Transcription
But I was in Chain Reaction for a quick. We were all in Chain Reaction. Point. And it was, it was weird that how it went down that way. But I was in Chain Reaction. I had started dancing about six months in. I ended up joining a group and we were performing at Flippers Roller Boogie for the promotional party for Xanadu. Because when I met them, they had just finished shooting the movie, but it hadn't come out yet. So about six months later, it's done with editing, it's getting ready to come out, and Chain Reaction was asked to perform every Tuesday night at Flippers Roller Boogie for about six weeks as a promotional party for, um, for the movie. And, uh, so all the stars from the movie would show up to Flippers Roller Boogie. They were all roller skating. At some point, they would remove the skaters off the floor, Chain Reaction went out, and we did our thing.
Um, now I wasn't a locker yet. Now they were doing two numbers that night. So the originals were doing the locking, and then I came in to do the popping. Because apparently Bob and, uh, uh, oh, what was his name? Mike Donnelly, Mike, weren't as strong with popping as they wanted to be, I guess, or whatever the case may be. So, but, uh, so I ended up stepping in as, as a popper. But I wanted to learn how to lock, and I kept pressing it, and they kept telling me, "That's, that's old. That's old. We're not doing that anymore." Which I thought was really strange because they were so good at it. And, but I do appreciate the fact that they were trying to move forward. But, you know, bring it with you. There's no, there's no rules that say you can't bring your past with you. That's all I've done for the last 45 years.
So, um, I started going over to like Richie. And now, I don't believe Jazzy had ever even been to the Ozone yet. He may have been, but I hadn't met him. So hanging out with Richie. What's that? I couldn't get in yet. I was, I was yet 16. God, that's awesome. That's so awesome. So I start going, I start going to Richie and asking him to teach me some basic locking moves. So he invited me over to his house. He was such a cool dude. We went to the Rec Room. And, uh, that version of Richie is still the same version of Richie you get today. That's what I love about it. And, uh, he started showing me some locker moves, and I'm like, "Okay." And, you know, the day after I saw popping for the first time, I woke up Saturday morning because it was a Friday night. I woke up Saturday morning and immediately started trying to copy what I, what I saw. Which was very strange. But I didn't realize at that point I was doing choreography. I didn't know how else to learn unless I started trying to copy what I saw. But I couldn't remember what I saw, so I was just doing my own version of it, which was obviously would have been embarrassing in front of people. But, you know, moving forward, Richie taught me the basics to locking. We formed a, a friendship. Uh, there was a guy named Delvin Akens, who was from a group called Dance Connection, but they never, they never really got it, got it going. And they, Ah, that's nice. There it is. That's the funk. That's that's the energy right there. Right? No, lot club, club, club. I, I personally, I don't like watching footage of me dancing back in the day. It just drives me crazy. Um, but, uh, so I learned, I was started learning how to lock. And then, uh, started talking to Delvin. And me and Delvin started working on popping routines. Delvin could lock a little bit. And then we started to put this group together. And Delvin introduced us to, he goes, "There's a guy at my, at my high school, and he's, he's really good at this." And that here and there. And Jazzy came in. We met him day one. We started showing him choreograph. Club. Delvin Akens was the one who told me about Kaleidoscope. So I went there a couple of times. Him, David Meltzer. Um, yeah. Uh, I just, couple guys. A group that never really got off the ground. Dancers in there. Delvin being one. Dancers. They were to call the fancy dancers. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And, uh, then all of a sudden, you know, slowly was Shirley. It was me, Jazzy, and Richie, and Delvin. And we were doing our thing. I got, I gotta tell a funny story real quick about me, Jazzy, and because I didn't know Jazzy. You know, Delvin brought Jazzy in. And, and Richie and Delvin already knew each other. So I was kind of the odd man out. And I came in and we started doing this thing. But I, I tend to be, I'm very driven. So I immediately went to the owner of the Ozone and said, "We want to perform." Because Chain Reaction used to perform once in a while. And we said, "We want to perform." We a group called Dance Connection. Now, there was a group Body Magic, and there was Rhythmatic Boogie. And I hadn't seen them perform yet. I just knew they were groups. Um, so all of a sudden, Chain Reaction had performed probably three times over this short period. Um, so me, Jazzy, Delvin, and we did a performance that night. And we did a little bit of locking, and then we did some popping. And that was it. Two weeks later, Chain Reaction decides they're going to show us how locking is supposed to be. They hadn't been locking. They kind of laid it off to the side. But they came back and they killed it. They, they really, they really did really good. And then all of a sudden, we were like, "Oh, snap. We got to step up our game." So here comes Body Magic. Meantime, Body Magic, Shawn had just gotten back. I think he was in some sort of military thing. Shawn throws Body Magic back together again. They come out and they did a number, and they were good too. They were really good. Sean was one of the funkiest lockers I'd ever seen. Yeah. So, yeah. Pand Pelock. Exactly. And, uh, so we, we watched Chain Reaction, and then we watched, uh, Body Magic. And then we came back. The four of us. We were working hard. We were going to the old Zone. At this point, for, I don't know why, but we had access to the club. We were literally able to go in there and rehearse on things. Either there or Richie, uh, uh, Richie's Rec Room. So we were Courtyard outside. Say that again? The courtyard. Tennis. When they play tennis outside. