Boxsons

I’m not exactly what you’d call a gifted dancer. well, maybe I could be described that way if you use the term “gifted” in the “special” way. Or, if “gifted” could also be used to describe the raw dance floor sexuality that a flopping fish out of water having a grand mal seizure, then I am a gifted dancer.

However, in the most conventional sense, I am a lousy dancer. my rhythm is intermittent and my moves are dictated by the necessity of a dominate and frequent bass rhythm. it is mostly gyrating hips complimented by breast stroke arm moves. It’s not pretty and won’t get me on America’s best Dance Crew, but, at least, I am not a hand dancer.

That said, I really enjoying dancing. at least I did before I realized that it does bother me being older than the guy who owns the club I’m visiting. Privately, though, I still have been known to bust a move.

editor’s note: Jesus man, you are old. Bust a move lost any relevance 21 years ago.

Author’s note: get bent. Bust a move is still a great song.

Generally, though, I only dance at the parties I have after everyone has a couple hours of my generously poured cocktails in them. And even then, the music is pretty much lite-dance stuff from the late 80’s and early 90’s (think C&C, Snap, etc.) Occasionally, I sneak in some techno or even some indie stuff, but that pretty much clears the dance floor leaving me alone and exposed to the audience.

The point is, I like to dance, but wasn’t great at it. in my teenage years, I subscribed to two, wildly different schools of dance technique. School one taught that quirky was key, so I emulated some of my college rock idols and copied their moves. unfortunately, the idols were pasty white guys whose dancing could be described more by the terms “ironic” or “interpretive” not “skillful” or “intricate.” it was my fault for having elevated the likes of Michael Stipe, the They might Be Giants Johns and Bono beyond the clever songwriters and performers they were into moody and introspective dance gods.

School two was that of late 80’s hip hop. Acts like Kid ‘n’ Play, big Daddy Kane and Chubb Rock that depended on those high NRG, carefully choreographed dance moves that distracted you from how crap the lyrics were. the problem was, they set the bar really high because those bastards could move. I could crabwalk somewhat and do that one Kid ‘n’ Play move where they kick each other’s feet, but that was it.

My problem, it seemed, was that I just needed to find the right kind of dance music. And find it, I did.

It was the Summer of 1992 and I was out with my friend Victor. the plan was we were going to grab a bite at the College Hill Wendy’s, meet up with some of his friends and watch the Depeche Mode 101 video. We did that and as the video was ending, we were all hopped up on Wendy’s double cheeseburgers and Dave Gahan’s “Yeahs”, it was decided that we should hit a club that had just opened in Over the Rhine.

It should go without saying that I was very anxious about this. I had previously only been to one club, Primetime (or Slimetime or Primeslime or Slimeslime as we affectionately and accurately called it) and that was not exactly a great experience. I had gone about a year earlier as a senior in high school and wasn’t impressed with the meat market vibe of the place. it was too loud, too smoky and the music, with the exception of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence and Dee_Lite’s Groove is in the Heart, was pretty bad. it had been a long and mostly unpleasant night so I wasn’t exactly in a rush for a repeat performance.

However, I was something of a leaf caught in a current, so before I knew what happened I was sitting inside a very dark and very freaky club called the Warehouse in Cincinnati’s most dangerous neighborhood. the music was aggressive and loud which made a perfect complement to the fashions and attitudes worn by the club’s patronage. but, as far as I could tell, everyone was dancing. there was no chatting up going on, no flashy moves and the condom machine in the toilets only offered one flavor. it was, for a nightclub, decidedly low key.

Mostly, I was just impressed by the people there. They were the kind of people I, in some ways, admired, was drawn towards and was: the freaks. the black clothed, pasty faced kids who never quite fit in. there, at the Warehouse, they…we just fit in. Sure people dressed up, but it wasn’t, I don’t know, as showy and obvious as Primetime. at that time, the place didn’t even have a liquor license, so you just had a couple rooms filled with kids wanting to dance and have a good time.

That was cool, but the music was what moved me in quite a literal and figurative way. Simple 120 beat per minute pulsating rhythms combined with squelches and beeps from the 808 created an atmosphere perfectly conducive for dance. the songs and DJ in control would play them until the dance floor was in a new frenzy before coming to a break where they would wave their arms slowly in the strobe enhanced cigarette smoke. the bass line would come back, the drums would intensify and the mass of people moved almost as one.

I was hooked. it took me a while to actually make it out on the floor, but I clearly remember the song that did it. it was Apeotheosis’s techno remix of Carl Orff’s Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (O’ Fortuna) from Carmina Burana. You know the piece, it’s that song from just about every horror movie played whenever the monster appears or at sporting events when the home team takes the field/pitch/ice. It’s big, scary and dramatic and is perfect sample fodder for the spotty teenage speed freaks that happened to own a drum machine and sequencer.

