Claire Zulkey's, blog post for WBEZ. Thanks for letting us reprint it, Claire, for putting together such an excellent mix and for repping us on such a sophisticated platform!]

Need some music to brighten your day? I DJ’ed last night at Dance Dance Party Party.

This whole mix began with me playing “The Humpty Dance” and remembering what a fun song it is. I went into a ’90s happy rap/R&B wormhole, going back to some of my favorite songs from late middle school and early high school. Ironically, “Humpty Dance” didn’t make the cut because it’s six and a half minutes long, which is too long for a DDPP mix (in my opinion.) The last minute especially of the song feels unnecessary.

This is from one of the first tapes I ever bought. En Vogue was just the coolest, you know? So gorgeous and empowered and talented. You know how one of Beyonce’s latest songs tell people to bow down? Well she needs to bow down, repeatedly, to En Vogue.

My friend Maureen requested some Michael Jackson, so she got some.

Dance songs about choo choo trains never fail.

[Another Editor's note: THIS VIDEO IS SO DISTURBING. I can never dance to this song at DDPP without partway through pretending to roller skate around the room and/or rip muscles off my body and throw them at people.]

I first heard this song in my WERQ class. I like how frantic it is. Also, my baby was delighted when my husband danced to it for him so that’s something else the song’s got going for it.

This song is good for strutting, plus Sheena Easton really dances with her face a lot in this video. When I was choosing songs I’d like the band to play at my wedding, I picked this one from the list of available songs given to me. “Why would you want this song played at your wedding?” one of the band’s managers askd me. Because it’s awesome. And also, why would you offer a song if you didn’t want people to play it? Would you really rather play “A Whole New World?”

This song is so basic. It only has five words in it plus a funny sound effect and it’s just the same beat, over and over again. But I love it: it’s one of those songs that just takes me back to old school dances and was my first introduction to house music. It might be local, I think? Because once I left Chicago to go to college, nobody had ever heard of the percolator.

This is the second time this week I posted about this song. Every DDPP mix has got to have at least one blissed-out rapture-type song that you just pretend you’re spinning around in a sunny field to and that’s this one for me.

When I look back on my life I feel like I had two “senior year” songs. For senior year of college it was Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me,” which I never felt very strongly about. But for senior year of high school it was “No Diggity.” It’s just so cool and funky, something you can slowly swag around the room to.

I know all the words to this because I sang it in a karaoke competition when I was seven months pregnant and did not even make it to the next round so screw everyone who decided that because hello, big fat pregnant lady rapping? What else do you want?

Yes, I danced while playing air bass guitar to this like that one lady.

I like a song where the beat sounds like a bunch of people stomping on a wooden floor.

I’ll be honest: the song was not a hit on the dance floor as far as I could tell. The audio was tinny and people aren’t that familiar with the full version. But: go White Sox! I had fun.

Sort of another jock jam from the old days. It reminds me of dancing at the old Chicago Stadium and pointing in the general vicinity of Michael Jordan, whose feats of strength were the titular “it” from the chorus.

Cooldown. I love Jarvis Cocker and the entreaty “So let’s go take some drugs/and let’s go have some sex.”