Soul Kitchen appreciation (old head related)
tonyphrone
1,500 Posts
From Dallas Penn.com:
I used to go to this party in high school (the pre Guiliani/Dinkins era- ho!) and this is the party that got me interested in soul/funk/etc. The vibe was dope and we used to always see the big rappers of the day chillin there drinking 40's - for real! I remember summer of 92 or 93 - it was at the wetlands and GURU, A.D.O.R. ("Let it all hang out")and Zhiggee were there and we were geeked!Anyone ever go to this? I know Frankie Inglese still does the 80's night at Don Hills' (which is dope for what it is) - but he was killin it at the Soul Kitchen.When the 1990???s came around New York City was without a specific Hip-Hop club. Mars on West 13th Street tried to fill that void with their ???TRIP??? parties while a host of promoters would have loft parties on Broadway in the SoHo area. One of these parties called ???Payday??? had an interesting mix of promoters who were classic and current Hip-Hop fans. They hired a dee jay named FRANKIE INGLESE to spin for their small Monday night party at Brother???s Bar-B-Cue. The party was primarily a cool out for the music industry people that worked in the neighborhood. Doors opened at 10pm and there were free bar-b-cue wings along with quarts of Colt 45 sold for a ridiculous three dollars. Suffice it to say this was my Monday evening dinner party.FRANKIE INGLESE kept it funky all night. Classic hits from Parliament Funkadelic, the Meters, Sly and The Family Stone, Average White Band, Rufus, Rick James and so many other great musicians played on through the night. FRANKIE had the original 12 inch vinyl records for all the music that rappers were sampling. He even had stuff that hadn???t been discovered yet by Hip-Hoppers. This was where I first heard the extended version of JAMES BROWN???s ???The Big Payback???. It???s a song so rich and complex with melodies that several songs have been sampled from that record and most of them sound different from one another. It was as if you could get an endless amount of samples from one JAMES BROWN record.If you wanted to become a Hip-Hop producer then Franky Jackson???s Soul Kitchen became the only party that you needed to attend. There was a moment when everyone who was involved in Hip-Hop was coming to this party. I credit this party with restoring the popularity of artists like GEORGE CLINTON, WILSON PICKETT, BOOSTY COLLINS and MACEO PARKER, but bigger than all of those guys was the man who inspired their music. Franky Jackson???s Soul Kitchen helped me appreciate why JAMES BROWN was called ???The Godfather???.
Comments
back in the supper club/buddah bar era. When Digable Planets would chill.
While we're on the subject I also loved:
Cafe Con Leche
Chill Factor w/Stretch Armstrong (these kids were my older brothers and raised me in the club culture)
Blow Pop
Flip Squad parties at Palladium
Don Hills
Tunnel Sundays
Essos (this had to be the most violent club in the world, I swear someone got shot EVERY time I went there)
The Limelight (nothing could possibly be more of a mindfuck for a 16-year old suburban kid).
I did think it was funny much later on when they tried to restart the Soul Kitchen party and moved it to Cielo, based soley on the fact that everyone was walking around Cielo drinking 40s which I thought was a pretty funny sight. Not to mention the soundsystem in that space was bad ass. Kind of a funny coincidence, because Soul Kitchen was the party that also made me hear "The Big Payback" in a whole new light after hearing it on that loud assed soundsystem. There is no 12" version of that is there? Homey must have drank too many 40s that night...
BTW Chill Factor deserves a thread of it's own. It was the last great party of the late 90s, with the best looking guestlist/doorman I've ever seen in my entire life.
Bumpshop should have him do a saturday night.
Yeah Chillfactor was special as hell bro and also I think it was the last time that "real"(I know, super-loaded term) house and "real" hip-hop coexisted in a club setting. I also think most dude have zero idea how incredible of a party dj the dude Stretch was. I've never seen a guy who could beatmatch that clean without even putting the headphones on.
It's funny (sad) that about the only two nights I wasn't there were when the shootings took place.
Remember Nick the owner, I KNOW you do. Lol.
Dude, throughout my teenage years and early 20's I think I must have seen this dude get into two-dozen fights.
I heard the Roxy is no more. So fucking sad, even though the security staff there literally tried to kill me once. Memories...
He certainly was a scrapper!!! Rolling to the Bell Cafe after Soul Kitchen was always a nice end of the eve.
I know you go back man, did you ever go to "Sheets and Pillows" when Stretch was still Adrian B or Skinny Bonez?
Oh, also gotta give the big up to Sticky Mike's.
THAT'S THAT SHIT!!!! I remember hanging with Stretch one time and all he was talking about was CoCo Realio
Amir
Amir
cosign on that...
ricky powell once did a slideshow at one of my DJ nights, what a nightmare! that's for another thread. the radio show was dope though.
On a totally different tip, I used to LOVE Body and Soul until it became totally overrun with Chelsea queens. Anyone ever go? Joe Claussel+Francois K+Danny Krivit=
I've been planning on digitizing them for a while. I'll definitely make you copies.
you are bringing back strong memeories man...I haven't thought about those parties in years. what high school did you go to? did we have math together?
I am a Jersey bwoy, but my whole extended family (grandparents, cousins, and shit) live in the West Vill and so I started going out way early. I used to run around with a bunch of cats (the Donger included) who were involved with alot of these parties, especially Zone at Redzone, Cafe Con Leche (the MESSIEST party in the world, Latin Kings pushing up on drag queens and shit), and of course Chill Factor. Too young for Sheets and Pillows but Sticky Mike's was the shit. I also must not let this thread die without invoking one of the grimiest places I ever set foot: Planet 28/Demerrara's. I KNOW you must remember this place? The basement was like a death trap with sketchy dudes pushing up on chicks in the dark corners and fucked off security with burners and the whole place looked like it was gonna fall down. Threw some dope parties there.
Also- El Flamingo, Club USA, John "Gungy" Rivera ruling the latin scene. I've worked the door at some of the roughest spots in NY. I remember one night at Speeed when I wouldn't let this dude in and he whipped a butterfly knife into my face. I remember watching Pun's people get into it with Roc-a-fella cats and crawling for the exit when I saw a bottle soaring from one crowd to the other.
I remember when Peter Gatien used to call me and bitch about "why is the community board fucking with me, I'm an honest businessman" then turned around and did me and my partner so ugly.
Parties I was too young to go to that are spoken of with awe:
House Nation
Arena
Zone at Redzone (big up Joe Sheridan, Andre Charles, Ever TCT)
Daddy's House
For some reason I thought that happened at one of Stretch's parties at Irving Plaza?
G, what was your favorite edition of Soul Kitchen: Don Hill's (before it was Don Hill's - what was it called? My memory is gone...), S.O.B.'s, Wetlands?
Best f*ckin' party...
for me it was wetlands-i didn't know it was a hippie/jamband place until much later. that's how good that party must've been!
Wetlands.
What about HomeBase?
hahahaha
Never fucked with it, I heard violent stories that made me never want to go to that place.
I was lucky enough to bless the main floor soundsystem several times playing some deep house stuff for Tom Mello's parties. I also got to spin some hip-hop & classics type shit in the upstairs VIP room too. Great times, I was lucky to play some of those amazing nights.
Stretch is a great DJ, it's too bad though the last time I heard him (at Lotus) he was playing Z100 style techno-house remixes of shitty pop and hip-hop tunes. His set sounded VERY Euro, and would've fit in perfectly at a Greek guido club in Astoria. I have no problem selling out and playing all that pop stuff (I do it all the time), but are those Z100 late night Astoria Euro techno-house sounding remixes really that neccessary???