Welcome to the germantown G9 Disk DocumentationThis CD attempts to present a snapshot as of Dec'06 of the Israeli dance music played and danced in the Phila. area. Many people have contributed to this CD in both content and editing, including
The venues covered at that time are indicated below (and in italics, changes if applicable)
Featured Artists | |||
 |  |  |  |
| Karina Lambert | Ari Levy | Van McCoy | Shlomo Maman |
The now refurbished G9 disk is of special interest to the disk coordinator. The original CD in this series, G8, was the result of trying to pass on information about dances to those participating in the Sunday morning Germantown sessions early in 2006. Don Schillinger was making an appearance at Germantown in April or May of that year and gave Grant (and possibly Patty) tracks of music pertaining to what he would be teaching. Several of us got together to create a CD and the designation of G8 pertained to the name of the folder on the computer that held these tracks of music and other tracks that might be used on this CD. The person creating the G8 disk had no idea what he was doing - in fact if he had any common sense he would not have tried this - and was using very primitive software. There was an assumption that approx 2 minutes of unused space remained on that CD and the only music he had that was under 2 minutes in length to test this against was the James Bond theme from the movie, Dr No. This incident has been related on this web site before but it got this individual to thinking whether he could marry Israeli dance music with other musics. With this CD (designated as G9 in accordance with the fact that it was the next in a series after G8), when it came out in Dec'06, there was a specific intent to add a track of non Israeli dance music to it and the choice was very logical: this is a personal favorite, The Hustle by Van McCoy and the soul city symphony. Why this music? Van Mccoy was a well known musician specializing in what would be called soul music. On a trip to New York for a recording session - we think this is at the end of 1975 - he is invited by friends to visit a club in Brooklyn specializing in a new type of latin dancong. This is a hardening of cha cha, if you will, almost a union of classical 40's dancing with Latin influence. In essence what we mean here is a type of beat where jitterbug steps (now known as east coast swing) and latin steps (cha cha, rumba, etc) could all be done to this music. What was nice for dancers is that the music was particulaly inviting to couples and this really became the last couple dance craze in this country. This writer became aware of this music in easly 1976 and was about to spend a good part of 4 years in nightly dancathons centering around locations that would become known as discos featuring this music generally designated as hustle. It was here that he suffered hearing problems from the loudness and percussion of the music and he became aware of drugs now known as uppers and downers and their effect on people (although he was much too naive to partake himself) This is way before the movie that made this into a craze, Saturday Night Fever. The reader should also be aware that the hustle as a dance evolved from the Latin Hustle, which Van McCoy would see on his trip to Brooklyn that night (and was the dance prominently featured in Saturday Night Fever), into the more stylish Disco Hustle which dance teachers are still teaching today as this is written.
We don't know if Van McCoy was to spend the next 4 years, like the disk coordinator, in discos every night but he did something that no else could. He took the implied beat of this music and created what this author still considers the greatert Hustle dance number the next day in the sound studio where he was recording, after his trip to Brooklyn. This became the ending of the album he was about to release and even more importantly became the music theme for this type of dancing. What it lacks as far as lyrics, it more than makes up in energy and beat. It's title, The Hustle, is right to the point. It's with great pleasure that this track was included in this CD when it was created late in '06 (and included in this reissue) and with this inclusion, the idea of the G series 'Kicker' for these CDs was born.
On a sad note, Van McCoy passed away much too early in life suffering a heart attack in July 1979. He was only 39 at the time but he leaves a great legacy as a musician and this legacy includes this kicker for the G9 CD, The Hustle.