black box 1990

"Ride On Time" conjures everything for me. It was the summer of '89, I just returned home from a year of mandatory military service (in Europe), was about to start university, went out to a club with a friend and this came on and I was in heaven - the world belonged to me! (of course, the shirt came off almost immediately...)

DREAMLAND so you can get your body DOWN!

I Dont Know Anybody Else! Heard as a young closeted military gayling at Club West Coast in San Diego.

I was a club kid and danced on a giant speaker with Brandy Wine and Brenda A-GO-GO to Strike it Up painted in fluorescent colors. It was at a Lee Chappell party at the Roxy. I had a magic wand I was waving over all the sweaty bodies. This was 1992. Just like R1, the world belonged to ME!

STRIKE. IT. UP!

There was a bar in Tijuana that played Strike it Up whenever we walked in. It was a straight bar, but the gays would sometimes dance with one another and no one said anything.

Fuck these motherfuckers!!!

Too bad youtube took down the clip of lip-syncher Karin whatever her name was. getting caught on live mic singing along with Martha Wash's vocals. That shit would make dogs howl.

I still have a copy of it thankfully and watch when I need a laugh.

It's hard to listen knowing they did Martha WRONG but I'm still listening.

I had stopped clubbing by the time this music came out, but I did wear out the CD.

Spotify just led me to the song FINALLY by Ce Ce Peniston which was like my gay ANTHEM in the early 90's. Finally is has happened to ME!!!! I'm a giant queen that has sex with men!!!!!!!

You need to capitalize Black!

I've seen it all lowercase on their album covers. Also WHO CARES?!

God, these are bangers.

I still find it funny that Ride On Time was the best selling single of 1989 in the UK, but not a hit in the US, and the two biggest US hits Everybody X2 and Strike It Up didn't make the top 10 in the UK.

10-cent drink nights!!

Wacky Wednesday's the drinks were FREE. FREE. Needless to say I blacked out every Wednesday.

I was only about 6 or 7 but I remember Black Box and Gonna Make You Sweat on the radio and MTV constantly. I had the Dance Mix USA compilations as well which had all these types of songs from this era.

Gotta love Martha Wash. i now love all her work from the Sylvester days to Two Tons of Fun and the First Ladies of Disco. She always gave back and acknowledged her gay fanbase and has done lots of AIDS benefits. She’s a doll.

Was it ever established if Katrin Quinol was indeed a proud black trans woman of colour? That was the rumour when I was at school, but people also thought Bea Arthur was really a man.

R3: Club West Coast and Peacock Alley (both in San Diego). Such good memories of my youth.

For once one of my DL posts yields what I was hoping for. YAY ME!-OP

Actually, the sampled vocals on the original were Loleatta Holloway's, not Martha Wash's. Then, when the song started to cross over from clubs to pop charts, they replaced her vocals with the rerecorded ones by Heather Small (the singer of M People). But, once the royalties cleared, I think the Loleatta's version is the one you'll generally hear today.