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Welcome back, beautiful souls… it’s that podcast girl, C-Dub. I wanted to give a quick shout out to our listeners tuning in from the UK tonight, thanks for your support from across the world.

Tonight—especially since the episodes on New York, New Jersey, and Detroit House Music are leading our search charts—we’re leaning deep into the roots, starting with New York City. We’re not just touching the pulse of ’90s NYC house. We’re breathing the air from those rooms.

Red Zone wasn’t just a club—it was a confession. David Morales famously called it the place where he “made a statement for the new age,” and he wasn’t exaggerating. He described that era as mixing the “dark side”—minimal vocals or no vocals—not just music, but revolution in 4/4. He said, “Red Zone was the turning point on the map for music changing.” People remember it as the spot that flipped disco into club soul through sheer grit, vinyl dig, and rebellious rhythm.

Red Zone was theater in flesh; the naked, the naughty, and the unapologetic moved inside it. The club embraced extreme self-expression—think raw nudity, sex, spontaneous hookups, and sometimes eruptions of violence. It was a place where curtains, fog, and a pulsing beat blurred lines between pleasure and performance. The edge was always one step away from confrontation, because survival in that crowd meant daring to be seen.

This was the home turf of the Club Kids—Michael Alig, James St. James, Screamin Rachael, Lady Buddy, Dan Dan the Naked Man, Goldie Loxxx—and the rest of that flamboyant crew who tore the norm apart with feathers, glitter. Their wild identities flashed, flirted, and fought in the space. They were Red Zone.

Imagine this: curtains hiding backrooms where sex happened behind velvet folds. Fog machines creating halos you couldn’t see—but felt in your bones. Fights that erupted out of passion or possession, fueled by too much adrenaline, and too little filter. Sex, chaos, and liberation weren’t just tolerated—they were invitation-only. Red Zone allowed things to come unhinged, and unhinged they became.

Then came NASA nights at The Shelter—NASA stands for Nocturnal Audio Sensory Awakening. Moby called it “utopian,” and Chloë Sevigny said it “transcended raves.” Imagine a Tribeca loft drenched in light and smoke, with acid, trance, and jungle tracks all whirled through that booth by Scotto and DB.

And then there was Sound Factory. It was hallowed ground—Junior Vasquez said people told him they were “going to church on Sunday morning… but they meant Factory.” He co-founded that room with Richard Grant and Christine Visca in 1989. Right in the heat of New York house’s golden era, Junior Vasquez dropped a track that became infamous—not just for its sound, but for how it ended a whole era.

The track “If Madonna Calls” (1996) loops a snippet from what sounded like Madonna’s voice on his answering machine:

“Hello Junior… This is Madonna… are you there? Call me in Miami.”

It continued with a cheeky retort — “If Madonna calls, tell her I’m not here.” The vocal loop was so bold that it became known as a “bitch track”—campy, savage, and hilarious in its defiance.

The story goes: Madonna allegedly bailed on appearing at his club night at The Tunnel, leaving him in the lurch. He turned that moment into house-music history—with total disregard for permission or precedent. Not surprisingly, Madonna never forgave the joke. Their friendship—and any chance of future collaboration—was done.

Yet the track exploded on dance floors. It did hit #2 on Billboard’s Dance Club chart and became a cult anthem for underground queer scenes and ballrooms. DJ queens would perform it, the sound of gossip and betrayal turne

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Send us a text if you like it and want more of it.

This is a podcast about house music. I'm thatpodcastgirl, C-Dub—and I want to thank all of you for helping us hit over 200 downloads in just three and a half months, across 11 episodes. JohnJohn guess what? We did it!

This episode is called: The Record Store.

Picture this: It’s the early '90s. Somewhere between grit and gold chains. Between big dreams and dirty sneakers. And on both coasts—if you wanted to find a sound, you walked into a record store.

Let’s start with Chicago.

Gramaphone Records: it wasn’t big. Tucked into a narrow space on Clark Street, its walls were crowded with bins and bins of vinyl. The floor had the signature black and white checkered tile. It smelled like plastic and cardboard and gum stuck to a sneaker. Flyers were shoved under the glass of the counter. The lighting was harsh and honest. But it was church.

DJs walked in like they had a mission. They’d flip through crates with the reverence of a surgeon in the middle of a procedure. Customers would clear out of the way if someone serious walked in. Because the booth in the back? That was sacred ground.

Behind the glass, a selector would listen to your picks. The staff could tell if you knew what you were doing by the second record you previewed. “If you played the wrong thing too loud, they’d cut the sound. You’d feel it before you even noticed.”

Gramaphone didn’t sell records. It passed on secrets. There were codes in the track listings. White labels with no names. You’d find the record someone played at 3AM that melted your brain—and it wouldn’t be there next week. You either knew when to come, or you didn’t and missed out.