It was also perfect for club music. the slave ship drums combined with the huge crash of the orchestral singers belting out Ooooooooh Fortuna. some Latin nonsense probably about eternal damnation or demon rape. Add the pulsating 120 BPM drums and some clever vocal tweaks and you’ve got a song that will make me wanting to throw away adulthood and devote my life again to club culture and all of its trappings. Hell, I’m listening to it as I write this, I am doing a slight rhythmic penguin dance which is probably making my wife consider divorcing me for somewhat a bit more emotionally stable (and who is also a better dancer.)

That song changed a ton. not only did I find music that was easy for me to dance to, it also really pushed me into clubbing full tilt. it wouldn’t be accurate or remotely honest for me to say that I enjoyed going to the clubs strictly for the music and that feeling of freedom. that was part of it, but I also really liked the drink, the drugs and the women. that was huge.

Amazingly, in regards to the women, I did alright despite every effort to sabotage my own love life. I was socially awkward and dressed like a fool:

Christian’s Club Night Outfit
- Scuffed to shit black 8 hole Docs
- really baggy Levis that hadn’t been washed in weeks
- Size XXL long sleeved t-shirt with some sort of swirl business on it
- Knit Peruvian shepard’s hat that, despite absorbing my head sweat for years, had never been washed.

For a few months in 1993, I augmented this “style” with a pair of crutches I was using because I had blown my knee out playing volleyball. I’m not a woman, but I’d have to think that a six and a half foot tall guy dressed as I was, numb from a potent cocktail of marijuana, Vicodin and whatever alcohol I could get my hands on all while gyrating on one crutch while waving the other around in the air is not Mr. Right, or even Mr. Right Now material. but, the ladies liked it. Maybe it was sympathy, maybe it was pity, maybe it was a dare, but I did alright. I even met my wife in such a state.

For a couple of years, I spent a lot of time in the clubs and even had a rotation:

Sunday: Warehouse
Monday: Off
Tuesday: Beat Club (sometime 1470’s)
Wednesday: Warehouse (Industrial Night)
Thursday: Beat Club
Friday: Warehouse
Saturday: Warehouse

Occasionally, we’d go to a new club, but mostly it was that schedule. After a while, after college and with responsibilities, that faded out. First, once a week, then a couple times a month, then once every other month. I still had a good time doing it, but was sort of growing out of it. it is kind of depressing seeing the same faces with the same problems, doing the same thing week after week, year after year.

I was and am somewhat conflicted about that, that feeling of growing up/changing and leaving a part of your old life behind. I suppose it is a natural and healthy way to live your life and I don’t think I’d be any happier if I brought that stinky Peruvian shepard’s hat out of retirement. Editor’s note: yes he still has it, but he now uses it to jog in. Times change.

That song and ensuing experiences also got me into electronic music. my first purchase was the Rave ‘Til Dawn CD compilation because I had heard that O’ Fortuna was on it. the thing was, I didn’t remember its name, so I bought the CD figuring that one of those songs would be it.

Unfortunately, what I learned later and after discovering that the song was, indeed, not on the CD, was that Carl Orff’s estate sued for copyright infringement and the song was removed. Still, I enjoyed the CD and it exposed me to other songs and artists that I had danced to at the Warehouse.

Eventually, I did find a white label vinyl copy at system 7 record store and eventually proceeded to play the shit out it to the point where it got so scratched up that it skipped more than it played. unfortunately, I hadn’t backed it up on tape, so, I thought it was lost forever. Like that Coldcut remix, it sort of lived in legend and I always kept an eye out for it, but with the estate’s injunction, I figured it was a futile search.

That is, until in 2002 when a friend, Warren found it on some illegal download site and burned it to disc for me. Again, it was like talking to an old friend with no lag time. it still sounded great, albeit maybe a bit dated. in many respects, it is quite a naive track, basic and primal when more modern dance music is taken into consideration. a very basic beat, minimal melodies, really nothing much of anything and very much a product of the time. but, like so many songs, it is time-stamped with countless memories and is able to propel me into waves of nostalgia like no other song of that era.

O Fortuna helped me find a home of sorts. Granted, it was a dark, smelly, sweaty and loud home filled with strangers who became your best friend for certain nights of the week. it opened my ears to accept and embrace a music style that I had previous cared little about. To date, about 8% of my CD collection are electronica albums most, if not all of which were discovered in part by inspiration of this song:

Apotheosis – O’Fortuna