Letters: Parade DJ: O, dem golden oldies
WHILE SOME thought that having DJs along the Broad Street Mummers Parade route on New Year's Day to be sacrilegious and the equivalent of putting Swiss on a cheesesteak, or sitting in Jerry Jones' luxury box during a Cowboys vs. Eagles game, most would agree that the parade lulls and backups were up there with the Watch Paint Dry Olympics.
WHILE SOME thought that having DJs along the Broad Street Mummers Parade route on New Year's Day to be sacrilegious and the equivalent of putting Swiss on a cheesesteak, or sitting in Jerry Jones' luxury box during a Cowboys vs. Eagles game, most would agree that the parade lulls and backups were up there with the Watch Paint Dry Olympics.
I volunteered to be the disc jockey at the City Hall grandstands,hoping to spin some tunes and get the crowd in a good mood before and during the parade.
First Song: It's 9:30 a.m. and the parade starts in 30 minutes, but the $20-a-ticket stands are almost at maximum capacity. Temperatures are in the upper 20s and a high for the day is only 39 degrees. Do I play the soundtrack to "Frozen"? Nope, I throw on Will Smith's "Summertime" and welcome everyone to 15th and Market streets, live in downtown, balmy Philadelphia. No one throws hot chocolate at me for being ironic - it's too damned cold and they need to drink it to stay warm.
Warm-ups: I remind people that it's only five months until Memorial Day and I throw on a three-second hit from the '70s by Floss Stingel. Don't know the song or the artist? "Watch the Tram Car, Please!"
I ask the crowd: "Who's ready for some curly fries and Sam's Pizza?" and slide right into the oldie-but-goodie song, "Wildwood Days," by South Philly boy Bobby Rydell.
During sound checks and run-throughs, I play Elton John's long version of "Philadelphia Freedom," which gives me 5 minutes, 41 seconds to eat a Tastykake lemon pie and break the seal on a fresh Port-O-Potty before it gets filled with Coors Lite via the Wench Brigades' urinary tracts.
It's 9:45 a.m. and my cheeks are starting to freeze together. My face is cold, too. The "A" stand right beside the Channel 17 news trailer is filling up now, as is the public-seating bleachers near the Clothespin. The Golden Sunrise NYA is lined up along Market Street facing City Hall, ready to kick off the parade at 10 a.m. I throw on K.C. & the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes," followed by Philly's own Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "The Love I Lost."
SugarHouse casino's Dan Stevenson (and Pennsport good guy) has a crowd of New Year's Day revelers atop the open air, double-decker Big Bus subbing in as the Sugar Express, as they are the parade sponsors. The driver gets an A-plus for performing a tight U-turn at the intersection of 15th and Market streets. During this driver's ed intro, I give him some background music: the 1981 hit from Frankie Smith, "Double Dutch Bus." The crowd gets into it, mimicking the double-dutch jump-rope dance moves in the bleachers. Nobody whips me with the imaginary jump rope.
An old-time wooden trolley carrying seven drag queens, all part of the Mummers LGBT Liaison Committee, starts the parade procession. I don't have time to text-message Philadelphia's Gay News czar Mark Segal for the perfect song to play, so Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" gets pumped over the PA system. It must have been a good song, because a 6-foot-something drag queen catwalks over to me and gives me a free drink coupon for a parade after-party. (To hell with the comp pina colada - I want hair-removal tips from you, sister!)
10 a.m.: The parade starts with the Fancies, Comics and Wench brigades. Sitting atop a Chrysler Crossfire convertible is the Big Kahuna of all Philly disc jockeys, the Geator with the Heater, the Boss with the Hot Sauce, our man Pots and Pans - the one and only Jerry Blavat gets welcomed with a thunderous applause and cacophony of "Yo, Geator!"
As the Geatormobile turns off 15th Street and stops in front of City Hall, the sound tech tells me we have about a 10-minute lull in starting the parade and to play some more music and "do your DJ thing." Without missing a beat, I cue up Martha and the Vandellas' "Heat Wave" and Blavat nails it perfectly with his rat-tat-tat 27-second intro to the song as the crowd sings right along:
"According to! The bigtick-tock, on the tower power, clock correct! It's time-time, for the Big Boss, with the Hot Sauce! And it's got to be, the Geator with the Heator, Heator beater on the records, a swing-a-ling, a loop-a bop-a choo!"
Blavat hops out of the car and starts to dance in the middle of Penn Square. The seat ushers start to jitterbug and the members of the Philadelphia Police Highway Patrol, standing at attention along the steel-gate barricades, start tapping their toes in their black leather, knee-high motorcycle boots.
The sound-tech guy bellows to me to cut the music. And just like you never unplug the jukebox at the bar when Patsy Cline is crooning "Crazy," you never cut off Jerry Blavat and hundreds of other Philadelphians who've brought back American Bandstand at 15th and Market streets on New Year's Day. (So, I apologize if we started 15 seconds late.)
When Uptown started the competition for the String Band Division, just after 1 p.m., I knew that all the music now belonged to the Mummers, and that my 30,000-song library could not hold a feather plume to the banjos, accordions, saxophones and glockenspiels that had everybody's golden slippers tapping.