(Note: this is loaded with links to some classic videos including Daft Punk's first stateside live performance at Even Furthur in Wisconsin 1996!- enjoy)

Being a band for over 20 years means that you are going to go through a lot of phases, and get interested in a lot of music. Along PDPs way through it's eclectic rock journey it has had a very enjoyable flirtation, or "thing on the side" with Dance music... a sort of affair if you will. This is a rumination on that. 

Prologue:

( Photo: me back home in Hawaii practicing dancing on the patio / lanai - with the beat box - I forget who took these photos now.)

1989 PDP was deep in the Austin music scene and the Pixies were fresh on the turn tables. Meanwhile in Chicago, unbeknown'st to us at the time, the band TEN CITY was emerging from the House Music culture there and released a classic song that PDP would cover 10 years later: "That's the way love is"

Early glimpses of club music: 

The term "Dance Music" has always been a goofy one - Hell, Benny Goodman was 'dance music', but the term has a connotation now - (negative or possitive, depending on which side of the fence the person talking is on) - and we've had to sort of adjust and know what people mean when someone uses this term. So in light of this - there was always disco - and I always liked it. I liked all my school dances. "Flashlight", "Serpentine Fire" ... I won't even start.  And all that New wave had it's roots in disco even though it tried to hide it.

But this story is about the next dynamic wave....

So onwards...  to 1987... Sitting on Michael Corcoran's front stoop in Austin (with his stereo speakers on the porch blasting towards the street) and him beating Public Enemy's (brand new) first record. This was juicy. Something was stirring. 

Then 1988 - Gretchen Lono was visiting Austin from Europe and she was telling me about this new thing called Raves that where happening in the country outside of London where people would set up sound systems far away from the police - and d.j.s would play and everyone just enjoy'd themselves and danced. I liked the sound of it.

In 89 we were on tour in England  (right around "Wishing like a mountain...") and we were in Manchester or Leeds and the club owner put a record on the turn table while we were setting up... it was "Bummed" by the Happy Mondays, with the single "Lazyitis" and "Wrote for luck". It was rock, trying to be a bit dance... but it was fucked up, brash and sloppy. We liked it. We didn't pay it much mind though. We had a gig to play. But it registered in our brain.

Back in Austin John Nelson turned me on to Soul 2 Soul ('Jazzie's Groove" and "Fairplay") and that opened our minds for sure - got the juices flowing. There was something in the air - you could feel it. Then De La Soul  and  Deee-lite hit and made it all fun. Even the rock kids were having fun with it on the floor. Club music was kind up for grabs and it was coming so fast and furious that nobody had a chance to catagorize it and make it sterile yet. All that music coming out of the speakers made the world feel close internationally. 

Then in '90 we back in England for a few shows and Dave Max and I were in our hotel room watching the BBC and we saw the Charlatans video for "The only one I know"  and we both dug it a lot. I went to the record shops and bought the Stone Roses  & the Charlatans.

 We went home and started working on "Lack Luster", "Jack Ass Ginger" and "Get me on" with all that inspiration. And so the writing for Volo Volo began.

But then the Happy Mondays pulled the trump card and released "Pills 'N' Thrills And Bellyaches" and blew everybody's mind, and that was it.

I knew I needed someone to work with production wise in the studio who understood how to bring a dance element into the mix. I met D.J. Casanova in Austin and heard him d.j.ing "The 900 Number" (by The 45 King) - and he was shaking the dance floor - and I thought "I wanna work with this guy". He came with us to England in '91 to put the final touches on Volo Volo. And while there we went out to the dance clubs and heard NOMAD "I WANNA GIVE YOU DEVOTION", and The KLF - "3AM Eternal". We also went to Soul to Soul's night at the Brixton Academy and it was all exciting. We went back into the studio and Casanova put a nice drum loop form "Impeach the president" under "Be the one" and made "Take care of your thing" come alive with some turntable work and a few choice samples and an 808 kick drum. He took both those songs into another world. 

Back in NYC my friend Arnie Saiki was turning me on to the Brand New Heavies and the whole acid jazz scene. He would take me to all the good nights at Nell's night club which was a fantastic little club with amazing music and everybody dancing. We also regularly went to the acid jazz nights of Giant Step.  Dancing was a part of every day life again - and it made everything seem to sparkle. On my visits home to Hawaii D.J. Daniel J Ward and Lloyd Kandell were keeping me up to date on the new and classic cuts.

While we were waiting for Volo Volo to get pressed U2 released Achtung Baby and it just heightened the excitement - even the big boys were falling in love with combining rock and dance. There was a sense of momentum of something new cresting. 

