Special: Horror

To make music you need some things to inspire you sometimes as music alone might not be enough. To some it's drugs, to some it's sex, to some it's travels, and to others it's books, but one of the things that's always inspired me is Horror movies. Fifteen years ago I wouldn't have talked too loud about it, especially in front of people into Hiphop, or other producers, as soundtracks to Horror movies was my main source for samples in the 90's, and not too many producers were into it other than flippin' Tubular Bells, or the theme from such blockbusters as Halloween or The Omen.

Nowadays soundtracks for obscure Italian and Asian Horror, and other movies from the 70's and 80's are well known sources to find dope samples but back in the mid 90's the only producer I can remember who sampled Horror music often was Necro, though Premier, Pete Rock, and more sampled from them every now and then. Nowadays most of the good stuff has been used and used again, and most producers have moved on to other things so it's time to talk about it out loud, and to make this different from the 8 million other stories about Horror online I'm gonna talk about what Horror means to me, and why I like it.



When I was five the fam and I was at a party at a relatives' house, and he happened to have some 8mm movies. One of them was The Mummy's Ghost, and after about an hour of begging, my parents ok'd a viewing of it, and even if it was an edited 15 minute 8mm version of the whole film, the gruelling images of the mummy appearing from a lake chasing a woman, and the shroud especially, was enough to scare the living shit outta me. After that I couldn't see someone with a bandage for years without makin' a quick escape, but at the same time I got more into scary movies, books, etc because of it.

It's funny but like music Horror is a drug, and once you're hooked you need better and more, and as a kid I was a big fan of Horror cartoons such as the cartoon versions of films like Alien, King Kong, and Dracula because the toons were the only way for us kids to get a feel of what seeing the movies might be like as we couldn't even get in to catch a James Bond flick, Star Wars was the only movie I managed to sneak into cause the head of the cinema was also the head of the school, and he knew all the kids and our ages by heart it seemed, and VCR's weren't even around yet, so at age 10-11 something the best we could get was our folks telling stories after they'd seen such movies as The Exorcist, Cat People, and The Shining if they weren't too scared to talk about them, and that made it even more exciting to me...that grown folks would actually get scared to death from seeing a movie, so I knew that had to be something special, and that I had to see them. The more "dangerous", and "illegal", the more fun. That's human nature for ya'.



Come the early 80's, and Video was the new drug. Nowadays most video rental stores are packed with boring mainstream titles, supplied by an industry of poor remakes, and "we've seen it a thousand times already" titles, but back then it was B-movie paradise, and you could choose from anything like Spaghetti Westerns, Blaxploitation, Martial Arts, and Porn, to Horror movies, and it wasn't exactly Dracula and Frankenstein that were sought after, but a new breed of explicit and violent Splatter flicks from Italy and the US.

We were finally able to watch the movies we really wanted to see as we could rent movies certified 18 with no problems even if we were kids. The videostore owners at the time didn't care much, and it was ok to most parents too if they weren't total squares or religious, but that's cause most of them had no idea what we were watching after dark when they were asleep.



An old censorship fanatic from the UK named Mary Whitehouse had been sent a tape of Cannibal Holocaust by its company VTC hoping to get some free promotion once she got to see the film, as she was already a well known anti Porn and Violence activist, but boy did the attempt for free promotion go way out of hand! It started a national panic in the UK among religious fanatics, parents, and anti everything activists, which spread to Germany, Scandinavia, and other European contries via a string of TV shows showing the most violent clips from some of the films, causing more or less panic including some politicians saying the VCR was a bigger threat to mankind than the atomic bomb, and a demand to ban this "filth" followed. The media labeled it "Video Nasties" or "Video Violence", and so a new genre was born, and the crusade for getting these films banned did quite the opposite. Sales of VCR's, and violent movies skyrocketed because of all the free promotion, and especially for children it became the new and exciting thing that we all had to see. In a matter of months police raided the Videoshops and movies were confiscated, making the demand for them even higher, but also made them very hard to get, and nowadays the most rare titles will fetch up to $1000 if it's an original VHS tape.



