Saturday Night Dance Party

Here’s how I remember it:

I started high school in the fall of 1982, already firmly established as a full-blown New Wave devotee.  There were a handful of hardcore punks at the school, complete with heavy black boots and mohawks, but very few other New Wave fans.  There was a kid named Chad who wore an Ian Dury & The Blockheads shirt during gym class, but he already had his tight-knit clique and seemed too cool to talk to the kid with the B-52’s t-shirt. My “long” hair (over the ears but above the neck) may have had something to do with it as well.

By the Spring of 1983 there was a girl named KT in one of my classes who seemed really into a lot of the same bands I was, and she was friendly. We struck up a conversation and became friends.

One day in class KT told me about a new New Wave dance party that some sober/AA people were putting on at the park building on 26^th and Grand. I knew the park building well as it was a block from Oarfolk Jokeopus records, one of the only record stores in town that carried import singles by A Flock Of Seagulls and Classix Nouveaux.

Later that day I told Billy about it and we made plans to check it out the following Saturday night.

When Saturday afternoon rolled around Billy and I met up at one of our houses to listen to our ever-growing record collections and to make plans for that night, figuring out the bus schedules etc.  I wanted to go earlier than the start time of the dance in order to hit up the record store and see what had come in that I couldn’t live without.

We hopped the #18 bus around 5:00 and made it to Oarfolk about 20 minutes later. They closed at 6:00 so I frantically dug through the singles but didn’t find anything that had to be added to my collection. We went to the convenience store next to the record shop and bought caffeinated beverages and sugary snacks, then sauntered over to the park building.

There was no one there.

We sat around on the swings trying to figure out how to spend the rest of our evening now that our original plans were dashed, when all of a sudden a little hatchback car screeched up and 2 guys jumped out. They started pulling speakers and other audio gear out of their car along with crates of records. Billy recognized that these must be the guys hosting the dance party and we both breathed sighs of relief. We finished our delicious sugary snacks and watched as the 2 guys pulled seemingly endless amounts of gear out of their tiny car. By 7:00, door time, they were set up and ready to rock. Billy and I paid our $2 .00 cover and entered to the sounds of David Bowie's "Let's Dance".

It was glorious!

There were about 20 other misfit kids who showed up to dance along to DEVO, Blondie, Men Without Hats, Psychedelic Furs, Bananarama…  I had a curfew of midnight, and the dance went until 1:00 so I would have to dip out before the festivities wound up, but Billy was going to stick around til the end. At 11:30 I left, alone, and made my way the 6 blocks to the bus stop and caught another #18, filled with elation that I not only found a place I felt I fit in, but that played the music that I loved. AND they played stuff that was new to me, which was a bonus.  Until then the only places I found new music was either at the record stores or on KBEM, the jazz station run by the City Of Minneapolis, but had a new wave and punk show on Friday nights called Ready Steady Go. A year later they would feature another new wave show, this one on Sunday nights and called Radio One. Those two shows would open my ears to so many new bands! I can’t imagine how my life would have turned out without them.

The next afternoon Billy and I got together and he filled me in on what I missed after I had to split. He ended up talking to the guys who were putting the dance on, and offered our services the next week in setting up, so things weren’t so hectic (and so we wouldn’t have to pay the $2.00 cover charge!). We screwed around for a few hours, then I went home and prepared for the new school week.

I saw KT and told her of my exploits at the dance, and asked why she wasn't there. I can't remember her excuse but it didn't matter. I thanked her for turning me on to it and told her I was planning on going the following Saturday.

The next Saturday Billy and I once again hopped the bus and made our way to the dance party. As usual the two hosts were cutting it to the last minute in showing up. We walked over to their car and, true to Billy's word, helped them load in the P.A. and the crates of records, and helped set up once inside. They let us dig through the records and pull out songs we wanted to hear. When the system was finally set up they tested it out by playing the very UN-New Wave Nightfly album by Donald Fagan, which, to this day, I can't figure out why.

And that's how Billy and I spent Saturday nights in the summer of '83.

They stopped holding the dances once the new school year started in the fall, and that was OK. I met An(gie) Archy by then and had other things to occupy my time with.

Spring of 1984 and we had heard that they were going to resume the Saturday night dance party, and Billy and I checked out one of the first onces, but by that time our tastes were changing; Billy was getting into the electronic/industrial scene and I was getting into the punk scene, and the dance party just didn't hold the same magic it did the previous summer.