Go-Go questions

2/ It was huge in D.C. and still is, but only there, which was pretty much the problem the first time around.

3/ See Phil's post.

4/ Not me.

Go-Go-wise, I have the Trouble Funk live album that was re-released on Infinite Zero, and it kicks a giant silver platter of booty!

It never was very big outside of Washington. However, there is a tenacious community that still supports it; see Take Me Out To The Go-Go for more information.

4/ Anyone here ever witness a Go-Go live show?

Not an all go-go bill, and not in a "historically black" venue, but Ms. Spice and the Malenium Band opened for the Dismemberment Plan's last show at the Black Cat.

4) I saw Trouble Funk in Toronto, back when big things were still being predicted for them (and for go-go). I guess this was in (God, I'm getting old oy my achin' back) '86 or thereabouts. A good show, especially if you love percusssion, but my interest waned somewhere around the 120 minute mark (but then I wasn't high or anything, I do remember that). Oh, and there were more black people on stage than there were in the crowd for what that's worth (probably not much, but it struck me as interesting at the time).

there are a few regional dance scenes that i've heard about that i don't know anything about: Go-Go, Stepping, and i think Bounce (unless this is just southern hip hop?). I played ESG in my office (when i was working in chicago) right when that soul jazz comp came out and an older black lady started singing and dancing along calling it house music and stepping. i tried to ask her about stepping and she pretty much just talked about James Brown. does this have any correlation to the R.Kelly song "Stepping in the Name of Love" with all the cute older couples in white dancing super smooth?

Nope, Baltimore, just up the road.

Who else besides Chuck Brown still plays?

I think some version of E.U. is still around, plus a whole lotta other relatively minor players who were never that big to begin with.

Anyone have a theory as to why it never caught on anywhere else?

Well, it's all about live bands playing great but fairly monotonous music for no-nonsense dancers/partiers all night, which pretty much guarantees subculture status at best. Plus, despite its cachet among white hipsters (myself included), there are issues of race and class to bridge, plus the usual endemic regionalism (see also Baltimore "club music," which can't seem to make it past city limits either). And I think the best go-go acts do well enough playing D.C. and the occasional gig elsewhere that they don't need or want to kill themselves to "make it" elsewhere.

Jason I posted once about stepping, but yeah you've basically got it.

I've seen a bunch of Go-Go shows in school gyms, but I've never been to a Go-Go club. It's party music.

Some bands, particularly Rare Essence, have made studio recordings that are intended to sound more like a 3 minute single. They delve more into RnB. However, the Go-Go fanbase isn't really interested in studio recordings. Go-Go hits are always live versions with prolonged percussion workouts. That type of song is not going to get airplay outside of D.C.

So basically there is no need for a 'Go-Go revival' or expansion. Go-Go is still going strong in D.C.

It seems amazing that Go-Go seems to basically thrive (if not simply exist) in D.C. and D.C. alone.

Go-Go really does thrive in D.C. It's just something that is passed along. Most people who grow up in D.C. like Go-Go, because they hear it from an early age. As I mentioned before, contemporary Go-Go incorporates the latest hip-hop into the songs, so it remains fresh. There was a hit by the Huck-a-Bucks that sampled a Budweiser commercial. Some songs become anthems.

The basic philosophy is that the beat is what really matters. Go-Go bands just look for something that will hook audiences and make a song a hit.

All that said, I don't listen to Go-Go anymore. I guess I outgrew it.

Is it just that studio recordings are inherently not conveying the spirit of go-go, or is it that Chuck Brown's success skewed the way the genre got portrayed on comps? Because what I've heard of go-go doesn't square with the picture painted in this thread...

A lot of the acts people keep mentioning (Chuck Brown, Trouble Funk) are about 20 years old. A lot of comps date back to the mid-80s, and that stuff sounds really dated. More contemporary Go-Go is definetely rawer and has more bass umph.

And yes, studio recordings really do not 'convey the spirit' of Go-Go.

However, if you don't like the beat, then you don't like Go-Go. The beat is what makes Go-Go, Go-Go.

I too have a live album of theirs (with a free 12"!) which kicks a positively gargantuan amount of butt. However I also bought a subsequent studio one (which was produced by Bootsy Collins IIRC) which was an almost equally monumental disappointment.

nelly even quotes a little of the lyric.