All of us kids in the early 80's wanted our parents to buy this new phenomenon called the Video machine. Most people couldn't afford to because prices were high back in the early days. A movie would cost something in the range of $200 to buy, and you couldn't rent yet, and a VCR would cost about $2000, so very few households had Video yet, but all of us kids wanted it. In my class at school maybe two or three kids had Video in the early 80's.

That changed for me when my mother happened to win a VCR in a local lottery, a Video 2000 machine from Bang & Olufsen, and yes it is the one pictured above. Needless to say I jumped for joy, and the main reason was the ability to finally catch some of the violent video nasties that were so talked about in the papers and on TV.
We had heard that those films were dangerous, and that you could actually go crazy from seeing them, so we had to see them, if nothing else than to see if we'd really go nuts.

The local video store carried some of them but not all, and not the nastiest ones, so those I got a hold of later, but they had some Horror movies. They would get a suitcase with thirty new movies inside every month, and there would be something for everyone, but mostly Horror, Martial Arts, Western, and Action, and all B-movies as that was the norm in the early days of Video. Off to the store I went to finally be able to rent my first movie to watch at home, aged twelve and all hyped up about Video Violence, I ran to the store and rented what was supposedly the most scary Horror flick they had, a film called The Devils Rain which was about a Satanic cult with a lot of black masses going on, and people melting from acid rain. Fun stuff.



A few months later a classmate had managed to get a hold of the infamous Cannibal Holocaust, a movie said to be a Snuff movie, that is a movie where people are killed for real. All bs of course but the director of it, Ruggero Deodato, had to go to court and bring the actors to prove that they were still alive, and that it was only a movie, so we watched it at the friends' house feeling disgusted, and thrilled, and it was very special seeing that movie, and actually believing that what took place on the screen was real.

I was about fourteen years old when I finally managed to borrow more of the Nasties from an older friend, and ran up to one of my friends' house who's dad had a VHS player, and as we needed that and I had Video 2000 it was sleepover time that night. My friends father understood all too well what was going on and confiscated my bag of movies which included The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Death Trap (Eaten Alive), Halloween 1 & 2, The Omen, Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Shivers, and Zombie Flesh Eaters. There was no way in hell we were gonna watch those films on his VCR! It was ok that I slept over, but my friends' dad took the movies and put them beside his bed, so we waited til about 1am, and while daddy was asleep we managed to sneak the bag of films out of his room and downstairs where the VCR was.
So, finally we would get to experience some of the dangerous Videos, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre was put in first, then Death Trap, then Zombie Flesh Eaters.

We stayed up all night watching with an excitement I've never felt sooner or later from seeing any movie. then all of a sudden it was already 7am, we had stayed up all night, and daddy was awake coming down the stairs pretty furious to say the least, and after we had gotten some sleep he would have to give us a "good talking to".



From then on I started collecting Horror movies, and would use two VCR's to make VHS copies, and would buy rare movies from sellers all over Norway which was always risky because they were bootlegs, and most Horror movies were totally banned here then, and police would actually raid private homes in search of those movies, and sometimes close friends were busted, fined, and their collections were confiscated and destroyed by the police. Kinda funny when you think about it now as most everything is legal nowadays, and available for anyone to watch online, and also fun to think about because I used to make my friends scared, and ill from watching some of the movies in my collection, like Nekromantik must've left some scars over the years. =)

Nowadays we're lucky to have great remastered versions on DVD, and Blu-Ray, and we can own them without police paying an unwanted visit which is of course a hell of a lot more relaxing than it was, and it's not long ago, as the most violent and gory Horrorflix were banned in Norway until the early 2000's, but at the same time removing the illegal aspects of it sort of eliminated some of the fun and excitement also...sorta like Graffiti. A much bigger rush when it was done against the law.
Human nature again for ya'.