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Was all that's crazy. And, uh, so we came back and we did a number that we created. A Dance Connection banner. And there were two exit doors on each side of the DJ booth. And, um, we had people come hold the banner. And somebody came, came looked like they were going to come busting through the banner. But I came running through the wrong door. And I acted like, "Oh, man." And then Richie came crawling out from underneath the banner. He popped up. We wied this. And it turned out to be this really, really good performance. And, um, after that, it was just, it was the four of us for a little while. But I got to tell this story because this is how amateur we were. Even though we were good, we were amateur. We showed up to an audition. And this has to be, this is before, this is before, um, the movie Flashdance came out. So this has to be 1982, um, maybe maybe late '81. Um, uh, not even late '81, probably halfway through '81. We had an audition in Westwood. The four of us went down there. We had our routine put together. And right before we performed, I told Jazzy, I told Delvin, I told Richie, I said, "Our music is only so long. So when we go out for our solos, please just do like four counts of eight. And that's it. Just do four counts of eight." Delvin, uh, Richie was the first one to go out, and he took a little longer than he was supposed to. Then Delvin went out there and took forever. Jazzy, I went out there to do my solo. I went out for like two counts of eight because I knew the mic. We were in trouble. And we still had a, we still had a routine that we needed to do when we came back from our solos. So I went out there for like two counts of eight. I came running back in. Here goes Jazzy. And he gets out there, and he's just getting to the end of like four counts of eight, and the music starts fading out. And we still have more combo to do. So right then and there, I was so, so pissed at Delvin and Richie for for taking longer than they were supposed to. Um, that I literally was cussing, cussing at them while we were, while we were in the audition, like on the stage. So that kind of ended Dance Connection. Didn't end our friendship. It just ended Dance Connection. Me and Jazzy stayed together. I don't even know how or why, but I felt like me and Jazzy were on the same page. So we stayed together. We grabbed Kyle from Chain Reaction, and we grabbed Tracy and Adrian, who we used to call Salt and Pepper. And we put together a group called Aftershock. And I forgot that. Yeah, right. So it, it's me, Jazzy, big giant tall Kyle in the middle. And Kyle was a really good locker, really good popper. And, um, Buzzy K. What's that? His name nickname was Buzzy K. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Buzz. That's right. Buzzy K. And, um, so he used to be a bouncer at the Ozone, but then he stopped working out and got real serious about dance. And then after he had been dancing, he ended up joining the Boogaloos for a little bit. They were performing at the Playboy Club. Playboy Club. Yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden, he stopped dancing. And I didn't see him for like six or seven years. And all of a sudden, I see him again, and his arms are as bigger than his head. He's gone back to, I think steroids, and he's doing the whole weightlifting thing competition. That was Kyle. But, uh, yeah, me and Jazzy basically stayed together after Dance Connection kind of fizzled. But we all still stayed friends. We were still seeing each other at the clubs and all that. And then here comes the movie, uh, Flashdance. And then breaking gets crazy. So we just, we just all got so busy as dancers. It was banana. Well, my locking history come from my cousins from Pasadena. A lot of the moves was coming through their filter through me. Then being rec-corrected, redirected when I went to the Ozone because a lot of moves was coming in from Kyle, from the, from the Playboy Club, being along with Electric Boogaloos, and also from, uh, Chain Reaction. I got to give it to Chain Reaction. Chain Reaction looking at lockers bringing up in within the Ozone. But then I got to give it to me and Terry because every time the lockers would come on TV at night, we supposed to call each other. So that's how we learned a lot. Cuz we didn't have no, no YouTubes or video or tape, whatever it was. It was phone. I'm on right now. Go boom. TV. We watching the lockers. If they are Saturday Night Live or Midnight Special, whatever time they come on, that phone be dial, dial up, boom on the phone. And then, uh, yeah, I start off with Dance Connection, which is, uh, a lot of foundation. Learn a lot of stuff from Richie. The directional points, what not. And then, then it came to, uh, LA City Rockers with Terry. I give Terry a lot of credit on this too because he led to do routines. Routines that, you know, most, he made up most of them. We try to put some moves together. And within means of going around Terry. But even KCK Jr. would say, "Yo, Jaz, you know, you know Terry watch be taking your moves, twist him around, throw the routine from you can't do." Then he goes behind, behind your back and do them, you know? So anyways, yeah. So I start with Terry. And then, um, then I went on after that. I went on with to Lockers. I gr joined up with the Lockers. And I already had the foundation of locking, which I did. But, uh, fluky. Lly us all up in the line. When the Lockers are back and told me, "I didn't know the key." And I said, "What's the key?" And then we went to do the rap song. It was up, lock, lock, 12 L, point. That was my part of this rap song. And then when I was doing a rap song, I was kind of doing an on and off beat. And then they said, "No, sing that part again. Up, lock, lock, 12 L, point. Come on and rock this joint. No, do your locking like that." And that's when I learned the key is up, lock, lock, twist, and point. You see it? Can you see it? It's over here. Well, anyways, can you see my arms? Wait, can you see my finger? Yeah. But anyway, yeah. So, um, that's pretty much it. Uh, a lot of it came from being a with the LA City Rockers. You know, that was the foundation in between because we took a lot of stuff within our, myself. We took locking a little bit further from, for me, because I learned all I got. I see. I need to demonstrate. I learned a lot of different types of points within being with the, uh, with the LA City Rockers. Even our, our popping skills got on a whole another level. You know, so, um, for us, for us, how we generated ourselves and we made a name for ourselves being on different TV shows and traveling. We put in our work. Yeah. Well, popping is, is really how you're, you're most known. Um, for those who don't know, um, Jazzy Jay joined the iconic Electric Boogaloo. Yeah. Joins Electric Boogaloos. That's I was fight. See, the thing with my, my, I was looked at these people on on TV and I said, "I saw that and I go, I want to do it like that. That way." Electric Boogaloos. And I honestly, I got so good at it that I'm able to join the Electric Boogaloos. That's how serious I got with this dance. Even with the Lockers. I saw the Lockers. I said, "I want to lock just like them guys over here with them. I got to join the Lockers. I got to be in, uh, Tony Basil's choreography on on her TV shows." When I met Terry too, we went all over the place. But yeah, but, um, with that, with that said, yeah, I, I developed myself where I want to dance with the best. That's how I felt. Whomever it is. Even full circle out here. These these different groups that I join out here that I've been keep going. I want all the ones