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The End of Winter 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n Forward by EyeGetzRaw<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n “As odd as it looked, as wild as it seemed, KRS-One – from the Boogie Down Productions anthem, “South Bronx”<\/p>\n If Kris Parker was trying to take out MC Shan on BDP’s seminal classic, the couple of measures above was where he went right for the jugular! To someone outside of the five boroughs the lines may seem mild but, native New Yorkers of the era knew that this was quite a serious slight. Queens was long thought to be the “soft” borough, somewhere waaaay out in the “boonies”. Certainly not where the rest of NYC thought about going to hang or party and DEFINITELY not thought to be official when it came to the streets…which is fundamentally where Hip Hop lived and breathed. KRS-One very deftly zeroed-in on a sore-spot on the psyche of not just the Juice Crew’s leading man but, a whole borough of Hip-Hop heads who had lived with this assertion for far too long.<\/p>\n Queens had been on the come up in terms of respect at the time BDP stepped to Shan and Marley Marl….not only was the Juice Crew starting to put NYC in a yoke with its lineup of Queens and Brooklyn emcees but, the undisputed kings of Hip Hop at the time were from my hometown of Hollis…Run-DMC. Ironically, the single most significant factor in the trio from Hollis’ rise to the top was the perception that they represented authentic street credibility at a time when most of the established names in the game were using studio musicians to play cover versions of break beats and dressed like they were in a funk band.<\/p>\n Yet, despite all this newfound clout, BDP was able to successfully smack MC Shan (and the rest of Queens) back down a notch with that line. It breathed life back into a perception that many in Queens thought had finally died…and Eye suspect, many outside of Queens had been quietly bothered about…how was it that Queens wasn’t even a factor, yet now that this Rap record thing is poppin’, they’re getting all the shine?!?!<\/p>\n How indeed?<\/p>\n The answer is that Queens WAS a factor, almost from the start…even if a portion of NYC didn’t know it (or just didn’t want to admit it). The general perception was that the pre-wax days of Hip Hop began and ended with the Bronx and Manhattan. The reality was that Hip Hop was being cultivated in the Q-boro and Brook-nam well before King Tim and Sugarhill Gang changed the culture forever. When the records came, Queens was ready for the jump-off. In fact, the statement that KRS made was quite unfortunate because, it did a huge disservice to an entire era of pioneers and legends who helped shape and mold Hip Hop as we know it today.<\/p>\n In pockets of Queens with a high concentration of black families like Jamaica, St. Albans, Astoria, Hollis, Cambria Heights, So. Ozone Park, Far Rockaway, Laurelton, Rochdale and East Elmhurst the mobile DJ culture, which ultimately spawned what we now know as Hip Hop, was alive and kickin’. Names like Cipher Sounds, Infinity Machine, Woody Wood, Sweetie G rang bells in and outside of Queens…and probably no Queens heads’ name rang out during the years that KRS-One cited, ’76-’80, more than the brothers you’re about to read about…The Disco Twins. Their story is proof positive that no matter what you may have heard about Manhattan makin’ it, Brooklyn takin’ it or, Bronx creatin’ it, Queens was definitely not fakin’ it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Robert- We were born in Women’s hospital in Harlem and moved to Astoria Queens.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well we would have to ask our sister where in Harlem we lived at but we definitely were born on Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem.<\/p>\n Robert- Reggie was by 1 minute.<\/p>\n Twin- 5 other brothers and one sister.<\/p>\n Twin- I.S. 171 and P.S. 126, both of the schools are in Queens. We both went to Bryant high school in Woodside on 31st avenue and then The Satellite Academy on 132 Nassau Street.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes the martial Arts.<\/p>\n Robert- I went to a black belt and my brother went to a purple belt.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes we use to go to tournaments to defend our titles. The name of our sensei was Syedd. Our Seafoo is Master Al Randolph and his master was Master Monique from Brooklyn. We studied with Al for like 7 years and I went on studying and teaching for 10 years. The gym was in Astoria Center first called The First Reform Church.<\/p>\n Master Al Randolph<\/p>\n Robert- Well we were getting bullied for a minute, people were throwing sand in our face and we got tired of it and we decide we needed to do something about it. Once we started training we never had a problem again because we always use to run around with the karate slippers, gees and nunchakus and this was during the 5 fingers of Death Bruce Lee era. We went very hard like we did with the music and karate was the thing for that moment.