Who mixed First

[Abracadabra]

I have just come across a posting from a year ago 'Who mixed first'. Quinny was saying that he thought the South Americans did. His reason being that he was in Marbella in 1974 and heard a South American DJ in club "Pepe Morenos" mixing like there was no tomorrow! I am fascinated because that was my ex husband, Daniel. What a coinidence to happen to read that posting from a year ago. He really was the best DJ around at that time and had infact been 'head hunted' from Argentina. I wanted to know more from Quinny and see if maybe he still has a tape of Daniel's. My daughter has not seen her father since she was 3 (she's now 22) and as she is mad about music and I am always saying what an incredible DJ he was; I long for her to hear his mixes.
Going back to that posting from March last year.... I learnt to DJ in Marbella (complete coincidence). I was taught in 1967 by a Spanniard to mix - no head phones, no talking, just rhythm and beat. I then DJ'd around the world - a rare comodity in those days - a girl DJ!
It would be great to hear from Quinny.

[QUINNY]

What a small world and at last someone who's heard of Discoteca Pepe Moreno or was it Club Pepe Moreno (old age strikes again).

To be truthful, I only ever made it there on a few occasions, 'cos I was working every night. I vividly remember listening to a tape recording at a lady friend's house and it was completely mixed. However, I never owned any tapes myself. the music was all upfront US imports, mainly of a more funky/soulful variety, than pure disco. Bohannon was huge I seem to remember, with almost every danceable track from his then LP being played.

Maybe you're ex husband was one of the other DJs who worked there, as I seem to recall that the main DJ had a more 'South American' name and remember some kind of hoo hah when his contract wasn't renewed or something similar. My memory could be playing tricks on me, though. There again, to be perfectly honest I never got to hear of such things except through the grapevine, sometime much later. The other major discotheque at the time was a German owned one called Kiss and almost every bar I went to, played great music too. Of course, Club Marbella was the haunt of the truly rich and famous, with its amazing open air discotheque modelled on Kenyan safari motifs and structures.

So you learned to mix in '67, by ear...amazing.

[Abracadabra]

Wow, how amazing that you rememmber so much! You might be right. Daniel might still have ben working at the Marbella Club at that time and then he moved to Pepe's and that is why the other guy didn't have his contract renewed. There were very few Argentinians there then, so the other guy you met might have been him - Daniel would know. It was the Marbella Club that I used to work in as well but quite a few years before - it was amazing but I got paid a real pittance! Kiss, in my hopeless memory, was quite a bit later. If you remember Kiss do you not remember our bar/record/clothes shop in Puerto Banus 'Abracadabra'? We opened it in 1977 and sold records to all the local discos?
Great to hear from you. Are you still DJing?

[Abracadabra]

Forgot to say - wasn't Bohannon fantastic! I had completely forgotten what a brilliant LP it was for a DJ until you mentioned it.

[QUINNY]

I was in Marbella in '74 and '75. Jose Banus had only just opened a year or couple of years before and was my favourite place to just pass the time of day. I never got tired of seeing the 'money' passing by or the huge boats that were tied up alongside and all the toing and froing. I remember lots of French owned boutiques at Jose Banus, plenty of bars and restaurants and virtually NO apartments. This was before the site was fully developed and became the monstrosity it is today. I wept when I went through Marbella last year, for the first time in 30 years. It was one huge conurbation. I hated it (Puerto De La Duquesa was fairly good though) and couldn't wait to get outta there!

Tell me, was the International Bar going when you were around? It was the one bar in the old town that had a reputation for major film stars and pop stars hanging out there. I've got a feeling that too was probably not quite in your time.
The other bars I remember are, The Dutch Inn, Salamandra, Frank's and his Bodega, Bookbinder's (best beefburgers I've ever tasted), The Town House, there was an American guy who had a bar right by Orange Square and of course Plaza de las Naranjas (Orange Square) itself was far less commercialised then and my second favourite place to hang out. There were others I just can't remember, except on the beach if we had no money we'd hang out at Los Dos Pepes beach bar and if we had money it would be Frank's beach bar, which at the time was the very last one within the town limits, before Club Marbella. Great memories of chilling out on the beach or playing volleyball (against an Argentinian football team once) whilst soaking up the sun and hearing great music. Lotsa soul like Al Green, Millie Jackson and Barry White, Wings' Band On The Run (got sick of that we heard it sooo many times) funky things like Kool & The Gang, James Brown and anything else that was ultra cool.