at top doing their thing. That's who I want to be with. That's how I develop myself. Even, even this age right now, about to be my birthday's coming up. Imagine in what, six days? My birthday's coming up. October 6th. I'm gonna be, uh, 61. And I'm still on my game. I'm still on my game. If anything, it has got stronger. Only because I'm able to concentrate more. Huh? Knowledge and wisdom, homie. Yeah. And age. Because it hurts when you don't do the right thing. I'm kidding. Dig. Yeah. Knowledge and wisdom. You sit back and you go, instead of flying through it, whatever, you go back and you go, "Whoa." You start developing your, your technique. And you start watching yourself and watching others. Instead of being that battle. I was always in that battle zone. That battle zone. But it's not against people. My battle zone was against me. Yeah. I, and go, "I should have did this or that. Don't look as good as that." Or, you know, even with my locking. My locking got to where I wasn't doing it as much. I was doing it, but I was being filmed as much because people would gravitate to the popping. But me, rest in peace, Shabo, Shabadu. Got mad at me one day. Me and Shabo used to go back and forth. He love. We, I love, man. That's my love. But he told me, he goes, "Jazzy, you keep showing me this popping stuff. When you going to start showing me that locking stuff?" So now, in between certain things, I would do. Now, when I do a solo, now I try to, if I'm not out of energy, I will pop and try to put my locking in it on stage with it as well. Yeah. Well, you mentioned battles. What I really would love to ask you guys about is how, how was the battle in back in the day? Because this modern concept of the way it's so organized. I mean, that's something I really see come later on. So like, I hear that in your guys' day, it was much more to do with crews and and routines. Am I right? Yeah. I was a battle fanatic. It was not just crews. With if I see you with leathers in your jacket, I'm stepping to you. And to me, it was that's just how it was. And there's here's a story that between when, when was that club called Max? His one battle prot take particular because it's the one point of our, of Del City Rocket. We wasn't hanging out as much in the clubs. We were together. We only get together when it's time to do a a gig or so. I mean, individually, we hang out. But to go to clubs, it was kind of fading out for us. But I went to this club called called Max. And there was this group called Ground Control. And they break because we, that's the only thing usse to L City Rockets. I give it to us. This, we knew how to break as well. Lock and pop. Do I have my swipes? I had all that that together too, you know what I mean? I wasn't better than Terry, but I had because he had head spins, his wom was a little faster. M got good too. But day, um, so this what happened was they were, you know, they, that was I was by myself as usual. So I end up battling them. And then, then they went to school because I'm still, still in school. I mean, part of, uh, KN, KN, the people still in high school. And within, uh, junior college and all. But they went back and was telling people that they turned us out. And I said, "What?" And I was able to get all the fellas together. Laugh this one. I get all the fellas together. Finally got Anthony, finally got Terry, Renee. All of us got finally went to the club. So we there. And the Ground Control was deep. I mean, it was like, how many? Like more than 12 people. It was like, it was only four of us, 12 of them. But, uh, well, we, we Comm Miss to started battling. So we, we popping, we locking, we started breaking too. And started heating up. But, uh, but Terry got a little too hot. And the floor is py glass. Yeah, they got trip lights underneath the floor. So you can see the floor illuminate with lights and different stuff. Cuz it's, it's a dance club. Terry's locking. I mean, it was hot. We was tearing them up. Anyways, Terry's like, you know, oh, was there Andre Simone and, um, Tina Marie was there too. Probably was showing off. We trying to get in their videos or trying to work with them anyway. So everybody, everybody's letting loose. So we got a more than just the audience. We got some entertainers that was up in there. And so Terry's getting loose locking. I mean, whoa. Terry don't do butt drop every now and then. So I knew the brother was hot. He went up, he did a butt drop. Yo, he got y high and he landed. Yo, he went through the floor for real. He landed through the floor. The floor open up. Bam. The flo. Yo, then was in that was end of the contest. Which we was tearing them up. And the club after that closed down too. It was to the floor. Did you get into many of those kind of head-to-head battles? Like we see like that back in those Zone against that that hip-hop group that homeboy brought in there to battle us? When we did that chair routine? The Godfathers. Godfather. Wait, wait, wait. Chair. Oh, did we do the chair routine that night? Yes, we did. And they went upstairs and try to create a chair routine when they saw his rehearsal. Isn't it? And they fumbled around. Yeah. Jazzy's memory is better than mine. I swear to God. Don't get an in here. We'll be out of trouble. Every they. What I know, right? Yeah. We did. We B. We battled the go. I think I talked about this in the last podcast. We, um, there was a guy named Robert Davis who used to come to the O all the time. And Robert Davis reached out to us and wanted us to come, uh, battle a group. This was after the Ozone closed and they reopened as a club called Escape. And Robert Davis was now do doing promotion for it. And he had a night where he wanted us to come out. And we said, "Yeah." And then he hits me back and he says, "Hey, would you guys, would you guys, there's a group that wants to battle you?" And we're like, "We're salivating." And it was a group called The Godfathers. Now, with all due respect, they Godfathers were bringing the new stuff. Stuff just wasn't ready yet. But they were cool. They were very cool. Godfathers were doing the like, I guess I would say, the old school hip-hop thing. But it wasn't like the Running Man, the Cabbage Patch, none of that stuff. They were doing something different. It just wasn't quite honed yet. And, you know, going up against the LA City Rockers on our home territory. And we are polished. We are absolutely polished. We were. And, uh, so needless to say, we took him out that night. But we also saw what was getting ready to hit. And sure, over the next, you know, 10 years, you would, you would see what they, what they were bringing to the table would start to form, get some formations, and and start to make sense, you know? In '98, I opened my studio called New World Dance. And, uh, fortunately, was able to have my kids from the studio, uh, perform at Carnival a few times. Meantime, the Gualo, you got to give, you got to give the Gualo their