It's fun to see how kids are still getting into the Horror classics, and there's plenty of good new ones coming out too if you look past the Hollywood remakes. Seeing new blood get hooked to the genre also brings back memories of how much fun it was to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Cannibal Holocaust for the very first time, and believe me...it's great memories. =)

Having collected Horrormovies for decades now, and also after having worked at videostores for about ten years including owning one, I've seen most of what's worth seeing, and will end this story with lists of some of my Horror favorites, and a list of all the banned movies in the 80's. If you're a fan take some time out to revisit the classics, and if you're new to Horror movies you're best off not starting with the video nasties, or the more obscure Italian stuff as it takes some getting used to.
A good place to start then are the American classics like Halloween, Friday The 13th., Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Shining, etc, and from there Evil Dead, Re-Animator, Braindead, to the more well known Italian flicks like Dario Argento's Tenebrae, and Opera, and Lucio Fulci's Zombie, and The Beyond. Also most people tend to enjoy some of the new movies out there, and especially there's a lot of great ones coming out of France nowadays like Martyrs, Inside, and Ils which is the original The Strangers. Some Asian flicks like Shutter, Ringu, and Battle Royale are also great.



Keep in mind that Horror-movies needs to be seen the right way for the full effect, and that means alone at night, all lights out, volume up loud, and a few doors, and windows open just a little bit.

Enjoy! =)



Top 10 Horror Classics:

1. The Shining
2. The Exorcist
3. Halloween
4. Jaws
5. Cannibal Holocaust
6. The Beyond
7. The Ninth Gate
8. Evil Dead
9. Deep Red
10. The Omen



Top 10 New School Horror:

1. Let The Right One In
2. Martyrs
3. The Others
4. Shutter
5. Cuento De Navidad
6. Frontieres
7. [REC]
8. Ringu
9. Ils
10. Haute Tension



Top 3 most scary movies to me:

1. The Woman In Black
2. Repulsion
3. Ghostwatch


Top 5 Directors:

1. Dario Argento
2. Stanley Kubrick
3. Roman Polanski
4. Lucio Fulci
5. John Carpenter



The Video Nasties / Banned Movies Of The 80's:

There were plenty more confiscated, and prosecuted, and the titles varied from one country to the next, but these were officially banned:

Absurd
Axe
Bay Of Blood
Blood Feast
Bloody Moon
Cannibal Apocalypse
Cannibal Ferox
Cannibal Holocaust
Cannibal Man
Don't Go in the Woods Alone
Evilspeak
Exposé
Faces of Death
Fight for Your Life
Flesh for Frankenstein
Forest Of Fear
Gestapo's Last Orgy
Island Of Perversion
I Spit On Your Grave
Love Camp 7
Mardi Gras Massacre
Nightmare
Night Of The Bloody Apes
Night of the Demon
Scared To Death
Snuff
SS Experiment Camp
SS Hell Camp
Tenebre
The Burning
The Devil Hunter
The Driller Killer
The Ghastly Ones
The Grim Reaper
The House By The Cemetary
The House On The Edge Of The Park
The Last House on the Left
The Werewolf And The Yeti
Zombie Flesheaters



Most of the movies are easy to get now on DVD. Google is your friend.

Videos: White Shadow New York Related...

Time to get to know my peoples from back in the days in New York a little bit. Check out the NYC Tracks album I posted earlier for a compilation of all the songs I produced, and did cuts on when I lived in New York in the early 90's.

First up..my man Jamalski who I did cuts for on the Hangin' Tree joint from the Schwarzenegger movie. Here's a little freestyle proving Jamal's still the man, and better than before as if that was possible. Peep ..



Then Tricky Tee from Edenwald Projects in The Bronx, and a memeber of the Zulu Nation. Tricky goes way back to the old school. He was the first MC I ever made tracks with back in the early 90's, and this is his two 12" singles on Sleeping Bag Records. Classics!





On to Critical Masz aka Pyramid and Hazard..two MC's from Queens I did production, and cuts for. Pyramid was one of the best MC's in New York at the time givin' several well known cats such as Busta Rhymes, and Q-Tip a run for the money in various cyphers back then, and he's in this classic video.



