Hosted By:
Vipers Soul Club

When:
Friday, February 27, 2009

Where:
Shadow Lounge
5729 Baum Blvd.
Pittsburgh
15206

Description:
DJs spinning 1960s R&B, Motown and Northern Soul music. This month: Vipers Soul Club presents special guest J.MALLS (The Big Throwback) bringin' that heavy funk & soul to the Lounge. This is an age 18+ event (must be 21 to drink). $4 at the door. For more information, call (412) 363-8277. Smoke free.

Click Here To View Event

Vipers Soul Club: One-Year Anniversary and pre-Super Bowl Soiree!
+ guest DJ ANDY SMITH (London: Lost & Found, The Document, Portishead)
9pm (8pm doors), Sat., Jan. 31
Shadow Lounge, East Liberty
$8 advance / $10 door
For adv. Tix contact us or: brownpapertickets.com/event/50407
DJs: Andy Smith, Juddy & Gordy, Kris Rock, Jay Malls
1960s R&B, Motown, and Northern Soul

Fellow Vipers, All, one year ago, we came together in the hallowed halls of the Shadow Lounge to see to this thing we had need of.

To fill our souls with music and our bellies with wine. To let the Viper rhythms circulate and the Viper blues percolate.

To let the Viper vibes wash over us and insulate our souls against the deep-sea-diver pressures of an outside world that made us shiver and shake just like Li'l Willie John.

And now, one year later, our mission continues …

… BUT REDOUBLE YOUR HOPES, My Fellow Vipers All, because things are looking so up my neck hurts, and in honor of a helluva year, we've got some special guests a'comin so HOLD ON, HELP IS ON THE WAY!

You might'a heard of this fellow DJ ANDY SMITH. He's got a Curriculum Vitae as long as yer arm. He got famous diggin up samples and spinnin up platters for a thing called PORTISHEAD in the 1990s. He got Famouser with mix CDs like THE DOCUMENT I, II & III, three volumes of eccentric eclectic deejay madness that influence rekkid-pilots to this day, plus a hella-fine thing called DJ ANDY SMITH'S NORTHERN SOUL and other platters covering BOOGALOO, SKA, and REGGAE MUSIC!

These days, Andy headlines the best-damn weekly party in London, LOST & FOUND with the equally name-hot disc-jock KEB DARGE.

This month, VIPERS SOUL CLUB features Mr. DJ ANDY SMITH in his FIRST-EVER PITTSBURGH APPEARANCE, bringing the Lost & Found vibe of Northern Soul, Jump Blues, R&B, Boogaloo, Everythang, into the purview of We Vipers, All.

To help coax the night through, we've also retained the services of Pittsburgh's Prime Pilot of Platters, DJ JAY MALLS of The Big Throwback, droppin some of the Steel City's rarest 60s disks under the needle, and the first appearance in FOREVER by DJ KRIS ROCK, with a special funky tribute to a li'l thing we call THE PITTSBURGH GODDAMM STEELERS!!! Juddy & Gordy will be there, of course, with those Vipers Classics you've come to know and love over the past 12 installments, and there will of course be all your favorite SHADOW LOUNGE bartempters and bartemptresses, to serve you the lush libations that make you jiggle your bellies and crane your necks so mmm-hmmm goddamm sexy like on tha dancefloor.

Fellow Vipers, All, I can't tell you how much I CANNOT WAIT for this occasion to befall us. We have a new Prez, we have a new Year, we have a new U.S. of Goddamm A. to celebrate, and we sure-as-the-pope's-funny-hat know how to do it.

So tighten up your tie, button up your jacket. Put on your red shoes and your best wig, and let's do all those things we Know How To Do So Fine.

Juddy
January, '09

Last night was definitely my favorite episode yet, so to speak... here's Juddy's list. G and J can post whatever whenever.

ok...

(People were there before 10pm, so I started playing some crossover-ish things that I knew wouldn't get on later...)

Elements - Just to Be With You - Saru
Lee Williams & the Cymbals - A Girl from a Country Town - Rapda
Herman Griffin - Are you For Me or Against Me - Magic Touch
Edwin Starr - Running Back and Forth - Gordy
Jean Wells - What have I got to Lose - Calla
Originals - Don't Stop Now - Soul LP

(In no particular order, throughout the night...)

