“Not everyone understands House music; it’s a spiritual thing, a body thing, a soul thing.”

How do you begin to review an absolute DJ legend? A man who is not only an amazing DJ but has also had a key role in creating House music into what it is today. Well that’s what I’ve had to do this week, review one of the most momentous moments in Melbourne’s dance scene history – the American Todd Terry (X-Mix Productions/NYC) playing in Melbourne for the first time ever! Friday 13 April was full of luck indeed for true House fans in Melbourne!

Todd Terry’s extensive career has been highly significant for not only the House scene but also across other genres as his influence has been felt much wider a field. Perhaps more so than any of his early East Coast compatriots, Terry was the producer who really set about changing the parameters of House music in the first post-Chicago wave of the mid-80s. Growing up in Brooklyn, Terry was inspired by hip-hop to take up DJing with his first gig in 1983. Since then he has had a wide-ranging career spanning over 20 years covering not only DJing but major House music production and remixing, with some tracks doing well not only in the clubs but also on the charts. Terry’s productions can be described as a varied smorgasbord of samples blending the sounds of classic disco, the more introspective Chicago sound pioneered earlier in the decade, four-to-the-floor backbone, storming bass-heavy drum kicks plus plenty of hip-hop attitude and sampling piracy.

The recently renovated and revamped Billboard’s “The Venue” was the ideal venue to host such a name, a venue recently taken over by Carl Cox’s good buddy and fellow Brit, Eric Powell, who has also settled into Melbourne and the Melbourne dance scene with great ease. Eric happily did the rounds early on, making his presence known to all. A very simple stripped back venue, Billboard’s looks set to become a hot venue to see visiting internationals as it can be easily adapted to suit various sounds. Its basic layout and levelling, allows everyone to easily see the DJ and still effortlessly get to the bar and toilets. Plus the drinks are reasonably priced as well. Perfect. Who needs airs and graces when you have a great spot to dance? I know I certainly don’t! Smiling security is always nice too.

The night began with local talent, Funky D, on the decks, warming the slowly spilling in crowd up while they sipped their red bulls and vodkas, with some smooth grooving soulful House, keeping it pure yet underground for the masses. He even slipped in the odd skilful mash-up, including one with Fred Wesley’s ‘House Party’.

Another local face, Arlen De Silva, continued on the soulful House tracks, playing happy melodic House to the older and knowledgeable male-dominated crowd. He kept the house rockin’ on slipping in tracks like ‘Rock the Discotek’ by Ramp, sampling up loads, all accompanied by trippy visuals of kaleidoscope-inspired colours and views, Legomen, and the intriguing opening hand to reveal a capsule inside. What’s that all about? winks

At 2.10am the magic began to happen as Todd Terry aka “Todd the God” stepped up to the decks in his shiny white sneakers, jeans and baseball cap on backwards to a cheering crowd. All of a sudden – waaaaawooooh! The bass was pumped up, you could feel it on the hairs on your arms. The stage dropped back the lights and the screens, building up for this exciting moment, and as Terry started up with tribal beats, the place went mental!

Clean as a whistle, Terry’s set proceeded to show his years of experience with seamless mixing, incredibly clean and tight layering of tracks, and just extreme quality DJing. No mistakes here my friends, just clear and magic mixing and drop backs. Taking us on a history of his career and the House music scene, Terry took us through tracks such as ‘Bango to the Batmobile’, one of his very first releases, ‘I’ll be your friend’ by Robert Owens, and ‘Work it to the Bone’ by Frankie Bones. He also threw in for the trainspotters the awesome sample of Jermaine Jackson shouting “Can you feel it?” at a concert in Washington DC with the Jackson 5 in the late seventies. So good.

Adding element on element, teasing us over and over again with snippets of tracks and vocals, Terry made every part of his set his own. At 2.54am, he did a mash up of Royal House’s anthemic and irresistible (and Terry produced) ‘Can U Party’ with The Jungle Brothers’ ‘I’ll House You’, both huge tracks in their time and major UK and European club cuts with their raw bass-lines. ‘Can U Party” with it’s ‘Can you feel it?’ refrain, devastating police sirens and colossal bass-line, this Acid House anthem remains one of the era’s most memorable tracks.

Much of Todd Terry’s early work (late 80’s) is considered a milestone in the development of both progressive and modern Deep House. He has been responsible for releasing two of the most respected crossover remixes of the House era: “I’ll House You” by the Jungle Brothers and “Missing” by Everything But the Girl. Unfortunately the latter was never played on this particular night.

Local talent, DJ Geisha (www.xStremist.com/djgeisha) was in awe, living the dream of seeing one of his DJing heroes. With more classic House knowledge than anyone I know, Geisha kept me on my toes with the tunes as we took turns naming the tracks. He won obviously. The crowd at the front was friendly and varied, no set dress code applied, you just had to dance. Nice to encounter such a vibe again since some places and people in Melbourne seem to have lost the whole point of dance music it seems these days.

Back to Terry, pulling out more classics like ‘Plastic Dreams’ by Jaydee (Farley & Heller remix we thought), acid house massive Black Riot’s ‘Day in the Life (One of Terry’s guises), and Lil Louis famously sampled track of ‘How’s Your Evening So Far?’ by Josh Wink with some Loletta Holloway sampled over the top in places, Terry kept the crowd moving as the beats rolled on. Other huge Terry tracks, ‘Something Goin’ On’ and ‘Keep on Jumpin’’ (including verses!) both featured, were both UK Top Ten hits, with the vocals provided by Jocelyn Brown and Martha Wash. Body and soul, Terry worked us til the end, building us up and up, never stopping with the relentless rolling House beats.

At 4.22am, Terry came to an end, but not before one encore, playing ‘Promised Land’ by Joe Smooth, a track for the real House music lovers. Terry remained expressionless to the end, concentrating intently throughout his set, though made it sound like it was as easy as putting on your shoes. Featuring six brand new tracks for an upcoming album, Terry’s set incorporated past, present and future, updated classics, and a load of awesome remixes and mash-ups. Focusing mainly on CD-Js, Terry showed that he has moved with the changing times and that he still is “Todd the God” after all these years – still playing real House music and still passionate about the music. I wish he hadn’t waited so long to come to Melbourne.

All I can say now is: House music all night long!

www.billboardthevenue.com.au