Heaven 17 “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang”
The right record will always find you at the right time. Take last Saturday afternoon as an example. I was in Little Tokyo, flipping through 45s at Salt Box and just happened to come across “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” the 1981 single from Heaven 17. Did I have this? Did it matter? Even if I did have a copy, I could use another one because this nearly 45-year-old song is the jam for right now. Or, rather, it should be the jam for right now.
I didn’t even have to listen to the song for the earworm to bury itself in my brain. “Have you heard it on the news?” it goes, “About this fascist groove thang.”
Last Sunday, at the same record fair booth where I found Marc Almond’s fantastic “Melancholy Rose” 12” single, I came across an Italian copy of Quando Quango’s 12” “Two From Quando,” featuring the song “Atom Rock,” released on a Bologna label called Base Record, although it’s still marked with the Factory Records catalog number FAC 102. Sweet! There was no way I was leaving the record fair without this record, even if I *technically* already have the song on vinyl.
Quando Quango first came into my orbit thanks to a compilation called Cool As Ice: The Be Music Productions. Released in 2003, it’s a collection of music produced by members of New Order as Be Music between 1983 and 1985. There are two tracks from Quando Quango on there, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock,” both of which were produced by the dream team of Bernard Sumner, using the name Be Music, and A Certain Ratio’s Donald Johnson, under the name DoJo. At the time that copies of Cool As Ice landed in the bins at Amoeba, I was promoting and DJing a Wednesday night party at a now long-gone West Hollywood bar called The Parlour called Transmission. If the name weren’t a total giveaway, I was pretty obsessed with everything related to Joy Division and New Order, as were a lot of the regulars, so I played both those songs often. And, since one of the few constants in this world is that I’m still a little on the Joy Division/New Order obsessive side and still play for people who are riding the same wave, “Love Tempo” and “Atom Rock” still turn up in my sets. All of this a super tl;dr way of justifying my purchase, btw.
At Sunday’s Lovers Market at Homage Brewing in Chinatown, I stopped by the one record vendor who I try to always visit. I don’t think I’ve ever walked away from this booth empty-handed because there’s usually at least one crate loaded with legit cool ‘80s club 12” singles, a mix of everything from post-punk to Italo disco to hiNRG that’s geared towards DJs rather than collectors. While I was digging, I came across a Marc Almond single that I instantly wanted to buy.
It was hot and the record store was small and bright. Jazz filled the room as I flipped through bins, side-eyeing price tags on ‘80s records. That’s what they want for the Go-Gos? I thought. That’s the kind of record you get from your relatives who went digital ages ago. In fact, at least one of my Go-Gos records came to me in exactly that way. I don’t even want to see the Fleetwood Mac prices here.
I headed over to the dance bin, just in case there was something that looked interesting. And there was. It was a copy of “Vamos a la Playa” with a $4.99 price tag on it. That’s weird, I thought. I can’t tell you how long “Vamos a la Playa” has been in the L.A. ether, but it’s one of the Italo disco jams that everyone seems to know. If you play it a club— and I think most of us DJs have done so many, many times— you can hear the crowd singing out on the floor. At least, they sing along with the chorus, “Vamos a la playa, oh-oh-oh-oh.” They usually don’t get all into the verse about radioactive winds blowing through your hair. It’s a strange song by today’s standards, but deceptively cheerful ditties about nuclear annihilation were totally a thing in the 1980s. Don’t believe me? This is probably the only time in my life that I will ever recommend listening to “99 Luftballoons” in English.
In Sheep’s Clothing x Japonesia Summer Market at Homage in Chinatown on July 28. (Pic: Liz O.)
I almost regretted leaving my igloo on the last Sunday in July. It was hot af and I was still a little tired from the previous night’s DJ gig at Nocturno, but the In Sheep’s Clothing x Japonesia Summer Market was happening and that’s the one record swap that I try not to miss. So, I twisted my hair up and butterfly-clipped it, like at least 75% of longhaired L.A. this summer, and headed out to the brewery for a dig.
My vinyl copy of School of Seven Bells’ 2012 album, Ghostory.