And finally my man Sam I Am from the Warriors Of Shaolin crew. Sam later moved to Norway for a minute too, and can be seen in the following videos. In the Special Ed he's one of the secret Hiphop agents chasin' him, and he's the pirate in the Pete Rock joint. The first club I played at in New York, which was actually an old rustbucket of a boat called The Frying Pan, is also featured in the Pete Rock vid.

Video: Crusaders For Real Hip Hop - That's How It Is (1992)

Here's a musicvideo I was involved in, and I'm actually supposed to be in it for a sec too, but there's so many quick-cuts I can't see myself, can you? Let's make that a competition.
Spot White Shadow in this video, and get...well...nothing. =)

My turntables are easier to get a glimpse of however, and they were the reason I was involved in this video as the Crusader's manager called my manager asking if she could provide some turntables for the shoot, so she sent me and my tables to somewhere in New York. I don't remember where but it was sort of an island, and it had like a burnt out castle as you will see, and looked sorta like a jungle out there too, so Crusaders manager Kevon Glickman, who also managed the infamous Philly cratedigger Soulman aka Baritone Tiplove btw, picked me up at like eight in the mornin' at my Brooklyn condo which was actually a basement in an old nun-monestery turned appartment building owned by Ian Astbury from The Cult, but that's yet another story to be saved for the book.

Hot, hot summer day like the Sugar Hill Gang said, but we were taken really good care of by the Profile Records staff who would provide food, and as much beer as we could drink the whole day, and it was fun to be involved in making a musicvideo, but boring into the long hours as the shoot lasted from 8am 'til about 8pm, and a lot of waiting, and doing the same takes over and over I was happy to be on the sideline just drinkin' brews, and kickin' it with the Profile staff, and the Crusaders For Real Hip Hop.

The Crusaders released one album on Profile in 1992, and this was the first single off it. Frontman for the crew was Tony D who sadly passed away in a tragic car accident this year.
Rest In Peace Tony.

D was an MC, and also a producer who produced for Poor Rightous Teachers, YZ, King Sun, Outsidaz, Kwest The Mad Lad, Ice Cream Tee, Scott Lark, and many more, most of the crew was at the shoot that day, and Tony D was good peoples, a real talented, down to earth, and friendly guy.

Plenty of fun at the shoot, and the Audio 2 joined us because this track samples Top Billin' for the hook, and Milk D would play us some unreleased solo joints.

After, there was a huge barbecue, and party at the monestery in Bklyn with about a hundred guests who all got shitfaced. Another lovely day in NYC.

My turntables featured here, one of them I still use, and the other, plus the mixer is in a museum near you soon if you live in Norway.

Much respect Tony D. (RIP)

Untouchable no.14 @ Juno

I'm happy to announce that the extended version of my album Untouchable, released June 1st., peaked at number 14 on the junodownload.com Top 500 Hiphop/R&B chart this week, and is currently holding the no.22 spot. Much thanks to everyone who copped it, and if you didn't don't sleep. Thanks for the support!

Buy @

http://www.junodownload.com/ppps/products/1422159-02.htm

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!)

Special: Disco In Norway

I'm currently writing a book about my life as a DJ, and Producer, and DJ'ing in general in Norway, so enjoy this chapter from the book about how Disco and DJ'ing came to Norway in the late 60's.

Disco in Norway was started in 1969 by a guy from Oslo named Tore Løken. After he had spent time on the UK club scene he brought the idea back with him, and decided to start a club in Oslo where musicians and other artists could hang out with like minded people, and others in the music business. The name of the club was Mandagsklubben (The Monday Club), that was private and membership only. Sort of a chill-out zone for people in the Norwegian entertainment industry, artists, musicians, and their girlfriends. Later in ' 69 Tore Løken also started a club open to the general public, and named it Safari. Safari would become the new hot spot in Oslo, being mentioned in music magazines outside of Norway as well. The club had a jungle style interior, and the DJ booth was built to look like a hut.