Timebox - Beggin' - Deram
Jimmy Robbins - I Can't Please You - Jerhart
Barbra Carr - Shake Your Head - Chess
Tommy Neal - Goin' To a Happening - Pameline
Freddy Scott - Pow City - Marlin
Kindly Shepherds - Lend Me Your Hand - Checker
Cavaliers - Hold to my Baby - RCA
Apollas - Mr. Creator - WB
Bandwagon - Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache - Epic (request)
Dells - Run for Cover - Cadet
Vito & the Salutations - I'd Best Be Going - Sandbag
Art Falls - I Want You Baby - Nautilus
5 Royales - Catch That Teardrop - ABC
Velvet Satins - Nothing Can Compare to You - General American
Gino - Only a Paper Moon - Golden Crest
Emanon's - Look in the Want Ads - All Brothers
Exits - Under the Street Lamp - Gemini
Yvonne Baker - You Didn't Say a Word - Cameo-Parkway (bootleg)
Millionaires - Never For Me - Philips
Gigi & the Charmaines - I Don't Wanna Lose Him - Kent 27th Anniversary
Whispers - Remember - Soul Clock
Little Eva Harris - Get Ready-Uptight - Spring
Fi-Dels - Try a Little Harder - Jay Boy
Vontastics - You Can Work It Out - St Lawrence
Marvin & Tammi - Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Tamla
Bob Seger - Heavy Music - Cameo (request)
Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out - Tamla
Bart Jackson - Dancing Man - Sound Facts

(Micro-set of Instrumental-ish's)

Soul Suspects - Funky Drop - Black Prince
Archie Bell - Tighten Up - Atlantic
Bar-Kays - Soul Finger - Volt

(Mini-set of straight-up Vipers)

Carl Henry Hall - Summertime - Mercury
Sonny Til and the Orioles - Hey! Little Woman - CP Parker
Anna Belle Caesar - Little Annie - Carlton
Miller Sisters - Pop Your Finger - Glodis
Ella Fitzgerald - These Boots are Made for Walking - Salle

(Mini-set of Boogaloo)

Ray Barretto - Soul Drummers - Fania
Joey Pastrana - King of Latin Soul - Cotique (reissue)
Dave Cortez & the Moon People - Happy Soul (w/a Hook) - Speed
Bobby Valentino - Use it before you Lose it - Jazzman reissue
Joe Bataan - Special Girl - LP

(End of night semi-slowie set)

New Young Hearts - Young Hearts Get Lonely Too - ZEA
Chuck Corby - Complete Opposites - Chess
Four Mints - Row My Boat - Capsoul
Yvonne Fair - Stay a Little Longer - Soul

Hosted By: Vipers Soul Club
When: Saturday Nov 22, 2008
at 10:00 PM
Where Shadow Lounge
5972 Baum Blvd.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|39 15206
United States
Description:
Vipers Soul Club

Click Here To View Event

Vipers Soul Club presents: THE BIG CRASH
10pm Fri., Oct 24
Shadow Lounge, East Liberty
DJs Juddy & Gordy
Special Guest DJs Des & Johnny direct from the UK!
www.viperssoulclub.com

"A new Hedonism – that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol." Unknown. Alternately attributed to Vipers Soul Club, in a message to its attendees, and Oscar Wilde, in Dorian Gray.

Fellow Vipers, these are trying times. Mean times; times of Crashes and Burns, of inescapable descents by staggering, jagged graphs plastered on the flat screens of our TVs and Dick Tracy watches. These when advertisements purposefully sell us negativity, and disbelief and pessimism are the only stocks whose value seems to rise.

But such prosaic times call for battle with poetry – a poetry not of words but of movements: "Be always searching for new sensations," we're told, and we pass the message along to you.

This will be, according to all the pollsters and pundits, The Most Important Soul Night of Your Life. But it is indeed Yours! All we can do is provide you with the finest 1960s R&B, Motown, and Northern Soul on the face of the earth with which to combat the foreclosure of the soul being attempted by the politicking and monied classes! Do with it what you will!

And provide, we shall, on Friday, Oct. 24 – the 79th anniversary of one big crash, which we hope shall translate into an even bigger Big Crash! A Big Crash of wild cathartic dancers, turning and turning in the widening gyre, in a ceremony of innocence that Shall Not Be Drowned!

Join us to celebrate the burden-shedding power of Hedonism as we drink, dance, and be merry, despite what rough beast may slouch towards Pittsburgh to be born – for we are the purveyors of a social poetry, for whom music is both ploughshare and sword!