On the Volo Volo tour in Chicago at the Metro in '92, we went downstairs to the Smart Bar and danced our asses off and had a great time. Austin seemed slow on the up take as far as dance music was concerned so that just helped make the move to Chicago. Austin taught us so much when we were exploring acoustic rock, but now with this new inspiration, Chicago seemed like an exciting move, and so we relocated there in 93.

We went to work on the record Pomegranate ('94) which was more groove oriented than any of our previous records and yielded PDP's quasi  rock/house anthem "Complicated". While we were working on re-mixes for Pomegranate I heard Robin S singing "Show me Love" on Chicago's B96 and I was so inspired I tried to re-create the organ keyboard bass line and you can hear it's influence in "God's Gallipoli (the Arqueen re-mix)". 

Mel Hammond introduced us to Lady D, Jevon Jackson and the real Deep underground sound, and brought me into the Chicago House Community - I fell head over heals. The people were so nice. Welcoming. And proud of their History. 

In '96 Carolynn "Chaka" Travis introduced us to David Prince & Matt Adell.  Matt turned us on to Derrick Carter and Dub-tribe (which were on his label "Organico"), and David was the founder of Reactor Magazine and co-founder of Even Furthur. Chaka and David suggested that we perform some of our newer more electronic songs at the EVEN FURTHUR rave in Wisconsin. So we did. We went up there and performed a live set as Poi Energy inc., and camped out and enjoy'd 3 "ecstatic" nights of house, techno and bass and drum, and  had our minds blown. Daft Punk played their first U.S. live set there that year too

One night David took us to hear Byron Stingily  and he sang "That's the way love is" and it blew me away. Mel and Justin tracked down the cassette of the original for us from their basement collection. Powerful lyrics and beautiful melodies, piano and bass. It brought me right back to the beginning. Back to 1989 where the Dance world seemed to open up again. 

In the mid to late nineties Chicago Producers Mike Dunn, Maurice Joshua, Lego, Jevon Jackson, Mel Hammond, Matt Warren, Bunky & Jesse De La Pena did some real nice Re-mixes for us. We also saw a transcendental live set at metro by Orbital that was the apex for me as to how truely powerful a live electronica set could be in the right hands. 

There's a whole lot to talk about here, A whole 'nuther history of the Deep house era of Chicago that was going on in the clubs and at the after-hours parties in the 90's - a lot of late nights rolling on into the morning, X, dancing & 8fatfat8 .... that would be hard to really express but I will try and compress some of that feeling into these words below:

The blue light of dawn will always remind me of Chicago:

Aberdeen basement,
with condensation on the ceiling,
the rattle of lose screws in the bass bins,
the crackle of phonograph needles
on favorite records,
speakers pulsing and fluttering in the sound waves,
bodies jumping and yelling,
heads bouncing and concentrated faces.
hands held up into the air,
or one hand over your face,
the other on a friend's shoulder
when things got good and subconscious.
every friend greeted with a hug.
you could be free to lose your mind,
for a night - release the day,
get down deep inside your self,
freaky as you wanna be,
if you got too high -
someone would look out after you,
we were all there for the same reason,
to get deeper,
to see each-other,
a congregation of a culture
free to be,
encouraged to set it free,
gay,
straight,
black,
white,
brown,
drugs,
no drugs,

no judgement.

sleeping all day,
out all night,
coming home,
body tired,
heart happy,
in the blue light of dawn.
 ---------

From 1999 into 2004 we let the band morph freely between rock, Jazzy R & B  undertones, philly era disco production (ala strings and live instrumentation), while trying to include the emotional and technical things we learned from more modern house and electronica. The result was a live recording "Souls Sonic Orchestra", a more orchestral studio record "In seed comes fruit" and a beautiful re-mix of "A love Rains Down" by California's Gavin Hardkiss. 

Around 2005 it felt like we had come to the end of the ball of string with all that experimentation, and just felt like it was time to get back to basics. So we set out to make a straight up Rock and soul record, which became "7". 

Dance music is like an elliptical orbit, it is always around me, but sometimes it swings in real close and sweeps me along full force for a while. And I have to say 89 to 91 was a magical spark, and that magic sparkled on through the 90s. I look forward to the next wave. In the meantime I'm digging the rock again. Taking a break from guitar based music for a while brought back the freshness for me. God I love music. All of it.

I gotta go to bed though... I've been up all night on this journey, and it's almost noon. 

Love,  

 F.Q.O.