<\/p>\n Robert- Well we did this birthday party in the early 1970’s with a guy name George Macintosh and we funneled our music through his guitar amp to play our music. We had 0100 turntables and a Gerard. The house party became very entertaining so we took a liking to it. We use to bring our equipment to our mother’s friend’s place, which was a white ladies apartment in building 105 on the 6th floor where we did a party. One thing lead to another and we borrowed another amplifier. When we couldn’t get George Macintosh we got this guy name Michael Ray and we used his amplifier and this time we partied in the center in Astoria.<\/p>\n Robert- We used two turntables.<\/p>\n Reggie- I think it goes all the way back to this guy name Aps from Nassau Street who use to wear a derby. He use to always demonstrating the sound system that he had. We use to always go over to his store called Harvey’s Sounds at lunch time when we were in school. We were about 15 or 16 and that was the first place we seen two turntables basically. Am I right Robert?<\/p>\n Robert- Yes and it was on Nassau Road it was right next to Satellite Academy when we got out of school and we would go there to watch him demonstrate his sound system. He was somewhat like the spokes person at that time.<\/p>\n Reggie- For GLI.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah, it was GLI mixers and speakers and that is what took our interest.<\/p>\n Robert- Well at that time I heard about him, Maboya and Flowers as well as Pete D.J. Jones and those people were popular at that time and we started listening to those guys and going to their shows and we were really inspired by what they were doing and it just started taking a life of its own by us listening to them and we said you know what we are going to do this. My brother and I decided we are going to take a liking to it and we started putting stuff together little by little. We met Becky who was Pete D.J. Jones sister and she d.j.ed on a Boat ride which was a Grand Master Flowers function. We also seen Flowers at a place known as St. Gabriel’s on East Elmhurst on 98th street and at this time Nu Sounds were also doing their thing and we met Phase One who was our mentor. So we were kind of hanging around with those guys and learning different things and we just took a liking to it. We already started doing it on a small scale on our own.<\/p>\n Robert- It had to be 1975.<\/p>\n Robert- Because during that time it was really more about the d.j. and we did have an m.c. when we started his name was Cory D, he lived in the same building we lived in. We were called Total Excitement at that time.<\/p>\n Robert and Reggie- I don’t remember that.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah you are going to have to jog my memory about that because I don’t remember that.<\/p>\n Reggie- No.<\/p>\n Robert- Absolutely not, I never heard of them at that time.<\/p>\n Reggie- That came later around 1977 when we were introduced to them at the Hotel Diplomat on 43rd Street. What happen was we had gotten a spot at the Diplomat and we were the main sound system or house djs. So that came later on when we got up with Flash and them. How I remember it was 1977 because that was when we got our first Berthas and we left them at the Hotel Diplomat along with our Voice of the theater. We were the house d.j.s for Jerry Productions, Jelly Benitz, etc and we had a hell of a sound system for anybody that wanted to do a party in the Sesame Grand Ballroom which was on the top floor, the second floor was the Crystal room also known as the Constellation room, the basement was the Palm Room. The first floor was just a lobby.<\/p>\n The Palm Room was where Russell Simmons was at with his parties. He was doing hip hop type of parties as well as promoting his brother; there weren\u2019t any hip hop records out at that time. It was two different crowds because Jerry Productions was running upstairs where we were at in the ball room and Jerry would bring most of the artist through there, like D.J. Hollywood, Kurtis Blow, Grand Master Flash that is how we met most of them right there at that location. Nu Sounds was on the second floor at the Constellation and they were like club based at that time.<\/p>\n Robert- Absolutely<\/p>\n Reggie- There was an elevator.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah there was an elevator and once you got to your floor you would pay before you walked into that ballroom.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes<\/p>\n Robert- Yes, or sound system stayed there but we would take our turn table\u2019s home. But the Bertha speakers, the Voice of theater and we had some tweeters called JBL Ring Radiator, they would stay.<\/p>\n Reggie- $800 a night, we had a contract with them.<\/p>\n Robert- Well we thought that was cheap back then because the Paradise Garage and Studio 54 were paying there d.j. a lot more. Larry Levan was the d.j. we were trying to emulate. I have to say because of Studio 54 that was how the Bertha came about.<\/p>\n Reggie- Richard Long<\/p>\n Reggie- $4100 for one! That’s without the extension.<\/p>\n Reggie- Nah he was a genius. Richard Long was the first mobile cat to have a deck, he invented it. D.J. Dance Master was the first to have the Berthas. We were the first to have an extension as mobile dj’s. In other words we were the cats that pioneer it because we used it everywhere we played. We went and got a deck because nobody else had a deck except Dance Master, who got it after Richard Long.