Special: Hot News

(Pic: Lasse, Truls, and customer @ Hot News / Photo: Arne Kaupang)

Buying records is easy nowadays, and no matter what you want you can pretty much find it online as long as you're willing to put in some work, wait patiently if it's a rare record, then pay the price. Like Biz Markie said "Back in the days it wasn't nuthin' like that", and especially in a small country like Norway if you were into various types of dance music from the US half the mission was finding out how and where to get the records.

In the late 70's and early 80's I would buy records at the local stores, and at various stores in my dad's hometown, but the stock was very limited. They had close to no 12" singles, and it was hard to find many dance records too. That changed in 1982 when I went to Oslo with some older kids to buy a sound system for the GFK, (check out the GFK section to the right), as the guy named Kato at the Hifi-center where we copped the system was a man about town, and especially when it came down to anything dance related, and naturally we had to have records to play as well, so he told us about a store named Fotokopi, situated at the Grønland subway station in Oslo where we could get the latest 12" singles imported from the US and the UK.

So there I was at Fotokopi diggin' in the crates like crazy, and finally I was able to find some of the stuff Tony Prince played at the Top 20 Disco Imports show.

When you're a kid you don't have much money to have fun with, and saving my allowance, and any other money I could get my hands on during the week usually meant ordering one or two 12" singles from a DJ store in Oslo, and Fotokopi for the most part, but there were also stores like Hit & Run, Electric Circus, and Bånd & Platesenteret (Tape & Record Center) that would have a decent stock of US imports, but in 1984 the Norwegian music magazine Puls would have a dance chart from a store in Oslo named Hot News, and it was very upfront charting nothing but the latest underground Hiphop 12"s from the US, and the chart came with a phone number so I figured I'd give them a try.

I guess most DJ's had a favorite record store back in the days, and Hot News would become mine real quick, and I'd call them several times a week to get the best of the new Hiphop and Funk from the US.

Fast forward about a year, and my class at junior high graduated with a school trip to the carnival in Oslo. No parents wanted to go along with us crazy little bastards and face the responsibility of makin' sure thirty fifteen year olds behaved well in the big bad city, so we fixed it so that some random adults would go along with us, and they would stay out all night and party, and so would we. That's a whole 'nother story, but right after we'd checked in at the motel we were staying at someone was stabbed right outside our window, and police and the whole nine would appear, and us kids would be like "Goddamn we're in the ghetto now", of course laughable since Oslo is pretty far from The Bronx and whatnot, but to a bunch of teens from a small town way out in the country it was like experiencing Shaft's Big Score live.

My mission on the trip was finding Hot News, and to my surprise the store was in the same street as our motel, and they were closed for the night, but opened again at 10am the next morning, and I would be there like fifteen minutes before they opened just waiting, anticipating. If you're a DJ, or a music lover you know the feeling of knowing that you're gonna get some hot new records, and that was such a day to me, especially since the store window had several Bootsy albums in there, and only that. Something I haven't seen at any store sooner or later.

10 AM, and it was time for the store to open, and my friendly Funk-pushers from more phonecalls than my parents could handle appeared. There were two guys working there. Truls who is the guy on the right in the photo, and Lasse to the left. Those guys had great knowledge of all genres of music, were friendly, and also smart as they definitely knew how to make you buy more records than you could afford, and sometimes one of them would go down into the basement, and come back about ten minutes after with a smile on his face, and a bit of the old red-eye. I guess it was dusty down there. =)

The store in itself was a small one, and you can actually see about 1/3 or so of it in the photo, but they had stacks of records, and mostly the latest independent Hiphop, and Funk from the US, and they would also be the store to introduce Norway to House music in 1985, as they were the only Norwegian store selling the early House records from New York, and Chicago back then, and would introduce me to House as well when I copped Harlequin 4's version of Set It Off on original US 12" there.

