I love the phrase "Dance Like No One Is Watching". I wish they were words the whole world lived by. It doesn't make if you can dance or not! If you are having fun, DO IT! And don't worry that people are laughing. Dancing is healthy and good for you.

Well, with that being said, this set nearly caused me to stop DJing. Not this set exactly but different variations of it. Years ago I had played enough 80s and 70s pop that I took a break from DJing for a couple of years. It got to the point that that was all the people in Macon who came to see me wanted to hear. If I played anything else, they wouldn't dance. So I stopped playing.

But I have to admit, this stuff is fun to play and dance to. I've added some other stuff in this mix to keep it moving and make it interesting. I hope you enjoy.

Gary Wright - Love Is Alive
Busta Rhymes - Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See
Grand Master Flash & The Furious 5 - The Message
Ol' Dirty Bastard - Got Your Money (feat. Kelis)
OutKast - Rosa Parks
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Down On The Corner
Dolly Parton - Jolene
Hall & Oates - I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
Queen - Another One Bites The Dust
INXS - I Need You Tonight
Naked Eyes - Promises Promises
David Bowie - Let's Dance
Diddy - Get Off
The Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City
Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover
Human League - Don't You Want Me Baby
Ram Jam - Black Betty
The Jacksons - Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)
Aretha Franklin - Save Me
J.J. Cale - Mama Don't
K.C. & The Sunshine Band - Boogie Shoes
Justin Timberlake - Love Stoned/I Think She Knows
Deee-lite - Groove Is In The Heart
Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger
Chaka Khan - I Feel For You
Rolling Stones - Get Off My Cloud
Leonard Cohen - A Girl Like You
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)
Gary Numan - Cars
Chicago - I'm A Man

No One Is Watching

I've gotten to a point in my life where a lot of my friends have kids.

There's only a short period of time where kids listen to your music and think it's interesting. Before you know it, they have you listening to the terrible pop music that's on the radio.

So before it get's to that point. I made this mix. It's full of fun kids songs that your kids will find fun and you will think are cool. 

Maybe if you play them cool music, they'll grow up to be kids who like cool music instead of the pop on the radio. I mean, it happened to us, right?

I grew up with a lot of the songs in this mix. School House Rock was a Saturday morning favorite and I jammed out and sung along while learning all types of stuff (and I have to thank my homie Niraj for helping my track down the original versions of the School House Rock songs I used). I recently had a conversation on Twitter with comedian Leighann Lord after hearing one of her podcasts, about how rare it must be to be a fan of Blossom Dearie and hip-hop. I am one of these rarities because of School House Rock. 

Sesame Street was so influential on me my mom said she never taught me my ABCs. She said she walked in on me one day singing along to them on Sesame Street. I never missed an episode of The Muppet Show with all their great musical guests! 

And Disney...we all have a favorite Disney song and can sing along to more than we'd like to admit!

There's also some cool new stuff out there. I originally got the idea to do a kids mixtape when Maylee Todd released her new album and it had a version of Sesame Street's Pinball Number Song (which was originally performed by Herbie Hancock and The Pointer Sisters). Medeski, Martin, and Wood put out a kids album recently and They Might Be Giants always have fun songs that you and the kids will both have fun listening to.

So I hope you and your little ones have as much fun listening to this as I had making it. May it bring you all many fun moments filled with singing, dancing, and silliness!

Enjoy!

 

(Thanks to all who made suggestions for inclusions in this mix)

Bob Dorough & Friends - School House Rock
Maylee Todd - Pinball Number Count
Medeski, Martin, and Wood - Let's Go Everywhere
Jack Shelton & Terry Morel - Conjunction Juntion
They Might Be Giants - Particle Man
Louis Prima - I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)
Dr. Doofenshmirtz - There's A Platypus Controlling Me
Samuel E. Wright - Under The Sea
Dr. Teeth And The Electric Mayhem - Can You Picture That
Baloo - The Bear Necessities
Medeski, Martin, And Wood - Pirates Don't Take Baths
Robin Williams - Prince Ali
Mike Phirman - Chicken Monkey Duck
Dr. John - Curious George Theme Song
Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five - The Green Grass Grows All Around
Feist - 1,2,3,4 (Sesame Street Version)
They Might Be Giants - Istanbul
The Fraggles - Fraggle Rock Theme
The Muppets - The Muppet Show Theme
Jack Sheldon - I'm Just A Bill
Blossom Dearie - Unpack Your Adjectives
Wee Hairy Beasties - Wee Hairy Beasties
Yo Gabba Gabba - I Like To Dance