Frankie Knuckles was a regular. So was Derrick Carter. But even if you weren’t a name, you could be a witness. One customer remembered watching Derrick build an entire set in the store over two hours—testing tracks, building tension, then walking out without a word.

“Gramaphone was like a dojo,” one woman said. “You didn’t go there to buy. You went to train.”

Over in New York—it was different.

Downtown, you had places like Vinylmania, Dance Tracks, and Satellite. Tucked behind basements. No two stores were the same. Some were dark and sleek, others crowded and chaotic. But all of them had a pulse.

Dance Tracks, on East 3rd Street, had tall racks and endless stacks, plus a community board with handwritten ads—DJ needed. Roommate wanted. One wall had stickers from clubs that no longer existed. Another had a memorial photo of someone from the scene, framed with scribbled tributes.

This is where Joe Claussell got his start. Where François K would come through in his sunglasses. Where a new DJ might overhear a conversation that would change everything.

One regular recalled being handed a record and told, “Don’t play this unless you mean it.” Another described the joy of walking in hungover, digging through wax, and finding a beat so perfect it made you cry.

At Vinylmania, there were whispers. About a rare Japanese pressing. About a reel from a closing party. About a limited promo that came in through someone’s cousin in Detroit. It wasn’t about the money. It was about the mythology.

These stores weren’t commercial. They were coded. You had to dress the part, or dress in defiance of it. Some people came in gender-blurred—baggy pants, nail polish, stubble and gloss—because in those four walls, there was no wrong way to be. In fact, dressing ambiguously sometimes gave you more space. People didn’t know how to categorize you, so they left you alone.

One woman recalls she never got called out for being a woman in the DJ booth because she wore oversized hoodies and kept her voice low. “If I didn’t speak, they assu

Copyright 2025. “This is a Podcast About House Music” hosted by C-Dub

Send us a text if you like it and want more of it.

This is a podcast about house music. I’m thatpodcastgirl, C Dub, and I’m here to guide us through the untold stories behind the house music. This season, we’re remembering what was almost lost—what pulsed in the basslines and lived in the corners. Stories that stayed alive only because someone danced them into memory. Picture this:

It’s 2024, and you’re in Berlin. A DJ pulls out a vinyl with no label and no sleeve. Just black wax and instinct. She drops it. It’s from Shelter. A remix from decades ago. The crowd roars. But most people in the room don’t know that track was once played in protest. They don’t know about the night the beat was an act of defiance.

In the early 1980s, a virus began to spread. And for far too long, the world stayed quiet.

The clubs that gave people freedom—places like the Warehouse, the Paradise Garage, the Power Plant—became spaces of mourning. Dancers disappeared every week. DJs lost their friends. Party flyers became obituaries.

The government wasn’t naming it. So the music did.

Michael Roberson is a scholar, a father of the House of Garcón, and a Black queer activist. He’s often spoken about the ballroom floor as a sacred place during the AIDS epidemic.

“We were losing people every week. So we danced with them, for them, through them.”

For Michael and so many others, house wasn’t just escape. It was church and it was ritual. It was where you could scream into the bass and still be held.

At the Paradise Garage, DJ Larry Levan began playing extended versions of tracks with long breakdowns and pauses. Sometimes he left full seconds of silence.

Club historian Tim Lawrence says:

“People would stand still, or scream, or weep. The music gave them space to grieve.”

In 1989, ACT UP held a die-in at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. That same night, on the floor at a gay club in New York, dancers lay down in silence.

They called it dancing to remember.

There’s also a story about a track that included a voicemail. The voice said:

“I can’t go on.”

Nobody agrees on who made it, and some say it was a real message. Others say it was constructed from memory.

It was played only once. In a small club. Quiet room. Full of people who understood.

Then the beat dropped.

At the door, the ten-dollar cover might be for the DJ—or for someone’s casket. Sometimes it paid for AZT. Sometimes for rent, or a hospital bed.

At the Shelter in New York, one woman came every weekend, in the same shirt. She danced in the same corner.

“I’m here for my brother,” she told the DJ once. “He used to dance here. I still do it for him.”

At certain parties, there was a board behind the DJ booth—names were pinned, and candles lit. It wasn’t advertised because it didn’t need to be - those were friends.

Flyers used coded language: “This one’s for family,” or “bring your breath.” That meant someone had passed. That meant come ready to move through it.

These weren’t just parties. They were vigils on the dance floor.

Frankie Knuckles once said:

“You can play joy. But you can also play mourning. The floor knows the difference.”

The dancefloor didn’t ignore the crisis. It became the memorial.

And for some, it stayed that way. From the early 1980s through the late 1990s—and even into the 2000s in clubs like The Shelter and Body & Soul—these spaces continued to hold grief and memory. Candles continued behind the

Copyright 2025. “This is a Podcast About House Music” hosted by C-Dub