When a song isn’t instantly recognizable, you can see it on the faces in the crowd. They’ll shoot befuddled glances around the room, scope the scene and see how many people look like they know it. They half-dance, as if they’re still deciding whether or not to stay on the floor.
In the DJ booth, this is a tense moment because there are a few ways that the scenario can play out. They might leave the dance floor, taking a handful of people with them. Or, someone who is equally bold and clueless might come up to the booth with the “play something I know” request. In the best possible instances, they stick with the groove and keep moving.
I see people cast the “I don’t know this song, should I dance?” glance whenever I play “Low Times” by School of Seven Bells. The song is 12 years old, and I’ve been playing it for just as long, but it still hits as if it were new. Even though it’s not a song that people automatically know, they keep dancing. Every time, the crowd grows and energy builds alongside the heart-pounding rhythm and breathless vocals.
On the Record Vinyl Fair at The Music Center on May 4, 2024 (Pic: Liz O.)
Salt Box Records has never steered me wrong. So, when I saw a 7” with a tag on cover the sleeve that read “Italo-style Spanish synth pop,” I grabbed it. I had never heard of the band Tango?— or, at least, in that moment, I thought that I hadn’t heard them— and the song title “Breve Síntesis de los Huecos,” sounded completely unfamiliar to me. I bought it strictly because that descriptive tag, written in Sharpie by an actual human, said, “Listen to me, Liz” in a way that algorithmic suggestions never do.
Later on, I would realize that I had previously heard Tango?, who were based in Barcelona and active in the mid-1980s. They had a self-titled song that was included on the stellar compilation, Ritmo Fantasía: Balearic Spanish Synth-Pop, Boogie and House. The two songs couldn’t be more different, though. “Tango?,” the song, is a slow groovy piece suited for pool parties and bars where they serve tapas on shady, outdoor patios. “Breve Síntesis de los Huecos” should have accompanied a montage in an ‘80s movie. It’s a vibe.
Pic taken at Sonido del Valle where I found Bobby Velvet “The Martian” and Ernest Kohl “Sooner or Later” (which I’ll post about later) last November. (Pic: Liz O.)
Sometimes, I buy a record because it contains a mystery that may or may not ever be solved. Like, who is Bobby Velvet and how did he end up doing “The Martian” in a North Hollywood recording studio for a 12” single released on a label based out of a Pasadena building that’s now a law office?
Toto Coelo 12″ single with the extended dance mix of “Milk from the Coconut.” (Pic: Liz O.)
On a Sunday afternoon, I flipped through a bin of new wave records at Sonido del Valle in Boyle Heights. At this point in the dig, I had already found a 12” of Bananarama’s cover of “He Was Really Saying Something” for 99 cents that was dusty, but definitely playable. I was starting to feel lucky. Not lottery ticket lucky, but lucky enough to take a chance on a Toto Coelo 12” single called “Milk from the Coconut.”
Something that happens when I play all-vinyl sets is that I decide on a personal theme that should, theoretically, make it easier for me to narrow down what I pull from my stacks. Take, for example, Saturday night’s Razorcake party at Footsies. My theme for the night was dubby ‘80s, a mishmash of the dub mixes found on 12” singles during that decade and post-punk tunes that are clearly influenced by dub.
But, now matter how often I say to myself, “Liz, stick to theme,” I just can’t do it. In this case, I started out pulling essentials like The Flying Lizards, Tom Tom Club, The League Unlimited Orchestra, Bauhaus and The Clash. Then I came across a copy of Outkast’s album Speakerboxx/The Love Below and was like, ‘when was the last time I listened to this?’ And then I find my copy of “Sally That Girl” and start thinking about how there will totally be people in the bar who haven’t heard that song since a middle school dance in 1990. But, if I’m going to play that, then I really need to bring Cybotron because that might be the only way I can mix out of Gucci Crew, and then I should probably bring Patrick Cowley too, just because I forgot to bring it to Disco Matinee last week.
Long story short, that’s how you end up with set lists like the ones listed below. If this is your jam, you should probably pick up tickets for Disco Matinee: Punk ’n’ Funk Edition on April 7 because it will also be all-vinyl and I know a few of these tracks will end up in my crate for that party as well.