Kids Just Want To Have Fun

I tried to tackle this mix once before and I wasn't happy with it but I posted it anyway. Soundcloud took it down. Not because it was as bad as I thought it was but they said it violated some rule of theirs.

So that was a sure sign to me that I needed to go back and rework it. 

I'm glad I did. I'm very happy with this one. I guess you can call it "Future Soul" even though there are some classics you may recognize. A couple of them reworked in the mix and edit.

Plenty of new artists that I admire. 

I hope you enjoy. Would love to hear your thoughts.

Hectic Zeniths - Save Me
Jose James - Touch
Kinny - Big Fat Liar
Bilal - West Side Girl
The Foreign Exchange feat YahZarah - If She Breaks Your Heart
Eric Lau feat Rahel - Everytime
Maxwell - Luxury: Cococure
Soundspecies, Ahu - Can We Call It Love
Michael Kiwanuka - Tell Me A Tale
Stevie Wonder - Golden Lady (Scrimshire Re-edit)
Mayer Hawthorne - Maybe So Maybe No
Princess Freesia - Never Gonna Give You Up
Brenda Russell - In The Thick Of It
PPP feat Sa-Ra - Deep Inside (Wajeed Remix)
I, Ced - Wildest Dreams
Steve Spacek - The Hills (Original Mix)
Van Hunt - Her December
Sade - Never As Good As The First Time
Michael Jackson - Can't Help It (Tangoterje Remix)

The Art Of Finding Keeping And Losing Love

A friend of mine hit me up and asked me for a mix for his internet radio show. With the name of the show being Gospel For The Guilty, how could I say no?

So DJ Stagger Lee asked me for a Hip-Hop mix. Which threw me for a loop. I looked at my mixes and while yeah I play some hip-hop in my mixes, I had no mix that was more hip-hop than anything else. I was ashamed of myself. So I pulled this one together and I have to admit, it was fun! You'll be hearing more Hip-Hop from me in the near future.

You can hear Stagger Lee's "Gospel For The Guilty" radio show every Thursday night at 8pm on Silent Storm Radio. http://silentstormradio.com/

Big thanks to DJ Stagger Lee for working this mix into his show. And you should give it a listen. He plays some really cool stuff.

Pharcyde - Passing Me By
Black Moon - I Got Cha Opin (Remix)
Camp Lo - Killin Em Softly
dumhi - Alive
Pharoahe Monch - The Light
Nas - One Mic
De La Soul - Itzsoweezee (TenDJiz De La Soulviet Remix)
A Tribe Called Quest - Glamour And Glitz
The Roots - Act Too (Love Of My Life) (Brown Sugar Remix)
Gang Starr - Mass Appeal
Lootpack - Whenimondamic
Kool Keith - What's Up Now feat H-Bomb and Marc Live
Collective Efforts - Civilized Dreams
Jurassic 5 - Jayou
Black Moon - Who Got Da Props


Gospel For The Guilty

This mix gave me fits. I did take after take after take. I originally had it opening up with the Original Chic Mix of Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out" but after hearing that song 20 time I was getting frustrated and mad and took it out. Because even though the Chic Mix is better than the version we always hear, it's still "I'm Coming Out".

After I did that I made it through the mix from beginning to end for the first time and from what I could tell, it sounded great! I went to save it and the computer I use to record crashed in the middle of the save. I fought every urge to break something and went to bed.

I recorded it again the next day and this is the result of that recording. There are some incredible covers, remixes, re-edits and whatnot in this mix. John Morales's new release, The M+M Mixes, is represented by two songs in this mix, The Blackbyrds' "Rock Creek Park (M+M Retouch)" and Loose Joints' "Is It All Over My Face". 