due. Were the first ones I saw take. This was, we're talking about Brad Bradley Rapier. And, uh, and a whole bunch of people. Steve Stanton. Now, Steve Stanton was, uh, was Anthony Thomas's dance partner, slash singer in the group New Breed. So while we were the LA City Rockers, Anthony had was trying to get his band going, which was called New Breed. And they were really good. They had some really cool ideas. Um, it was a cross between that Minneapolis sound, like, you know, cross between like, but they didn't sound, they didn't sound like they were copying anybody. They just sounded like they were taking the vibe and trying to take it a step further, you know? And, uh, and so they were really good. And Steve and Anthony were doing this style of dance in the band that they weren't doing anywhere else. And they called it Friction. Friction. That's where Boogie was talking about how their girls group took the name Friction because that's what Anthony was calling that dance style. But, uh, Anthony was, uh, Anthony and Steve were the only ones doing it at the time. But, uh, anyway, Steve would end up being part of the, uh, the, uh, the Gualo. And in 2000, I think in, where Crescendo was, from Crescendo and Diamond. They were promoting what's that? I said, TC Diamond. Yeah. TC and, uh, uh, they were, Crescendo was promoting and and putting on this big event called the American Street Dance Championships. And the Gualo won it. I think two or three years in a row. And fortunately for me, we took me and Chris Jones, the spiky-haired guy from You Got Served. He was working with me at the time. We took a group of our kids from the studio to the American Street Dance Championships in 2003. And fortunately for us, the Gualo were not there. Uh, but I don't know what would have happened. But the Grovelers were really good. But I will say they weren't there. And we ended up taking first place. But we took first place with the junior skills division and the overall, which was just insane. Then all of a sudden, Crescendo stopped doing it. And then he brought it back in 2009 at the, uh, in conjunction with the, uh, Fitness, LA Fitness Expo. And we went back, entered again. And this time I had two different groups. And we won first place in both categories again. Um, and then stopped doing it. I, he should have kept it going. It was a good event. But me and Jazzy, when we were, uh, when we were coming up, me and Jazzy, even though we were the LA City Rockers, there were lots of times because at the time Anthony lived all the way out in Ventura. He didn't drive. What's that? I said, "I had to go get him." Yeah. Either you or me had to go get him. Most of the time, it was Jazzy. And Anthony would either stay with Jaz or stay at my house. What's that? I said, "Yeah, yeah, that's my brother." Uh, so, so, and, you know, Anthony was, uh, he had his girlfriend, Jerry Lynn. Go, a close friend of mine. Uh, and they would, they would both just come to my house and and stay at my house sometimes. So because Anthony, Renee was always working on because he was, you know, he was behind the scenes. He was a video assist, working with his dad, uh, doing commercials and stuff. So a lot of times when last minute auditions or gigs or anything would pop up, me and Jazzy were always in it. So, so there's plenty of footage of me and just me and Jazzy doing stuff together. Me and Jazzy did, uh, Barry Manilow's Big Fun on Swing Street. It was just me and Jazzy. The other guys weren't there. And, um, that was cool. That was really good. That's good footage. You get to watch Jazzy shoot under my legs, crazy sideways doing that crazy. I, I could go under, but I couldn't do it like Jazzy. He went straight sideways and snaked right under my legs. Um, and that's in the Barry Manilow special. Um, we did some other, we did a bunch of stuff together. Um, sometimes, you know, Renee and Anthony were there. Sometimes either Anthony, sometimes either Renee. When we did, uh, early on, we did, uh, uh, a Ford Industrial. This was the big, this was the first time we had ever done an industrial. We hadn't, we weren't working with Sebastian International yet. We weren't working with You're talking about Sebastian International. The hotel. Sebastian International. The hotel. List. You talked about that already. Yeah. Uh, I don't know if we did. We almost. We, they made the horri. First time we went to New York, we went with Sebastian International. And me and Renee used to argue all the time. We would end up becoming best friends, but we used to. Right? Would you figure? I started the group. They said I didn't start the group. I brought them. I brought all of them together. Only thing I didn't do was is make up, make up the name. Cuz my name, I have for the group was called Drop Soxs. A good name. I didn't like it at the time, but later. That's funky. That was fun. Drop lockers and drop socks up. Because I said, they have a, a colorful socks. Put them up, you know? And we lock and we'll drop our pants over our socks and we'll pop. That's what I meant. Yeah. No, that was a good. International though. The story about. Huh? I didn't understand. I did like at the time when you came up with Drop Soxs. I, I, I like how it sounded. I didn't think it was good for marketing. Later, later I would be like, you know what? Drop Sox was really funky. That would have been. But I said LA City Rockers because I felt like it would. And you guys argue about that too. You, Renee? Well, it was LA Rockers versus LA City Rockers. Oh, we were going back. He was saying he made up the name. You was saying you made up the name. Then you guys came up to. I was sitting right there when y'all was going through the name. They, they argue and debate about everything. Yo, that's this was a trip. Right? I love them. You know, even they go through it. They close as as can be. But oh, it's competitive. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, that's probably why y'all still play golf together. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know who I would have loved to seen join the LA Rockers? Popping. Oh, you forgot. Oh, oh, uh, uh, Rock and Rob. Rock and Rob. We got Rock and Rob. Okay, I'll tell the story about Rock and Rob. We tell down stories. Rock and Rob. This one I guess cuz we us should switch all the, uh, members around. This particular story cuz I used to flip Rob. Rob used to do a flip on stage. You put, put your hand out. He goes into your hand. You flip him up. He goes around. But this particular time, I was in one of the flipper. So whoever flipped him, I think he overrotated. And he land on his back. But he, he land on his back. I know it's not funny, but funny because I was there. But how Anthony described it, he let on his back, but he wouldn't move. So they kept dancing around him. He, I don't know if he was, he never told me he was in pain. But they said he didn't move. He just stayed on the floor. So, yeah. Rob, uh, now here's what's funny is Rob was what we called one of our alternates. Jazzy was the one who brought him in. Great dancer. Really good popper. Really good popper. Really good dancer. He, he ended up doing. Anybody? Yeah. Captain, Captain EO. It was, it was Paul S. The four poppers in that. No, not Captain EO. Thriller. Jazzy did Captain EO. Thriller. Yeah. No, the four guys that were in the popping, that was part of my Michael story when I told you guys last time about Michael calling me at home and me freaking out, blah, blah, blah. We ended up going to Michael's house. And we didn't know Paula Abdul did not tell us it was actually an audition. We just thought he wanted to meet us. He ended up asking us to dance why we were at the house. We weren't ready. So I had to run out to my car and grab a cassette and come back in. And we just threw down some routines. But it turned out he was looking for poppers for the, uh, the Thriller video. Now, we were already working with Puma at this point. So we were, when they did the Thriller video, I think we were in Chicago for like five days doing an industrial. But they ended up using, uh, Paul Sanchez from Chain Reaction, Sugar Pop, Pop Pete. And not Thriller. Oh, no. Thriller. Uh-uh. Thriller was Dwayne Brown and Rock and Rob. Because I was supposed to do Thriller. And when I was, I told him I couldn't go. So I sent, uh, Dwayne Brown and, uh, Rob, Robert Stafford to do Thriller. Yeah. But was it? Wasn't Paul in it? Paul was in it as well. Yeah. And wasar Pop in it? Yeah. He was in it. Okay. I thought it was P. Oh, no, no, no. Wait. Wasn't Pete? Pete was in Thriller. Yeah. No, I think Bad. Bad video. Who was it? You were, you were in Captain EO. Who? I was in Captain. Pete was in Captain EO. Yeah. I think Pete is in Beat It as well. Yes. I, yes, he is. No, Beat. Yeah. Beat It. Pete was in Beat It also. But wasn't he also in Captain EO? Yeah. Pete was in Captain EO. Taco and Pete. Skeet Rabbit. Donald. Hugo. Yeah. Myself. Who am I missing? That's say Bruno. Taco. Pete. Skeet. Skeet Rabbit. Yeah. Donald. Donald. Fuah. Trip, man. It's it's such a trip. So many of these guys we danced with are not around right now. I know. It's a trip. I'm tripping on that right now. Even Cat. I mean, rest for peace. I know. Holy crap. Yeah. I just was speaking with her too. That's that's a trip. Yeah. My wife just told me that just a few days ago. As I was like, wow. Wow. I know. Bananas. Because Cat was part of Friction with Boogie and Flame and Con Con. You know, Patrick Alum was one of my major inspirations, popping and locking. And him and him and Cat were together on, uh, yeah, Solid Gold. Yeah, yeah. Patrick's a good guy. They're also on Star Search too. Yeah. They were on Star Search. Yeah. Semi-finals. The second generation of locking, which I look to. First, like you guys, Chain Reaction and everything that came. Say after the Lockers, it's, um, it's got to a point where it's, it's considered incorrect in a lot of these overseas locking competitions. To where they're like, um, they like Richie comes up with the term Valley style locking. Some people will call it Chain Reaction. We always called it second generation. But it seems very much now that within like the locking battle competition world, especially in Europe and Asia, that anything that wasn't like considered, um, original locking, what they call it, is considered wrong or incorrect. Where, where for like me in my generation, it, it's all locking. You know? So, I don't know if, if you guys have experienced any of that or if you see that there's been a segregation in in locking. Well, I, I, I'll, here's, here's my history. Growing up as a kid, I grew up in Pima. But there was no YouTube. There was no video recorders. There was nothing. So although I liked it, I had no way of learning it. When I was finally able enough to go to the clubs on my own, drive myself there and do my thing, I wanted to learn how to lock. I was learning. I learned how to pop. Got it down. Had to beg people to teach me how to lock. And once they started teaching me, I took it upon myself to get better. Once you understand it, then you can work on it. Okay. So we were second generation. I don't consider Chain Reaction a second generation. They might, but I consider them a first generation. They're not the creators, but it doesn't mean they're not from the first generation. Um, I consider the second generation everybody who learned from the originals. So therefore, Chain Reaction might consider themselves second generation, but we are second generation as well. There was a third generation that came along that totally screwed it up. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I'm just telling you what I saw. We, the second generation lost something in the translation, but we also gained something. We started double timing the moves, bringing the energy up. Now, you're never, you're never going to outdo the original lockers. I will take them in their original form over anybody. However, I'm not going to detract from the fact that when I first saw Paul Sanchez lock, I was blown away. Tom was awesome. Those guys killed it. Their style, their technique, their flow, their rhythms. And then we, so we were on that bandwagon. And that's just a sign of the times, honestly. You know, as music changes, I'll put, I'll give you a perfect example right now. When I choreograph locking, I don't go one, two, three, four. I listen to the music and I go, and I use hip-hop rhythms like one a, two, three, and four, five, and a six, seven, and eight, and one. Those, that's the rhythm. Now, if you watch Hilty and Bosch right now, that's exactly what they do. They do what second generation did. They're funky like the first generation, and they listen to the music like they're doing hip-hop. You know what I mean? So everybody brought something to the table. But I will say, because the second generation lost some of the funk, the third generation got none of the funk and was trying to do the moves without technique. And that drove me crazy. Thank God they almost killed the dance. But there was so much more going on with dance at that point. Not, not to say there wasn't some decent lockers that came out of the third generation because there was. They were paying attention. They were able to get their hands on footage. So then all of a sudden, here comes the fourth generation. And now they've got access to to YouTube. Started to go back and watch the original ERS and understand the funk. And all of a sudden, when I saw this fourth generation coming out, cuz it almost kind of took a dive, you know what I mean? And then all of a sudden, you're like, you start to see these cats in France and these cats in Japan. And you're like, "Whoa, these guys are doing it the original style with second generation movement, and they're listening to the music so much better now." They're using like better rhythms, like listening to the song. In