<\/p>\n A Richard Long Console<\/p>\n Reggie- He was from East Elmhurst, Queens.<\/p>\n Curtis Forte<\/p>\n Reggie- We had a mentor named Curtis Forte and he use to work for Richard Long and he introduced him to us, and through Curtis we got real cool with Richard Long. \u00a0That also lead us to get the console and the Berthas and the Altama’s and we bought the extensions from him too. So we were able to get a lot of stuff from Richard Long because of that relationship we built with him. Sometimes he would get stuff and to test it he would say, “Hey try this out and bring it back.” Something like that.<\/p>\n Horns, Berthas and Altama<\/p>\n Reggie- He was a fantastic person. He had to be about 20 years older than us. He lived in the Village. (Downtown Manhattan.) He died and I am not sure when. What year was that Robert?<\/p>\n Robert- 1986 or 87.<\/p>\n Reggie- I believe he had the virus. Richard Long and Larry Levan were in a relationship with each other.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes they had a relationship with each and they lived together.<\/p>\n Reggie- This dude was real cool with us, anything new he would give it to us and let us try out. It was like we were the only cats he would let take his system and go elsewhere with it. He would let us travel around and play the Levan and a lot of people didn’t know what the Levan was. The Bertha is a complete speaker; an Emerald is a half of a Bertha. He made the Emerald based on Emerald city. So if you put two Emeralds together it is now a Bertha. The Levan is an extension of both the Berthas which is named after Larry Levan. He put the extension on the Bertha and called it the Levan. So that was the Bertha with a Levan. We were the only cats that ran around with the Berthas. So we called it Bertha Levan. Dance Master played with it also. He got hired to do clubs and started playing in Regines and Studio 54. So we seen what Dance Master had and we said we want to take it to the next level and that was when we got acquainted with Richard Long.<\/p>\n Reggie- Not in his house, he had a little factory and he is really good with trigonometry as well as putting stuff together, you know arranging things. He put together a cabinet unlike any other. See even right now we have a lot of copycats that are out there. They are only taking Richard Longs idea and just recycling it and saying it’s their work. I don’t want to mention the person’s name. Also there are other people out there that use to work with Richard Long that claim that they modified it but Richard Long is the originator. Just like there could never be another Michael Jordon, Richard Long is in that same category.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes we have done it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reggie- We have made speakers but as far as that is concern that is not our forte.<\/p>\n Robert- But we have talked about it as earlier as two months ago. So it’s still on the table.<\/p>\n The Twins and D.J. Smalls.<\/p>\n Robert- We met Smalls at the Hotel Diplomat through D.J. Hollywood. D.J… Hollywood introduced him to us as The Son of Hollywood. Every club here in Queens that Hollywood went to he bought Smalls with him and he would introduce him as the son of Hollywood, D.J. Smalls. That was everywhere he went. Everyone liked Smalls because he was young, short and compared to Hollywood. Hollywood was not too heavy but energetic and so was Smalls. So they thought Smalls was his son. So we took a liking to Smalls and we started working together and traveling and doing parties all over.<\/p>\n Robert and Reggie- He was from the Bronx.<\/p>\n Robert- To this very day.<\/p>\n Reggie- Rob you want to answer that?<\/p>\n Rob- We wanted to do a record with him and we tried but at the time Smalls was doing a lot of other things and so we never got a chance to do anything musically like that. As far as Robin Hood he lived in the neighborhood so whenever we had a venue he was there. He rocked with us for about 3 years from like 1978 to 1981. Then we met someone else that was similar in style and his name was Woody Wood.<\/p>\n Robert- No.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes<\/p>\n Reggie- No, the most routines we had were with Smalls because the other cats that were rocking with us more or so were emulating Hollywood or Smalls. Smalls was the son of Hollywood so they had routines together but those other cats like Robin Hood and Woody Wood were mostly emulating D.J. Hollywood.\u00a0 We had another mc name Sesame who was also a markup of Hollywood, we met him at the Hotel Diplomat. One of the Ballrooms was called The Sesame Ballroom. We said instead of calling you Tony we are going to call you mc Sesame. Once again the downstairs was called The Constellation, we had the Sesame Ballroom and Russell’s place was called the Palm Room.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes we did the routines but with Smalls as well as Cory D. But all four together they have not.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes we worked with them.