Plenty of good times at Hot News, and I would travel to Oslo to buy records there once or twice a month, sometimes more, and would always come home with a stack of about thirty to fifty of the hottest US imports. Hot News was also the place where the most upfront Norwegian DJ's would hang out, and anyone into Hiphop would also be there, and that was a lot of different types of people, as sometimes there would be maybe a railroad worker, a snob, a B-Boy, a hot girl, and a DJ from Chicago playing in Oslo coming in there to buy the latest 12" release from Defjam or DJ International Records. The best customers would also get access to the basement where they had several second hand DJ collections for sale, one from a DJ named Samuel who actually died of a heart attack while playing in a club, and fell over his turntables, and they would sell the old records for about $2 a piece, and it was all the rare Funk and Disco albums and 12"s from the early 70's to early 80's in there at prices so low they would probably result in the heart attacks of a collector or two nowadays.

Hot News opened in June 1979, and closed in August 1991 due to other stores in the area pushing down prices on the more commercial releases makin' it hard for Hot News to get the money they needed to import records from the states every week, and in turn they lost a lot of customers during the last few years because of that, and eventually they had to shut down, but to us the customers, the DJ's, the Hiphop, and House fanatics, The Funk freaks, the dancers, and lovers of great music we will never forget Hot News as to us, and most definitely to me, it was the greatest record store ever. I've been to places in the US, the UK, etc with tons of great records, and definitely a much bigger stock than what Hot News had, but the quality of the music they had combined with their knowledge of it, and the customer service that was so friendly you felt like you were hangin' out at a friends house listening to records that you could bring home after, and the cosey environment where they'd put up a big ashtray so you could smoke in the store, and also drink a beer or two if you wanted, as long as you kept it on the dl a little bit, made Hot News the best record store of all time.


A few random memories from Hot News:

* The elderly lady upstairs always complaining about the music from the store being too loud, and during certain Freestyle records with those Latin Rascals edits would come in the door yelling "What's that dreadful music you're playing!...Sounds like WW2 all over again!"

* Hot News was the only store selling my Hiphop mag called Wildstyle magazine in 1985.

* The Defjam promo poster on the wall with the quote: "Our artists speak for themselves cause they can't sing."

* The Defjam promo cap and T-shirts they'd sell along with so called Breakdance packs which was sets of gloves, a Breakdance instruction booklet, a cap, a tape, etc..

* Never having enough money, but it was always ok to pay the rest later.

* The basement of nothing but out of print goodies, and some stacks being put aside for other people, but I still went through them and pulled what I wanted..some Brides Of Funkenstein, some Parlet..*cough*

* The bulk of P-Funk cut outs..at one point they had 300 copies of the "Smeero" album that's worth about $100++ now.

* All the strange characters hangin' out in and outside the store..an experience to a country boy like me back then.

* My first copies of a lot of great records..most of the P-Funk, old school Hiphop and Electro, the first House stuff, etc...a few titles..King Kut, Jazzy Sensation, Zulu Groove, Bodyslam, Love Can't Turn Around, Funk You, a billion more records! =)

* When they got only one copy of a record, and being the one who snatched it under the nose of the other hungry DJ's. =P

* A dude coming straight from the airport with the latest Reggae records purchased in Jamaica earlier that day.

* The night train to Oslo, and not being able to sleep out of anticipation of what records you might find at Hot News, the whole day diggin' for records, the train back home in the afternoon the following night, then straight to the turntables when I got home, usually falling asleep over them, then waking up with the needle in the run-out groove.

* Buying up to 200 old Funk records in a day, then come back the day after for more.

* Stacks of Blues & Soul magazines.

* Playing the mix I won the DMC's with at the store to get a second opinion before I entered the competition, then calling them after to tell them I won it.

* Calling them from New York just to let them know I'd moved there...Yes man, Hot News was family.


So here's to you Truls, Lasse, and Hot News records. RIP to the store, but you live on. You're urban legends now, and we the customers remember Hot News with nothing but the best musical memories. HOUSE..HIPHOP...THE F.U.N.K.



(Pic: Lasse @ Hot News / Photo: Arne Kaupang)

(Unauthorized use of these pics and story will get you fucked up by the FUNK mob!)