DiscoMusic.com

Dangerous Dave Miller

Florida area Disco DJ (February 17, 1951 - Present)

Dangerous Dave Miller started in radio back in the early 1970s. First job at a COUNTRY station out in the middle of a cow pasture. You literally had to dodge cows driving into the station-Ashland,Oregon 1976
Winter was coming and I was Freezin', so I loaded-up my $200 GTO and headed south to Fla. and got SNOWED ON THERE!

Remember never hearing Disco til I crossed the state line on I-10 and fell in love with it! Hated country, grew-up on rock & R&B, but really got into Disco... Couldn't get ARRESTED at first, pumped gas during the day and spun at a private "dive" for free at night.

Got another job as a phone sales rep and the guy working next to me was a DJ and told me about a job he just turned down (he was married) working as a DJ on the cruise ships. I told him to call the guy who'd offered him the job and tell him he knew somebody that was ready to go. He made the call and the guy turned out to be Bo Crane. Bo wanted to meet me that night and we did, at Honey for the Bears in either Coral Gables or the Grove. Bo liked me and said I could have the job, but that I had to do a gig at some large private club on the next day (Sat) and report to the Miami Cruise port on Sunday to board the Emerald Seas (a tug of a boat).

That Saturday I ran to the now defunct Peaches Records and told the sales guy I had a private party to do that evening and i needed the LATEST Disco HITS. He loaded me up with about 5 or 6 LPs and sent me on my way. The place of the party was on Miami Beach, a huge private Jewish club that blew me away. A host lead me to the Disco area (which had a closet full of gear) I powered up the equiptment and started to sound check the new LPs and realized the salesmen had DUPED me, the music was all jazz! I dug around the closet and came up with a couple K-Tel party LPs and faked it through the night, the next day I reported to the Emerald Seas and my first cruise was a charter for senior citizens. The decks were empty by 8:00 pm. I felt so bad, I'd go down at lunch time and play George Benson or any other easy listening music I could scrounge. After that, the season picked up and we partied on. I eventually jumped to the Norwegian Caribbean Line and worked all three of their cruise ships.

When I made the jump back to Miami after a year at sea, Shell City Liquers bought my contract from Bo Crane and I helped them get their Disco venture going with the opening of The Visions Lounge in Hialeah. After about a year there, I started SOME FUN PRODUCTIONS my lucrative Mobile Operation. Then one day, the music died and I found myself doing kid's parties and I could only take so much of that!

Eventually I left Miami and went to Atlanta to open a teen nite club called Kicks and had a ball and made a killing! A few ventures later and some good real estate investments leaves me retired at 58. I spend my winters in central Florida and summers up in the cool N.C. mountains near ASHEVILLE, which has a very hip music scene. I take cruises every year or so and the shipboard DJ's are still cooking and the memories come rushing back. For DJ's, it really is ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC!

==============

In 1976, I was working (part-time) at a country station in Oregon, a job I swore I'd never do. Unfortunatly it was the first job offer I recieved fresh out of brodcast school, so I took it. Big mistake, cause Oregon in the winter was no place for a boy from Southern California, so I loaded up my $200 special and headed for the sunshine of Florida.

I had never heard of Disco music. but as soon as I crossed the Fla. boarder it came through load and clear on the radio and I fell in love with it, Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band was my first "FAVORITE" in a soon to be long list of favorites. I had traveled 3000 miles to get away from the cold and don't ya know it snowed in Florida as soon as I got there, god does have a sense of humour.

I also couldn't find a job, even pumping gas..Finally, as luck would have it I score a phone sales job, because of my brodcast voice, anyway, the guy sitting next to me told me about this job, working the cruise ships, that he just turned down, because he was married. I told him to call the guy who offered him the job and tell him he had a guy ready to go.

The guys name doing the hiring was Bo Crane. It was about 9pm on a friday night, I was in Ft. Lauderdale and he wanted to meet me at a club in Coral Gables called Honey for the Bears. I didn't have a clue where Coral Gables was, let alone the club, but I was there and met with Bo we clicked and he said I had the job.

Of course there was one thing I had to do before shipping out, a little dance at the Surf Club, a private club for miami's rich and so-so famous. Of course I agreed to do the job even though I knew nothing about Disco music or mixing, but I was taught a very handy piece of advice in school, "fake-it-til-you-make-it"!! And that's what I did, I ran to a Peaches record store and told the saleman I need the absolute latest & hotest disco albums and bought about 10 of what he told me was "HOT".

Well, I get to the Surf Club and it reminds me of the private clubs in Beverly Hills and I'm led through this gigantic dining hall to a little room in the back that's set up to be a make shift Disco. I uncover the equiptment, figure-out how to turn it on and start previewing the records I had just picked-up and guess what, that salesman had duped me big time, everything he sold me was jazz and the kids were coming into the disco ready to party and I was sweating like a pig. Finally, I was digging around in the equiptment locker and stumbled upon some K-tel party records that, though some of the girls complained were'nt the latest, saved my butt.

That was saturday night, the following sunday I was to set sail on my first cruise ship as the official disco, disc-jockey, and member of the Bo Crane stable of DJ's. That's just the begining of my incredible journey into the world of Disco, I knew guys like Joe Lender and Billy Swann and often wounder how and where they are, and on a whim I Googled Bo Crane and found this site with a feature on Joe, God really hasn't lost his sense of humour, or wonder...

Please link to this page using this URL:
http://www.discomusic.com/people-more/5296_0_11_0_C/

Posted by: Dangerous Dave

• (+) Submit A Missing Artist or DJ Bio!
• Upload photographs for Dangerous Dave Miller now.
• E-mail This Page To A Friend

Reader Comments on Dangerous Dave Miller

Top ↑