<\/p>\n Reggie- Star Child use to come to this grocery store we opened up around 1981 or 82 on 96th street and Northern Blvd called Prince The Superette but she came after Nasty Tee. We later did a record with Star Child.<\/p>\n Robert- Nasty Tee also came to the grocery store, she use to play the video games but somebody told us she can rhyme so we started working with her and from there we started doing parties with her too.<\/p>\n Robert- Well she did try to take it to the next level but sometimes you get derailed though life because there was a time she started working for Puffy, in fact I believe she worked with him for about 10 years. I believe she did some nonprofit work for him.<\/p>\n Robert- We had this guy down with us name Steve that called himself L.A. Hollywood. He along with Cory D and this other guy name D.J. Sex who was actually an mc use to party with us when we use to play 8th Street in this park in Astoria Queens in the late 70’s. That might have been 1976. In fact I want to bring up this other brother that rocked with us, he was Spanish, his name was Disco Kid, real name Louie Roman. He\u2019s in Texas right now. He was the cat that showed us a lot of things about editing and splicing. It was the 3 of us working with the systems and record plates, splicing and editing. See we made our own records back then with plates. Disco Kid made that record with us “Where’s that b—- that said she was going to suck my d—!” This was before sampling and editing was even out. We had to cut the tape and cut the analog to put the tape together. We learned all of that from him.<\/p>\n Reggie- No we took it to this place called Sunshine records. They use to make these odd plates. I think the other place was called Associated Records. We would go there and bring our cassette tapes and they would make plates out of our demo tapes. One was on 42nd street between 6th and 7th avenue and the other one was on 48th street and 7th avenue.<\/p>\n Robert- I think they would burn them on to the wax, you would only be able to have a certain amount of play. You couldn’t play on these particular vinyls all the time. You would have to spend about 30 or 40 dollars for that plate. You would probably get about 25 uses and then you would have to buy a new one.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well it wasn’t soft it was hard and real thick and you couldn’t bend it.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes it was heavier then a regular record, it was like 10 inch plate. Very rare was it a 12 inch because it was more money, so the 10 inch we would use and they would burn it on the record with a needle and you can get like maybe a 100 plays out of it or less, but you would hear a hissing sound letting you know it is starting to wear out. So we would get a new plate every so often.<\/p>\n Reggie- The first one was “Where’s that b—- that wanted to suck my d—!” The sound was like a rhythm box or beat box.<\/p>\n Reggie- No we took it from my man Louie Roman who was Disco Kid like I told you earlier, he made the beat for us. He came out with this beat programmer; he had this little beat box machine.<\/p>\n Robert- Right he use to do that live and when he did that \u201cWho is that B—- that wants to suck my d—!\u201d everyone liked it because we did a mix with that. So we said you know what we can burn it and make a record with that and that’s just what we did.<\/p>\n Robert- That would be me! It was actually two records one was Suck my d— and the other was, \u201cWho was that b—- that wants to suck my d— for a day.\u201d (We both start laughing.) People loved it. I got cats on video a couple of weeks ago talking about that plate and they had the whole record down pat I couldn’t believe it.<\/p>\n Robert- I only said those words and then mixed in McFadden and Whiteheads No stopping. We have a party coming up and we are going to do that same thing again because all the people from that era are coming to this boat ride we are promoting.<\/p>\n Robert- Sure, tell him the story Reggie.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well there was this guy that wanted the record very bad and he thought it was in the stores. So he went around looking and he went into this particular store on Steinway Street, him and his friend. When he got in the store there was a bunch of people in there and he goes to one of the guys behind the counter and asked do you have the Twins records. The worker says, \u201cWhat’s the name of the record?\u201d\u00a0 So homeboy starts looking around the store but he couldn’t say it, so he mimicked it and left out the curse words but he said, “Who is that blank that wanted to suck my blank!\u201d So the guy looks at him and says I don’t know what you are talking about, tell me the name of the record! So homeboy is looking at these people that are on the line behind him waiting. So finally homeboy has his cousin with him and says, \u201cCome on let\u2019s go, he doesn’t know the record he must not have it.\u201d So homeboy says it one more time but this time he uses all the curses and the guy kicks him out of the store and they almost fought because he was cursing at the guy. It was funny, it was hilarious the way he told me the story. So they threw him out the store and he never knew to this day that it wasn’t a real record that was printed and put into the stores.