To help us in our endeavor this month, DJs Des Parker and Johnny Beggs – northern soul legends, and Pittsburgh legends to boot – head back direct from the UK for one of their erratic Visits To The Vipers. The Crash continues on Saturday night as Vipers mainstay Gordy G moves on to crash into the Evaline Halloween Party with stacks of vicious vinyl. And for those with their minds on November 4, A new CD will be available – of rare and classic Chicago Soul and R&B – with all proceeds going to help make this whole democratic process thing go smoothly and without any mumbo jumbo from those who would keep our voices in check.

(Note: Vipers Soul Club has no time for partisan politics and makes no endorsements other than to say that our attempts at making a CD of Arizona soul music came up short.)

10pm, Fri., Sept. 19
Shadow Lounge, East Lib
VIPERS SOUL CLUB
DJ's Juddy 'n' Gordy spinning 1960s R&B, Motown, and Northern Soul
18+/21+ to sup the stuff of life, $4
www.viperssoulclub.com

Dear friends,

Last month, We Vipers done our good deed for the year: Thanks to your dancin' feet (and a few CD purchases) we raised long bucks on long odds, and besides our annual contribution to community organizers in New Orleans' still-floundering Ninth Ward, we were able to pay for a full month of programming at the Millvale Library project!

Yeah, that's right – against your will, you Vipers out there managed to help somebody besides yerself's. Kinda makes ya sick, don't it? Are you really gonna let some high-falutin' arugula eaters make a Florence Nightingale outta you without some kinda Dionysian donnybrook?

There's only one recourse: Hedonism.

That's why we've scheduled an emergency session of that bacchanalian bash known as VIPERS SOUL CLUB, hoping you'll STAY A LITTLE LONGER!

Sure as sugar, on Friday, September 19, we'll do that Vipers thing with all the Bad, Bad Whiskey and rough-hewn Rhythm 'n' Blues that you've grown accustomed to, but none of that 'social conscious' that makes ya spit vinegar.

After last month's debacle of dedication, We Vipers are ready for a little bit of a wang dang doodle, with nothing but the finest in the 1960s' HARD-EDGED R&B, STORMING NORTHERN SOUL, CLASSIC MOTOWN, WHISKEY-SOAKED JAZZ, CATHARTIC BOOGALOO, FRIDAY-NIGHT GOSPEL, and the rest of those venomous Vipers you've grown to know 'n' love.

Gentlemen, loosen your ties; Ladies, buy a new dress and bring a partner to hold your hair. We shall be stickin' it to the man by SHAKIN' and FINGERPOPPIN' from TEN 'til TWO, no doubt about it. Seeya then.

Cheers,
Vipers Soul Club

Vipers Soul Club presents: You Keep Telling Me it's Gospel
DJs Gordy & Juddy spinning 1960s R&B, MOTOWN & NORTHERN SOUL
Sat., July 26, 10pm-2am, $4, 18+/21+ to drink
(Be sure to get there in time for Rev. Juddy's GOSPEL SOUL set at MIDNIGHT!)

"It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another …" – William Blake

HOPE.

It's a word we're blasted with so commonly today, its new lingering politics overtaking its once-lauded candor.

But friends, We Many Vipers have long understood Hope to be more than a town down South; more than mere slogan or banner. To we Vipers, HOPE is a state of being – a resounding YES that reverberates through the sounds we live by and the world we dance in. It is the arc of our being, and the Maypole of our Ceremony!

HOPE is no mere church to us; no mortal altar on which to hang our flags, but rather the manna to our very souls; it is not our CHURCH but our GOSPEL!

This Saturday night, We Vipers shall once again join in the GHOST DANCE of HOPE, the conspiratorial midnight mass that brings with it no PRAYERS but only AWAKENINGS!

You Keep Telling Me It's Gospel, but I know that the empty words of snakeoil-salesmen preachers and pew-thumpers are mere church. We Vipers listen instead to the TRUE GOSPEL of our forefathers: Of William Blake and William Bell; of Jack Kennedy and Jackie Wilson; of James Joyce and Johnny Watson! We may not be Angels, but nor are we devils nor purgatorial wisps – no, We Vipers are the living and breathing; the fleshly embodiment of a New and Better World! One of MUSIC and DANCING; of ART and RHYTHM and BLUES and SOUL!

This Saturday at VIPERS SOUL CLUB, at that combination Road of Excess and Palace of Wisdom, the SHADOW LOUNGE, We Many Vipers shall gather once again to PREACH through our DANCING FEET the Gospel of MUSIC and of LIFE, and indeed, of HOPE! Join us with your drinks held high and your chest full of praise, because there is NOTHING that can defeat us once we have danced the dance and sung the song that is the GOSPEL of HOPE!