[Abracadabra]

Just talked to Daniel, pronounced Danyiell, and that was definetly him in Pepe Moreno's Club. He was there from 1971 till 1978. The blimp about the contract that Quinney remembers was that he was head-hunted by Annabels in London, but didn't in the end go (sensible move!) He was the only DJ at Pepe's in all that time - earning a lot for those distant days + 5% of the takings! He remembers every detail about the places you (Quinney)talk about and the names of all the people who owned them or worked in them. Juno was the DJ in Kiss who sadly died of cancer about 4 months ago. Daniel used to supply all the taped music for Frank's cherenguito and bar plus lots of other places. He was always making tapes and giving them to people - so sad that I don't still have one! He remembers every record too. He suddenly mentioned JJ Cale (Cocaine) - I'd completely forgotten about him. He said at that time he was playing masses of soul, and, like you, Kool & The Gang and Al Green.
Gosh, I agree with you that place has changed, it makes me cry too. That's why I left - and I left in '85. I'd been going there since '65 so had seen the changes. I actually learnt to waterski where Puerto Banus is! There must be 50 clubs in the region now. Has anyone got the update on Marbella night-life?
Quinney, where did you work? Daniel would remember you. In those days everyone knew everyone.

[QUINNY]

As I wrote in my original 'Who mixed first' thread a year back, I was a fresh faced guy who'd been DJing for about 5 years in the UK and thought I knew everything...How wrong I was!!

I worked for a couple of ex Belgian Congo mercenaries who happened to buy a place beneath a supermarket and opened a night club called Mitsou. It wasn't very sophisticated, but there again, very few places were in those days. KISS was probably the flashiest disco in Marbella. In all honesty, Mitsou (named after a cat) was possibly the worst disco in Marbella and with 30 years of reflection, what I did there was insignificant, except for my own progression. I'd originally arrived in Marbella with a good friend who had intentions to buy the disco and then manage it. If that had happened, the place would have been refurbished and might have been a serious contender, but it never did and I was left working for the 2 ex mercenaries who had no clue about discos and were mighty peeved that the deal hadn't been struck. We just about made it work by getting many of the ex pats who were working/living in Marbella at the time. I worked 7 nights a week and only had 2 nights off in a whole year, all for 12,000 pesetas a month.

Pepe's was predominantly black with red wallpaper/paint I seem to recall. Not much in the way of lights, but the sound system was pretty loud and pretty good quality for those days. The chicken sandwiches were to die for at 4.am. after a night of boozing and bopping (better than greasy Churros and chocolate). Pepe's was THE place, without a shadow of a doubt. Very sophisticated, in an old money kinda way.

Tell me, did Daniel let the English guy who did the radio broadcasts from within KISS, borrow his records? I always had a sneaking suspicion that he did that, rather than have all those imports especially for just the one show, as I didn't know where he (the English guy) DJ'd otherwise. The lady friend who had the tape(s) was Britt Landhammar? or similar sounding, who rented a place about a kilometre out of town, quite close to Pepe's.

The other thing that's been bugging me is I can't recall the name of the discotheque at Club Marbella. Grrr, old age.

Discos did play a rather eclectic mix of records back then, but to my ears, Pepe's was the first time I'd experienced a true disco and a taste of things to come. The standing joke among a certain few, was that Pepe's played nothing but MFSB's The Sound of Philadelphia. What they really meant was "it was the place that played real dance music, expertly blended and mixed." It was a true eye opener for me. So I'd take my hat off to Daniel. One of the true, unsung pioneers of Disco.

You must tell us more about your career and especially mixing back in the late '60s/early '70s. Some of the people around here might be surprised.

[Abracadabra]