<\/p>\n Reggie- His name is Shawn Randolph from Astoria Queens and he was a brother that enjoyed our music so he would come to a lot of our jams and he thought that was an actual record that we put out, he didn’t know it was just a record we made for ourselves that we carried around and we were the only ones that played it and we made sure of that. We use to scratch off the name of the company that was on the plate because we didn’t want any one to know our secret.<\/p>\n Robert- (paused before answering.) I think it is pretty much the same we just changed a few things around. We are known for having the lease amount but having the best sound, not trying to sound conceited or whatever. We usually don’t have a whole lot of stuff. We had about 4 speakers and that was it. We had maybe two or three berthas and some ultimate cabinets. We were very efficient with what we had.<\/p>\n Robert- We had a mail truck that we bought. (Troy Laughs.)<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah but we painted it blue.<\/p>\n Reggie- Absolutely, when they seen the truck they knew! As far as the system back then we would take two Bertha’s and two 12’s.<\/p>\n Robert- He is talking about 1978, did we have the B36’s back then?<\/p>\n Reggie- No<\/p>\n Robert- We did have some ring radiator twitters that we got from the street poles! They use to have something that I think was like radar detectors.<\/p>\n Reggie- I think they were light sensors.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah to change the traffic lights and that was what we used for twitters. We use to climb the street poles to get the twitters. Some of the poles might be seven feet high and some of them would be like 3 stories high and we would climb all the way up there just to get those twitters because back then those twitters were like up to $125 each.<\/p>\n Robert- It was sensor to change the traffic light. It would make this ticking sound, which was ticking to tell you how many cars are coming by in order for the light to change. So we would climb the pole taking a ratchet set with us, someone would be down at the bottom and we would drop it down to them and then take them home and shined them up and then got them ready to put in a box.<\/p>\n Reggie- We use to do that with Disco Kid and Corey Dee.<\/p>\n Robert- Corey Dee was the smallest of the four of us so he used to be the one that would go up there most of the time. The cops almost caught us and they thought we were crazy going up there like that. They asked one time what we were doing up there and we said exercising. They didn’t know we were up there for twitters or trying to steal light bulbs they just thought we were fools. They would say get down and we would go right back up after they left.<\/p>\n Reggie- Who told us Robert, the word was out. Ricky Grant?<\/p>\n Robert- Ricky Grant from Nu Sounds and Curtis of Phase One. That’s how we got wind of it.<\/p>\n Reggie- Because we were asking questions and these things were not in the stores. Ricky Grant I think was an engineer or something so he knew that you could produce that kind of sound from that particular product that was up on the light bulb. He was a genius too, in his own right.<\/p>\n Reggie- I think so, it was by JDR. I think they started reproducing them after it was in demand. Only Broadway Maintenance would service or change them every so often, because there is a diaphragm in there.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah it is like a silver bullet, it is called bullet tweeter, or it\u2019s similar to brush nickel.<\/p>\n Reggie- (Reggie lets out a big Whoa!) Whoa it was incredible, a big difference. The ones in the store today are quad piezo’s, they never use to have them before the only place you could get them was up on the poles.<\/p>\n Robert- Maybe 20 years later, Richard Long was using them but they weren’t available at the time but he made them popular and that’s when everybody caught on. But I think he bought one and it was exclusive for him because he was like a test marketer for all the clubs. If anyone wanted to open up a club he was the person to go to put a sound system together for you.<\/p>\n Reggie- He did Bonds International, the Palladium, Zanzibar, Regines. That’s some of the clubs I know.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well he went out of the country, he did a lot out of the country and Zanzibar was in Jersey. He also did Empire roller Rink in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n Reggie- Not that I know of and he was kind of expensive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reggie- We used the PSA2 amplifier which we still have to this day. We use a Crown cross over. We also use the pace equalizer at that time, we got that from Richard Long. We also had GLI mixers and 1100 turntables. Then we got the 1200 which everyone is using today. Back then when we bought those 1200’s they were 250 a piece, now they like 700 to $800 today. As far as the mics we used the regular Shore mics.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes it was a box.