other words, back in the old school, you could take a locking routine off of one song and put it on another, and it would fit just fine. But if you see one of my locking routines right now, you can't, like, if I'm using Firecracker, Mass Production, I'm listening to those bass lines, boom, click, boom, click, click, boom, click, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? And I never used to lock like that back in the day. It was one, two, three, four, and five, six, seven, eight. And it was pretty straight rhythm. So those are the things that have changed. Second generation brought something to to the table, but lost a little something in the translation. But being second generation, we, we brought some to the table. But I feel like I became a much, much better locker way later in life because at that point, I had already gotten to work with, uh, I didn't never worked with Shabadu, but I hung out with him. You know what I mean? We hit the clubs. He would give me pointers. And then, uh, worked with Greg a lot. Greg to me was one of the best lockers ever. I swear to God. Uh, and me and Jazzy got to work with Greg a lot. And that was cool. It's progression because moves progress as the dance goes on and as the music change. So I can't say it's better and I can't say it's worse. Because if you take the people right now, say they're the best, and the best, you take them back when the lockers were creating it, they wouldn't be the best of the best because they would be there when it's being created. And then even there. And then if you, if it says that insane Michael Jackson's one of the baddest lockers too. You see the Jackson's lot. All right. So we go there with that. But anybody right now is progression. I mean, there's, I see cats in Japan and I mean, d toop moves. They go from an alpha into this. I mean, locking, locking, locking it up. And right there, boom, doing flips, doing all kind of like fire lock. I got the hood, the hood lockers out here. There's a lot of people that's able to see, able to watch that's with the progression. And then jump in it. Plus, you're younger. Legs are younger. You're able to do splits and stuff. You're younger energy, much more fire. You know what I mean? I had stopped drinking a long time ago. So I ain't got that fire to use for my fuel. So it's just coffee. But anyways, um, that a joke. I gotta get somebody. But yeah, but dig. So I can say, I just say it's younger progression. Just like when we, just like Terry. I can say this to you. When you first started popping, the moves are not the same as the moves now. The moves like it went way over there. I mean, way, way, way high level. So where else? But when we first started popping, we was just doing a twistle flex, take the doing one of the little vibrate. You was happy. You can do. Yeah. Bo was trying to booo all over the place and trying to correct the old man. I mean, now old man left, right, left, right. Ground moves, all kind of stuff going on. They doing ground moves. I like, "Whoa, my legs can't even think about doing that." When they doing now, because they're taking Jazzy. You're selling yourself short. I just watched you. I just watched you online again the other day. And I'm like, people today, I understand what you're saying because they're doing some crazy stuff. But you're the reason they're doing that. I am not kidding. That's for sure. All right. I'll be quiet. No, no. I'm just saying. You give yourself credit, man. Yeah. Yeah. You were the first one to go down there and do it the way you were doing it. That was bananas. What you were doing. Thank you. Yeah. I mixed that. I got that from watching, um, Pete and Skeet in Carson City that one night. We all went. That's when, um, Skeet was supposed to p pop against, uh, King Tut. And King Tut, he popped against King Tut's brother. Yeah. That's a night. That was the end for me that night. That's when my style just completely took a. Oh, Thanksgiving, uh, day off from school. Terry workout. Boom. It just, the levels just kept going. Kept going. It never stopped. Never stopped. They went on further. But it never. Love the way that Skeet and Pete locked, like for me, like I put the Boogaloos with you guys as like, you know, that, that, especially the Swan Lake piece. That's a, um, like a combination of Electric Boogaloos and LA City Rockers. And I mean, I, I look to that all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Skeet. Skeet. It was an absolute honor to work with Skeet and Pete. Absolute honor. I remember the first time, you know, I don't know, it's so long ago. I reached out. Me and my first dance partner, Steve Moore. We went out to, yeah, we went out to a club. We heard there was a dance contest. It was Noah's Arc. We went out there. Entered. And there was like a couple of girls who went out and they were whacking or doing whatever. There was a couple that went out and danced together. They didn't do much. Uh, the girls were good that were whacking. But then all of a sudden, we had already performed. And now we're just watching. We're thinking, "Oh, we have a chance." We, because we did pretty good. All of a sudden, Pete and Creep and Sid stepped up. And they're not even on on the floor yet. They're all the way over here. Music came on. And they just started doing the walk out. Boom. And the way they were hitting. Me and Steve, just our jaws hit the floor. This was so early on for us. I had never seen the Boogaloos. All of a sudden, here they come. And they walked out to the middle of the floor. Just insane. Boom. Hitting that crap. And then all of a sudden, they just went off. They did the routines and stuff. And we were just like, "Holy crap. That's that's what we're that's what we're trying to do right there. That's it." And they used to be a fixture at Noah's Arc. So after that, once in a while, we would go down to Noah's Arc just to see if we could catch them. But it was weird because they were either working or they were doing something. And I remember somehow, I think I got his number from Kyle. And I reached out because if I had asked Paul or Tom, they weren't gonna give me Pete's number. But Kyle did. And, and so, uh, I called Pete on the phone. Introduced myself. Told him my first time seeing him. And I asked, "Where you guys going to party tonight?" He literally told me. And I think I don't remember who was there with me. It could have been Jazzy. I just don't remember. I went to the club because this was later on after me and Steve weren't dancing anymore. Um, I was at the club. I was, we were at Osos. I was out front of Osos. And here came Pete. And he was with, he was with Skeet. And he was with somebody else. And they were out front. And all of a sudden, Pete just did this crazy little twist-of-flex move. And he turned his head. And his face did this weird thing. His eyebrows went click, click, click, click. And I was like, "Did he just pop his eyebrows?" And then he did a smile.