Tore Løken was the DJ at both clubs, and the first DJ from Norway to play in front of a live audience, as well as the first DJ to play records, and talk on the mic at the same time. More DJ's followed shortly, and guys like the Norwegian radio DJ Jørgen Slips would also start playing in Oslo in 1969 at a club called Soria Moria, as well as DJ Steve Lindquist who would team up with Løken to do the first mobile Disco parties in Norway using Gerard twin turntables, and a 100 watt amplifier to play parties in schools. The biggest amp available at the time was a 1500 watt amp they called Grand Slam that would be used mostly for outdoors events, and Steve Lindquist would be the first DJ to travel to various places in Norway to do gigs with the Rabbit Rock Mobile Disco system, a well known mobile Disco in Norway in the 70's and 80's run by Arne Mørk who was a speedboat racer as well as a pioneer in the Norwegian Disco business. After some time on the road in Norway Rabbit Rock Mobile expanded, and became the biggest mobile Disco in Europe.

The Norwegian singer Halvdan Sivertsen would DJ in his hometown of Bodø in 1971 at the first club there named Polar Disco Club, and playing records during breaks in the performance by Swedish singer Cornelius Wrejsvik is what set off Halvdan's DJ career.

The other mayor cities in Norway like Trondheim, Bergen, and Stavanger also had a live Disco scene, and in Stavanger DJ Per Gjøvåg at Grotten Disco, a bomb shelter turned nightclub, would be the first DJ to get on Norwegian national TV that did a special on him and his club in 1974.



Clubbing spread quickly to all corners of Norway, even small towns like my hometown of Geilo, where DJ's like Per Alm would DJ at the first club here called Mølla in 1970, and in 1975 the first local DJ, Dave Dale, would play Disco parties in youthclubs and hotels, as well as at Mølla, and the other local clubs Sherlock Holmes, and Camus Circus. Per Alm would later become an A&R for Polygram records in Norway, and Dave Dale retired from DJ'ing in 1985.

Once Tore Løken had kick-started the Club and DJ culture, it took about one year tops before it had spread to the whole country from the biggest cities to the smallest villages. The norm in the beginning however was to have a live band on stage, and the DJ's playing records during breaks, so the early days of DJ's playing full nights were kinda hard to swallow for the crowds used to live bands, so they would boo when the DJ's came on, but soon, and as DJ's got better, the live band was replaced by the DJ, and some musicians would even become DJ's instead to be able to pay their bills.

The music played in the early days were inspired by the Hippie movement, and artists like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and various progressive Rock bands, along with traditional Rock & Roll like The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, The Monkeys, etc, would be among the dancefloor favorites. From about 1973-74 uptempo Soul music would take over, and artists like Barry White, James Brown, KC & The Sunshine Band, and The Jacksons would become the hot artists among the DJ's and dancers, but all kinds of music was put in the mix, including the Norwegian folk music style called Gammeldans, which is music without a drum beat, played using only Violin and Accordion, that people would do couple-dancing to in between the Soulful Disco sets. In the early days it was recommended by clubowners that DJ's should play a few sets of Gammeldans during the night, probably to have a bit of Norwegian culture present in this new and exciting thing called clubbing, and keep a balance of Norwegian and foreign culture. In the early days it was also an unwritten rule that the DJ's should play three slow songs every hour to keep the crowd from goin' too bananas to the Disco sounds.



The first DJ to beatmix records in Norway was a guy from Oslo named Heavy Henry (RIP), who was inspired by DJ's he had heard mixing when he was partying in the UK. Henry would bring that style of DJ'ing to Norway in 1975, and mixed using two beltdrive turntables. There were no pitch controls, and you had to count rounds of the platters cause it took about three seconds to get them up to full speed, so Henry would mix slowing down or speeding up the platters gently with his fingers to go from one record to the next without losing the beat, as well as using a radio jingle machine for various sound FX. A very expensive piece of equipment back then that he had imported from the UK. Most other DJ's would be very impressed by Heavy Henry because they would mostly either play records from start to finish, or talk on the mic between them, so Henry was known as the best DJ in Norway in the mid 70's because of his mixing skills.



