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:

The Gospel According To DJ Crazy Cat Lady

On Sunday, April 14, the FIRST PRETTY DAY in an eternity, I had resigned myself to the notion that not many ladies would choose to be inside shakin’ it when they could be outside basking in the sun.

Meanwhile, awaiting her DDPP debut, DJ Crazy Cat Lady was concerned that her warmup and cool down songs might be weird, alas.

We needn’t have worried. Eighteen lovely dancerz burned up the floor for DJ Crazy Cat Lady’s maniacal genius of a first mix, and we warmed up and cooled down to some beautiful tunes that, well, warmed us up and cooled us down just like they should.

I do declare: I have NEVER heard so much hand-clapping outside a gospel choir or a flamenco concert.

Can I get an Amen! and an Olé!?

Let us reminisce:

La Valse de Amelie – Yann Tiersen
Tik Tok – Ke$ha
I’ve Got My Mind Set on You – George Harrison [Hand-clapping begins here...]
Maneater – Nelly Furtado
Hold On – Wilson Phillips [Hand-clapping wuz epic here...]
Cecilia – Simon & Garfunkel [Hand-clapping super-cray here...]
No Rain – Blind Melon
Rich Girl – Hall & Oates
Freaky Girl – Shaggy
Blister in the Sun – Violent Femmes [Evathing super-cray here...]

That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings [All kittehdancerz wuz born again here...]
Sweet Dreams – Eurythmics
Pumpkin Soup – Kate Nash
Lovefool – The Cardigans
Take Me Out – Franz Ferdinand
Jane Fonda – Mickey Avalon
December 1963 – Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
Granada – Emilio de Benito [Whew! We wuz tuckered out by here...]

DJ Crazy Cat Lady, if you is really truly cray-cray, then we is too. Thank you for sharing your tunes with us kittens. We were honored to be your crazy cat lady starter kit.

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.”

Consent Is Sexy and Sexy Is AWESOME

Wednesday’s mix was DJ Misfit Toyz’s TENTH…an honored milestone at DDPP.  Her vision was “an all-girly, all-raunchy explosion of fun, female sexiness,” and I think she achieved that and MO!  This mix was a POWERHOUSE of risqué jams that had us pumping our fists, gettin’ WET and showing off our…pink parts?  We’ve had a couple of KITTY themed mixes as of late so I won’t elaborate too much but the drrrrty highlight of the mix was a kitschy anthem to that which all of us at DDPP have…she’s a tiger, she’s the hippest thing around and the talk of the town.

When I think of Misfit Toyz I am transported to the holiday claymation world of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and that cute blonde elf (who I have met in person at a Christmas pub crawl).  Rejects saving Christmas?  Yeah boiiiiiiii!

AWOL’s (Unintentional Salute) To Your Pelvis

And now, a complete shame admission from the blogger: I had never been to a DJ AWOL dance party until Sunday. Somehow our paths didn’t cross before we were den mothers. As much as I enjoy the surprise at DDPP when DJ’s pull out their mix, I really wanted to know den mama AWOL’s flavor. I’ve gotten to know this incredibly thoughtful, funny, warm person (who also happens to be a KILLER dancer), but I realized I have almost no inclination of her taste in music. That seemed like DDPP sacrilege to me! So, picture me sitting at my computer Saturday night, almost giving in to temptation and searching for her in the song database to see what sort of music she favors. But then I remembered that 50% of the fun at DDPP is being surprised and delighted by the music, and so I decided to go with the flow and just enjoy the ride…

And it pretty much goes without saying that Den Mama DJ AWOL took us all for a delightfully delectable ride on Sunday. Her playlist was positively fierce. It was jam packed full of surprises, including songs I’ve never heard of (but immediately downloaded when I got home) and songs that I LOVE and want to dance to one million times (hello Macklemore, can we be best friends please). It was everything I’ve come to expect from AWOL as I’ve gotten to know her. I can’t wait until she DJ’s again and she also may have to become my guru of new music. Not only was DJ AWOL’s mix amazing all on its own, but it was doubly-so, because hidden within the mix was an homage to each of her fellow den mothers. And now, drum roll please…. a reveal of the homages…

MOVE SHAKE DROP was for Clink, as she dropped it so hard that her hip broke! CAN’T HOLD US was all about me (Danielle) seeing as I turn into a dance freak whenever Macklemore comes through the speakers. GIRLS was all for Amy and she knew it with her fierce & funky bumping under the speaker. I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY was for Unity (girl, get back from England please because we all wanna dance with you)! Kelly made us all feel those GOOD VIBRATIONS. And we all let out a little HOWL for Catherine.

Finally, because AWOL is naturally so giving, we not only celebrated her mix on Sunday, but we also celebrated a holiday for one of the dancers in the room. She called it National Pelvis Day, as Sunday was the 6th anniversary of when she broke her pelvis. Thankfully, she can now fully thrust again and she asked that we all work our pelvises a little harder in honor of her celebration. I think it’s safe to say that everyone in the room took that order REALLY SERIOUSLY.

Den Mama AWOL, you are totally beloved. Thank you for making Sunday really special for den mothers, for pelvises, and for lady dancers!

We can’t wait until your next mix!