He went click, click, click, and he went click, and right, and then he went and he took off. And I'm like, "What?" So I went in the club, and that was the first time I ever saw any, because I was still new to this. That's the first time I ever saw anybody do the chaa, which was Ski. He was dressed in a Zoot Suit. He was on the floor. Song "Chacha Rhythm" came on. He started doing the chaa. All of a sudden, a girl jumped in front of him. All of a sudden, there was like 25, 30 people doing the chaa. And he was doing all these moves during the chaa part, but they were going back and forth, back and forth. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
So, uh, you know, and then I didn't know Ski. I would get to know him through the clubs, but then me and Jazzy got to work with Ski and and Pete on several things. Yeah, so that was that was awesome. And just like he was saying, I'm I'm a piggyback way back what he just said. That's that's how we got to be with them, cuz we learned the the the knowledge of that dance, of the dance that we were able to dance with them. See, we never was, we saw them and we brought B with them. We're able to do the routines because we knew the the language. Yeah, that's even with the lockers, with the the language.
And as you were saying before, how the battles would go. The battles was like this. We'll end up popping against somebody, and then we'll turn around and say, "Yo, can you lock?" We always bring that up because because you get tired of popping, cuz you, I'm telling you, I was wearing people out. I ain't going to lie. I mean, I could say I lost a few, a few maybe. Yeah, but as in me popping, I would pop. Then I'd turn around and say, "Can you lock?" And I was just just start locking. And you guys were all breaking as well. I mean, popping and breaking together like that. For me, I love all dance, but for me, locking, popping, and breaking is like the Trinity of Hip Hop. Yeah.
That's yeah. We were doing Sebastian International. And here's what's funny is that night, me and Renee got into a really stupid argument, like we always used to. So I left, and I just went out on my own. And it wasn't night yet. It was it was early night, not not New York night. And I'm walking around, and I come across a club, and it's called Rosand. That's is a, what's that's how it happened. This is what happened. See, you got it all wrong. We were always walking. That night, we were looking for a club. See, you got it wrong. We're always W, we're looking for a club, and we saw these two little homeboys with a cardboard next to walking as we walking. And we go, and we're like, "Oh, we better than them." We thought we was good. We was, we could break, so we thought we were better than them. And they go, "Yo, okay, where's the breakers at?" And they go, "Oh, Rosand." So where's Rosand? It's was in Manhattan. And we went to Rosand and finished from there.
Because I know the story you're forgetting. You that you, I wasn't with you when that happened because that was you, Anthony, and Renee walking around. I went out on my own. I came, I walked, I literally walked right past a a big a big poster advertising the the group that had just done the song "Breaking." They were going to perform at Rosand that night. And I'm like, "Holy crap, this was there's got to be Breakers here tonight." This was our first time in New York. Then got an argument. I went walking around by myself. I saw a poster that was advertising the group that did the song "Breaking." And so I, it was, I don't know if it was the, was called "Breaking," but it was a song. It was uh about there was a in the video or something. But uh, we went that night because I came running back to the hotel and I told you guys. And you guys started telling me stuff about what you saw out there. So we must had the same idea because I saw a poster that said this group was going to perform. Me and Jazzy got there before Renee and Anthony. I don't know why we did, but you and I got there first. Cuz you and I were standing, we were trying to find Breakers. And we were like, so you and I started, we didn't, we didn't want to break uh because we knew we'd get served up. But we couldn't find any Breakers. Did we were in the club at this point? I know. Wait, hold up, hold up. Because I remember the group that performed was incredible. Breakers that perform on this w. I don't, we got two different stories. I no, no. You're saying it. You're saying it. Chino and Brian were there to perform. To perform before that, before that, we walked in because I remember we were talking to Chino and Bryan before they went to perform. Renee was talking to Chino, Bryan, and we were like locking and popping with them, right? That's when I left, and I went on the other side of the club and saw uh the Dynamic Rockers, right? The Dynamic Rockers. And then, and they were, they were dancing. No, they had danced in the circle, but then they had danced on the stage. And then I was tell Rockers, they were spinning on their heads and everything. And they go, and I go, "Yo, these other two guys, I think they're better than you." And they go, "What other the two guys?" I go, "They just, they performed on stage." They go, "Go, go get them." And I go, "I just met them." Right, right. I just met them. I brought brought over 12 guys over to the dressing room. And and they go, "Go get them." And I go, "I just met these guys. I don't know." I'm like, you know, they just got through performing. So I went back backstage, went back there, and I went halfway, and I came back out. They go, "No, go get him." And I said, "Yo, if I don't get him, I'm about to get jump." That's how that work. I'm about to get beat up. So I went backstage and I, and I spoke to, it was Chino. I spoke to Chino. I said, "Chino, yeah, these guys out here, they want to battle you." And he goes, "Oh, for real? Oh, okay. We'll be out there. We'll be out." Talk to Brown. Go on. Wor. We'll be out there. We'll be out there. And I said, "Okay." So I went back and I spoke to them. Was Kid Gliding? It was Glide. It was all them. Yeah. And, um, and Wo. And then I said, "They're coming. They coming. They better coming." I said, "They're coming." They came out. And woo, that was that was the best breaking that I've seen to this day. Yep. Served them up. And D. It was crazy. Yeah, yeah. Dude, Brian had the crazy, crazy backspin, doing moves that would still hold water today. Today. Yeah. Was crazy.