It didn't take long before entrepeneurs realized that clubbing was good business, and in the aftermath of the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever in 1977 the whole world went Disco crazy, and in Norway, like the rest of Europe, acts like Donna Summer, Boney M, Bee Gees, and Abba would have big hits with their more polished style of Disco that would appeal to the masses, from children to senior citizens. Disco was becoming big business, and clubs opened up left and right. Those were the happy days for club owners and DJ's alike. There were several booking agencies, IDEA, and Nor Booking that would hire DJ's, and book them to play at various clubs all over Europe, Bacchus booked worldwide, and Disco Sound for DJ's in Norway.

The DJ's would make a set fee that would be about $500 for a night, and about $3500 for a month as the resident DJ at a club. Clubowners would get whatever was left after bills, DJ, and staff were paid, and we're not talking about chump-change. The business would gross so much after a while that the Norwegian IRS would become very interested in the scene. They would hire people to make sure the right amount of taxes were paid by the clubowners, and would raid afterhours clubs that did private parties where the illegal sales of alcoholic beverages, drug abuse, and sex was the common thing, and some clubs would be shut down because of legal action by the IRS and the Police, but as one club was shut down, another started. The legal nightclubs had to close by 4am due to Norwegian regulations, but the illegal afterhours spots, often situated at someone's private home, or a basement, would be open ' til at least 9am, or for as long as people wanted to party.



By the late 70's, demand for 12" singles with extended remix versions of songs were high among DJ's, but no record stores would carry them in Norway, so Norwegian DJ's would travel to London to buy the latest 12" singles at shops like Groove Records in the Soho area, made famous by Tony Prince's Disco charts on 208 Radio Lux because the charts were compiled by Groove Records. The store was owned and run by an elderly and friendly lady named Mrs. Palmer who was well into her sixties, but still an expert on Soul, Funk, and Disco music, who would serve the hungry Norwegian DJ's with the latest 12" Disco singles. That way the Norwegian clubbers were lucky enough to be able to dance to the hottest new tunes only a couple of weeks after they were released in the US.

In the early 80's specialist DJ shops would open in Norway, like Funkytown in Stavanger run by a local DJ named Åge Holgersen, Fotokopi, Immerslund, and Hot News in Oslo, Mike Lewis record shop in Grimstad, and a few others, would import 12"s from the US and UK to supply DJ's all over Norway. In Oslo a record pool simply named Record Pool was started to serve DJ members with promo vinyls. Mike Burke record shop put ads in the biggest Norwegian newspaper VG advertising 12" singles to DJ's with a phonenumber to call to buy the records. That was in 1981, and some of the titles advertised were Yarbrough & Peoples' Don't Stop The Music, Blondie's Rapture, SOS Band's Take Your Time, and Kleeer's Get Tough.

Disco related advertising in VG was nothing new because CBS Records in Norway started a service in the newspaper in 1979 where people could call a number, and hear a snippet of the next big Disco hit record. The first record used in the service was Anita Ward's Ring My Bell that would become a number one single in Norway. Other Disco records that did well on the Norwegian charts were Baccara's Yes Sir I Can Boogie, Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, Chic's Le Freak, and Good Times, Sister Sledge's We Are Family, and He's The Greatest Dancer, Ottawan's D.I.S.C.O., the Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It's Friday soundtracks, Leon Haywood's Don't Push It Don't Force It, The Whispers' And The Beat Goes On, any Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Village People, Bee Gees, Abba, etc...



The first crossover Rap record, Sugarhill Gang's Rappers Delight, peaked at number two on the Norwegian pop charts in 1980, shortly followed by two other Rap records in the Norwegian Top 10, Rap-O Clap-O by Joe Bataan, and Rhythm Talk by Jocko. After the release of those records it became a common thing among the more upfront DJ's to Rap over the various Disco records, and sometimes DJ's would make their own raps to introduce themselves and to hype the crowds, so in that respect Hip-hop was introduced to Norway by club DJ's.

The common language used by DJ's to talk and rap on the mic was English for Norwegian as well as foreign DJ's playing in Norway. DJ's from the UK were plenty in Norway in the early years of Disco, and some of the best DJ's in Norway were British, such as DJ Gary Dean who would mix records just as well as the best DJ's in the US, and would play the same music that was hot in the clubs stateside.