I'm sorry that I haven't replied sooner but I have been trying to get hold of Daniel to ask him about the records played in Kiss and about Mitsou and Britt - I'm sure he will know so I will keep trying. I remember Daniel working for months without a day off too and then when we opened the disco shop in Puerto Banus we worked 7 days a week, 16 hours a day and Daniel kept working at Pepe Morenos until we knew our shop would be a success. So much music and we had music going all day in the bar including all the American imports which we sold.
The disco in the Marbella Club was originaly called 'The Beach Club' (when I worked there) but later it was called Mau Mau. The winter Club was called 'The Champagne Room'.
Pepe Morenos was, as you say, black and red and was decorated like a library with the old backs of leather books stuck on the walls. Pepe Moreno had wonderful taste in decoration and was one of the founders of Marbella; a great friend who became my daughter's godfather but is sadly no longer with us.
As to my DJ experience...... I was taught in the Marbella Club by a young Spaniard who lived for music (he went on to own a fantastic club in Salamanca). In those days there was far less music so one new the music much better. Every note and every beat was incredibly important and one would spend hours before hand listening and learning it. The idea was to get one track floating into the next and slowly accelerating the speed to a frenzy and then cutting to a couple of slow, romantic tracks and then up again. (This is boring, I am sure everyone knows this!) When I first started we had no equipment to make a record go faster or slower so we had to place our fingers on the edge of the turntable to slow it down or speed it up and put ones ear really close to the other turntable to 'hear' the music. One also had to look at the 'shading' on the record - that told one alot about the volume and the beat and therefore helped one to place the needle for the next song. The whole idea was to change on a particular drum beat or overlap a couple of bars of music which were nearly identical so that the dancers would keep dancing to the same rythm and not realize that the record had changed . There was lots of Soul music around at that time like Otis Reading, Martha and the Vandella, The Supremes, Ike and Tina Turner, then there was the Platters and lots of South american stuff and then of course all our English music.
I then went to work in the Bahamas and from there to Annabels, in London. Funnily enough I have a young friend who works there now and we have hysterics comparing how it was in 1970 and how it is now. It really hasn't changed and the same old records still bring the old cronies bouncing out onto the dancefloor!
After that when I was working in St Moritz in Switzerland I remember how I adored Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up because it was long enough to be able to go and have a pee! I seem to remember Maggie May came soon after that and was useful for the same reason.
My memory is so bad and I honestly don't rmember the names of anything but I never forget a song - and they have brought me so much joy and happiness.

[QUINNY]

Mau Mau........how could I forget.

Sounds as if you had a really great DJ career playing classy venues. If only I'd had such luck.

At the time I was in Marbella, there was a guy (Rik Gunnell) who kept on asking me if I'd like to DJ in the Seychelles and/or in Kitzbuehel, but nothing ever came of it. He was one of the Gunnell brothers who had been really big agents in London, recorded quite a few Blues/RnB/Mod bands and ran one or two clubs, the most famous being the Flamingo, in the '60s. I only just missed out, 'cos he actually went to live in Kitzbuehel with his Austrian wife and opened the Londoner pub, which became quite famous. I saw him on TV a few years back when there was a holiday programme about the town and he didn't look any older!

I can't imagine how you mixed records without headphones/cueing device of any kind. That must have been damned difficult. All I do remember is having to do something similar, when the cueing device failed once and my ears just weren't up to it, but I guess it's like many things...with practice or necessity, I would have eventually become better at it. When did you first have the luxury of headphones? DJ mixers with cueing were relatively rare beasts I know, but I bought my first one in 1969 or 1970. This was at the beginning of the whole DJ revolution. It cost an absolute fortune (£55.00 about $100) or in today's money probably £2,000 or more.

From the few upmarket discos/clubs that I ever went to, it soon became clear that they danced to a much different set of tunes. Some of them incredibly hip and upfront, others best forgotten, but always an eclectic mix. So the current Annabel's DJ quote is absolutely imagineable.

[SandraDee]

I was a fresh faced guy who'd been DJing for about 5 years in the UK and thought I knew everything....

& usually people change over time...... :lol:

[QUINNY]

Yeah, I'm still fresh faced though. :lol:

[Anonymous]

Amazing to "hear" you mix without cueing or headphones, and to passively share your memories - and I thought that I had it bad trying to mix in a club with old thorens tables and a mixer that would cut out as i start to pan!!! You must have played the hell out of BARRABAS !!!
The music was amazing back then '69-75!!!

[Abracadabra]

How funny you should say that about Barrabas because I reckon I more or less introduced them into Switzerland (where I was then working) because I had know Fernando Arbex since he was in a group called Los Brincos way back in 1965/66. Los Brincos were mega in Spain at that time and there was a little group called Los Bravos who played us a song called 'Black is Black' and asked us if we thought it would go down well in England!
I started without all the gear about 5 year before Barrabas - by the time they came on the scene I had all the bits to play with and life was much easier. The thing is when I started I didn't know there was any other way and I think things started appearing pretty rapidly after that.
I hardly dare ask this but I honestly don't know what you mean by 'cuing'. Quinney used that word too and I have asked my daughter's DJ friends and they don't know either. It might because I nearly always worked abroad in a foreign language! Or maybe I just can't remember - even worse! Are they the speed nobs?

[Anonymous]

Fernando Arbex since he was in a group called Los Brincos way back in 1965/66. Los Brincos were mega in Spain at that time and there was a little group called Los Bravos who played us a song called 'Black is Black' and asked us if we thought it would go down well in England!

ABRACADABRA did you know of or see the group Los Canarios from the canary islands?