And besides that, then he went back to the hotel. And that's when Renee loved to eat his uh sunflower seed, remember, in his Pepsi. And I don't know, he was clowning something. And his Pepsi spilled. Renee loves his Pepsi. So, and everybody went, "Oh, Rene Pepsi spill." We all kind, we always making jokes all over the place. Then Renee goes, "Yo, you want to see the magic trick?" He was looking at me. And he had these crackers. And he went, he goes, "Watch these. Watch these disappear." And he went, he went, crack, CRA, crack, crack. He crumbled all these crackers on me. I said, "What?" And then we started wrestling with the crackers. Before you know it, the the the uh damn nor left the ceiling, the curtain came ripping down. The TV almost got counter-posted out the window. Out the window. Anthony grabbed the TV. I mean, it, but long story short, we caused like $2,000 worth of damage. It was pretty ugly. BR. Yeah, that was the last gig too. We, we opened. I remember me and Renee were the last ones out of the hotel. We were bolting 'cause we were going to miss our flight. I remember we, we were walking out. You guys were already running down the hall to get the elevator. We're walking out, and me and Renee turned around and looked at the hotel room, bro, because we had brought in. There was two beds and two CS. So crowd twist. And the room looked like a bomb, literally a bomb had gone off. It was crazy.
I think we need like, like a La Rockers like reunion. That'd be nice. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you know, at some point, I, I can't imagine it wouldn't happen. Bie, if there's anything you want to shout out before we cut off? Uh, yeah, I want to shout out that I'm still alive. And I love guy prise the most. Oh, and I stopped drinking for a long time now. I'm going on the year, almost two years now. So nice. So, oh, and my lock, oh, I got some new points. Teach me. Don't you call them pointers when you give them to people? Oh, yeah, pointers. Oh, that too. Yeah, I got pointers for points. I got pointers for points. Yeah. Wow. Terry, Terry, anything before we, we're gonna head out? Um, no, let's just keep it going, you know? Let's, let's see who we can get in here to start talking about the old school, you know? This is healthy for young people because I'm constantly pushing on on all my students because, you know, I'm still teaching a lot. And I'm constantly pushing. It's incredibly difficult to know where you're going if you have no idea where you've been. Now, some of these kids that are learning how to dance right now, you know, coming up, they're getting really good. Dances through the roof. I'm not kidding you when when I say some of the best dancing you will ever see in your life is happening right now because these kids are really good, really good. But the best ones can turn around and throw down locking and popping because they've been paying attention. And that's why they look so good doing everything else. Everything's old and becomes new, and old and new again. Yeah, that's I say because they always say, "Oh, that's, oh, you still doing that old dance?" And then we have to refer back to ballet, and we got to talk about tap, and you got to keep that, yeah, that mentality going. Okay, that's old, but it's still new, and a new again. So I mean, and also we have to respect the fact, the music. The music makes the dance. Music moves the soul because within that means sometimes they can't get new used to that funk and R&B they used. But it's so weird because the rap got that funk and the R&B in it. Yeah. So with me, you can take that the rap lyrics and do some locking to it instead of moving it like even with the popping, you move the popping, you're popping to the lyrics. You dig? You're still on that on that vibe, on that beat within the means. So it it depends on the person, yo. And it's it's it's hard to say and hard to do. Yeah. You know, you know, you got a lot of people. I can say this, a lot of people be going to the the house house dance classes. Yeah, but when you get up going to the clubs, you like, like little clubs, you don't see a lot of lot of people house dancing hardcore. You just see the OGs. Jo it. You be like, "Where are the other people that be taking all the classes?" Exactly. That's exactly right. You know, and what fizzled, fizzled and fasel, it FZ got to say fasel. Everybody they know from New York said fasel because a place, a dance studio we used to go to. But we fizzled and fasel out because it's nowhere place that we used to have. Brian Filw Green was one of the person used to put us on the map with all dancers. The house dance conference, you know, now we have Behind the Groove within the means. But even that after the pandemic came and hit, bam, a lot of these clubs went. And people get mad at me when I say this to, when that when our mayor took out them cigarette. I know Terry loves this part. But anyways, let me say this because Terry gonna say what he gonna come in with. When they took smoke it out of the clubs, Terry can't stand smoking. But when they took smoking out of the clubs, yo, it end up because a lot of people were the people were looking at stuff was at the bar smoking and drinking. Yeah, but then they ain't got the, they can't sell no liquor. None of these smoking and drinking. So a lot of the clubs here went. Then everything went. And then we were fortunate to to come up at a time when the club was, you know what it was. I mean, for real, the '80s, the '80s club scene can't be touched. It just, the '70s and '80s club scene can't be touched. And dance was going through its revolution, you know, the '70s and '80s, it truly was because we even had clubs that was 16 and up and 18 below or 1821 below because you couldn't. Yeah, Cidoscope. Certain clubs you can't get in. LTD if you're older than 18 or older. No smoking, alcohol, just wanted to dance. Yeah, and they were full. Even over the hill when we say over the hill in Hollywood, they was full over the hill. Too bad. Miss you, uh, with you and Renee then. Yeah. Then, uh, this was we being at then. But one, one day we all get us all together, man. Be nice. Oh, happen. Yeah, man. So my heart goes out. And I'm still dancing, whether I like it or not. I did something. I tried. It can't. It's attached to me, you know? So, and every time I do or say anything, I always bring up the from Terry to Renee to Anthony. Always bring y'all up because y' y'all was my brothers, man.