As far as Norwegian artists putting out Disco records there were close to no real Disco cuts made in Norway. The exceptions being artists and bands doing Norwegian cover versions of Disco hits. There were plenty of artists making Soul, Jazz, and Funk influenced music however, such as Frode Thingnes, Jon Eberson, Inger Lise Rypdal, Jonas Fjeld Band, Alex, Lava that featured Randy Crawford as their singer on a couple of albums, and Drama that changed their name to Creation in the mid 80's and released the 12" I'm Going Up in 1985, on the Desperado label, with a Swedish remix by Fredrik Ramel who also did most of the remixes for the Swedish dance label Beat Box that put out remixes of Italian Disco records mostly. I'm Going Up is now much in demand among Boogie collectors, and fetches about $100 when it shows up.

Comedy acts like Prima Vera would do mediocre Norwegian cover versions of international Disco hits in the late 70's. The first serious quality Disco record from Norway actually didn't come out until 1984 with the duo Avalanche's 12" single Heaven Tonight. Avalanche were Norwegian, but had German production, and were signed to the German label Metronome Records. They followed Heaven Tonight with several more 12" singles during the late 80's, and early 90's.



The only Norwegian club hit before that was Oslo's New Wave artist Beranek with his 7" 45 only release Dra Te' Helvette (Go To Hell), that was a number one single in Norway in 1981, even if it was banned from national radio because of the title and lyrics about shooting up Heroin, and some record stores wouldn't sell it cause it had a picture of a naked ass with a syringe labeled Disco on the front cover. Beranek released a couple of 12" singles and albums in the early 80's, but they were aimed at the New Wave / Punk crowd more than the Disco crowd. For some reason Norwegian labels and artists seemed to have a problem taking Disco music seriously, and Norway was always a little late to pick up on new musical trends compared to the other Scandinavian contries, which is the main reasons there are very few Norwegian Disco records. It took A-ha to make it big worldwide with Take On Me, (Released in 1984), in the late 80's, for other Norwegian artists to realize that it was possible to make it big internationally with a dance record, although the Progressive Rock band Popol Ace, later turned Popol Vuh, were close in the mid 70's when they almost signed a deal with Frank Zappa.



In the US on July 12th. 1979, the infamous Disco Demolition Night took place, where American radio DJ Steve Dahl had people bring their Disco records to a sports event in Chicago to start a giant fire and burn the records. In reality, a racist and anti-gay mediahype promoted by Rock DJ's and music industry people who were stuck in the past, and hated the fact that Disco had taken Rock & Roll's spot as the most popular culture and music. It was an attempt to end Disco that also made it to the Norwegian newspapers in 1980, backed by certain people in the Norwegian press, under the headlines of Disco Is Dead! A lot of people took that literally, some clubs were shut down, and some DJ's quit because they genuinely believed that Disco was indeed dead.

So was that the end of clubbing and DJ'ing in Norway? No, it was just the beginning.


To be continued...


© Uncut Productions - 2009

Video: Breakin' in Norway (1984)

Yeah you know the song "Breakin' In Space" by Key Matic, but this is Breakin' In Norway as early as 1984.

I promised myself not to post many Youtube vids in this blog, 'cause I think that's hella annoying, but I have to make an exception on this as it really takes me back to when Hiphop first came around in Norway in about 82 or 83, but it didn't hit big until after Beat Street. After that everyone was doin' Graffiti, and Breakdancin'.

This is a clip from a school in the city of Notodden, and there's plenty of kids dancin', and they know a thing or two about Hiphop too, but the clip is in Norwegian.

This takes me back to when I was about 12-13..the music, the fashion, not to mention the hairstyles, and definitely being into Hiphop. Yes there was an old school in Norway too tho' most if not all of us were kids, and this here is the best clip I've seen on what it was like growin' up here back then.

Much thanks to DJ 4Joy, and Zulu King Dee Jay Toro for letting me know about this.

Now rewind selecta!...and make it a fast one cause what we gonna do right here is go back...back into time...when the only people that existed was...B-Boys...and B-Girls...