The two amazing covers are Mayer Hawthorne teaming up with Detroit guitar god, Dennis Coffy to cover Parliment's "All Your Goodies Are Gone". This song was just all types of Michigan amazing. Then there's Salome De Bahia's "Outro Lugar" which is a Brazilian Portuguese version of Stevie Wonder's "Another Star".

 In the re-edit department we And Daniel's edit of Bunny Mack's "Let Me Love You", and I get a little re-edit action. I heard DJ Nutritious play a re-edit of The Rolling Stones' 12" version of "Miss You". I LOVED it! It was so simple but it made you look at the song differently. So I completely imitated it. I hope he doesn't mind.

In P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up), Parliament tells us, "If you got faults, defects or shortcomings you know, like arthritis, rheumatism or migraines.
Whatever part of your body it is, I want you to lay it on your radio.
Let the vibes flow through, funk not only moves, it can remove, dig?"

It is well known that there are healing properties in music. Some good dancing funk like this always makes me feel better. There is a fine line between funk and disco. Pulling that Diana Ross song made this a funk mix. But it's still close to the boarder line. Not that there is anything wrong with some good disco. It's just that all of the best disco was actually funk. 

Oh and I worked a Grateful Dead song into the set in hopes that my friend Rhiannon will finally listen to one of my mixes. 

Enjoy! Tell me what you think.

The Grateful Dead - Shakedown Street
Dennis Coffy feat Mayer Hawthorne - All Your Goodies Are Gone
War - Me And Baby Brother
Funkadelic - Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On
The Blackbyrds - Rock Creek Park (M+M Retouch)
Roy Ayers - Running Away (12" Version)
Loose Joints - Is It All Over My Face (M+M Mix)
Third World - Now That We Found Love
Talking Heads - Girlfriend Is Better
Barry White - Your Sweetness Is My Weakness
The Rolling Stones - Miss You (Roger Riddle's 12" Imitation Nutritious Re-Edit)
The Originals - Down To Love Town
Bunny Mack - Let Me Love You (Andy Daniell Edit)
Salome De Bahia - Outro Lugar

Funk Not Only Moves, It Removes

The great Steve Miller once said, "Time keeps on slipping, into the future." 

It's true, One instant we experience something, the next instant the experience is in the past. No matter how fresh and new an experience is to you at some time in your life, it will be old news.

Which got me thinking about music. Some music sounds futuristic. When we listen to a group like Daft Punk, it seems like we are listening to music from a world that doesn't exist yet, if it ever will exist. Our music today may sound like some of the futuristic music of the past. 

This mix is a selection of songs that I feel fall into that category. Old songs that sound up to date or futuristic. New songs that sound futuristic while at the same time sounding vintage. It's the type of look at music that would make a Doctor Who fan giddy. They would say something like timey-whimey or something like that.

This mix features new music from Daft Punk, and Robin Thicke. Classics from Roberta Flack, and Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye. There are some old school underground treats for those in the know and with keep ears. And there are some recent songs that probably haven't gotten the attention they deserve.

Enjoy.

The Rapture - Never Die Again
Glass Candy - Miss Broadway
Kraak & Smaak feat Ben Westbeech - Squeeze Me (Original Mix)
Mayer Hawthorne - Designer Drug
Jazzanova feat Ben Westbeech - I Can See
Roberta Flack feat. Donny Hathaway - Don't Make Me Wait Too Long (LP Version)
 Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye - My Mistake (Was To Love You)
Edwin Birdsong - Cola Bottle Baby
Daft Punk feat Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky
Monkeyrobot - Ybmj
Michael Boothman feat Charmaine Ford - What You Won't Do For Love
Robin Thicke feat Pharrell and T.I. - Blurred Lines
The Strokes - Welcome To Japan
Karen Young - Hot Shot
Breakbot feat Ruckazoid - Fantasy
Black Science Orchestra - New Jersey Deep
Major Lazer - Pon De Floor
Taana Gardner - Work That Body

Dance Floors Of Futures Past

I don't post to this SoundCloud account anymore. But I don't have a ton of new mixes on Mixcloud. Join me there, and thanks for listening.

Roger Riddle

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