Dinosaur L – Go Bang! (#5) // Clean On Your Bean (#1) (Sleeping Bag Records) 1982. This is considered THE classic New York City loft party record from the early 1980s, a time when Larry Levan’s original loft party concept was rapidly returning back to the lofts due to an increasing cultural backlash against disco music. Arthur Russell, a cellist and avant garde musician, was one of the key folks responsible for the merging of disco and new wave in NYC. He was involved with the first disco release on Sire Records entitiled Kiss Me Again, credited to the band Dinosaur featuring David Byrne on guitar. In 1982, he founded Sleeping Bag Records which would go on to become a formidable hip-hop label in the 1980s, most notably responsible for launching the amazing EPMD on the world. The first release on Sleeping Bag however was Arthur’s own pet project Dinosaur L with this release. Both sides of this release are pure unbridled funk/dance music but the mixes and arrangements are pretty avant garde (note the use of delay on the bass). Arthur eventually drifted out of the dance music world and started recording more abstract compositions that have since been made available on other releases. In 1992, he died of AIDs. The same year that Larry Levan died of drug related complications, in fact.
Hardcore Podcasts
September of 2010 I put together eight Hardcore Podcasts. You can check them out here if you are interested. For more insight into how I came up with the years 78-90 for the First Wave you can read about The Hardcore Superiorty Myth.
One of the greatest dance 12″ers of all time, this. Glad to see you HCers can Do The Hustle when the music demands it.
Don’t forget that Sleeping Bag also unleashed Mantronix upon the world.
If only we lived in a more Mantronix-centric world!
Then everything would be wonderful.
You are so beautiful to me.
two turntables and a microphone…
nice one Joe, keepin’ us on our toes and shakin’ it
free your mind and your ass will follow
I agree that more Mantronix could only be a good thing.
Havent listened to this yet, but I just found this blog in the past week or so, and I’m amazed~!
I found it by searching around to see if the late, lamented PostPunkJunk had found a new home. This might be even better, as hard as it is for me to say that.
Finding one blog that has both post-punk greatness and late 70s / early 80s rap is quite a wonderful surprise. Keep up the spectacularity!
Joe, any chance you might have the Mood Of Defiance LP?
I haven’t heard this mix of “Go Bang!” previously; I’ve heard the D.J. Spinelli remix – I think – but the noodly bits in this one blow that version away. Arthur Russell was a talented individual I am quite sad I only discovered in hindsight.
His later more introspective, isolated sounding compositions and takes are also takes of startling beauty – as I am sure you are well aware.
Thanks, Joe.
The original version that appears on the 24-24 Music LP is looser and wierder. The single version was remixed by Francois Kevorkian. That was a trend with Arthur, of doing weird stuff that would get a little more dancefloor friendly with the help of people like Francois or Walter Gibbons.
It’s most famous though as being the sample source for Todd Terry’s house-era classic Bango.