<\/p>\n Reggie- It was a dial.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes but we called it the rhythm Machine and it belonged to Louie Roman aka Disco Kid, that was around 1977 or 78 around the time we were making plates.<\/p>\n Robert- Well I don’t know because we didn’t know them at that time. First of all we didn’t even know what was going on in Harlem or the Bronx or any of those places.<\/p>\n Reggie- We were mostly in Long island. We did Brooklyn eventually. We later heard about Flash and that was when we decided to hire Flash. He was a crowd drawer. We were smitten and inspired by some of the things he done.<\/p>\n Robert- It was pretty much the same. Systems change mostly front loaded powered speakers. Everybody is not really using the stuff we are using right now to this day. Everybody pretty much went to digital and they also change their format in their system. Most of their people that were still using their system back then were using Cerwin-Vega and B36’s and L 48’s and other stuff like that. Nobody was really using Bertha’s, only people that were using Bertha’s were in the clubs and you would have to go to the Palladium, Diplomat for some Bertha’s or Roxy’s for some Jay Horns. I don’t remember any one using the Bertha like we were doing out in the streets. Once Donnie Lawrence aka Dance Master got hired by a club he stopped bringing his system outside. Like I said he had the berthas and console first, when we seen Dance Master with his we went to Richard long and got our own console. We wanted everything to be neat. So we got the deck and nobody had a deck at that time, Richard Long was first with that also. Keep in mind those speakers were heavy, so everyone didn’t want to be carrying those speakers.<\/p>\n Robert- No when we first started we had B36’s and four 21 Altec cabinets with the speakers in it. We also had train station horns.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes horns from the train station. They were on a level where you could grab them and unscrew the bolts. Me and my brother along with Corey Dee went up in the train station on 30th avenue the RR train line and pulled them down. Today it is the Q and N. We use to go on to the platform of the train station and take those horns. If we blew out those horns we would go to another train station and twist off the back of the magnate and take it with us.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes, we pretty much went on a hiatus and just chilled. We were doing other things like the Real Estate stuff, building renovating and stuff like that. The last party we gave was with 112.<\/p>\n We did Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz 112 and The Beatnuts. We did a couple of shows. We fell out the scene for a minute and we just got back on. We still got our stuff but we had to rebuild what we had because everything was scattered all over the place and we sold some to King Charles. We also let one of our friends hold a piece of our equipment and we just got everything back together.<\/p>\n Robert- No I am doing it with the Serato, because it is just too much with the vinyl!<\/p>\n Robert- Well the vinyl you have to carry like 10 to 20 crates to really have a lot of records. Now a days you can have thousands of songs in this format today. So we had to conform to what was going on now.<\/p>\n Robert- I would say Infinity Machine with D.J. Divine and Goody were good candidates as well as Phase One and Nu Sounds. Those were the cats we really respected.<\/p>\n Robert- No, absolutely not! \u00a0We were very confident in what we had and we always bought the lease and sounded the best and I am not just saying that. We never came with no more than 6 speakers.<\/p>\n Robert- Well when they played against us I think they had like 27 speakers or something like that. It was crazy because we had 6 speakers, the altamas, and 2 Berthas. They seen our stuff and they went home and got more speakers which came to 27.<\/p>\n Altama’s<\/p>\n Robert- They couldn’t even touch us. The way the cabinets were designed we were very efficient and we just took our stuff to the next level. We didn’t have a lot of amps we just felt what we had would be enough for the job.<\/p>\n Robert- Well we were known for entertaining. We use to do different things we had gimmicks like we use to bring this guy to our show his name was Ray Charles he was like our gimmick and he would dance on our speakers and we would do different things on the turntables while Smalls was enhancing what we were doing. We had routines where we were running around the turntables, lifting my brother on my shoulders, whatever it took to entertain everybody.<\/p>\n Robert- We never really had any battles. Our only real battle was with Infinity Machine.<\/p>\n Robert- What was that Reg?<\/p>\n Reggie- One of them said their sound was better than our sound.<\/p>\n Robert- Then they had a rumor running around we borrowed from Richard Long. We never did.<\/p>\n Reggie- But mostly it was just a rival and talk so we were like let’s just do it. I think we battled twice. One in Long Island at a Roller Skating Rink, at371 Nassau Road. The last one was I.S. 8<\/p>\n Robert- In Jamaica<\/p>\n Reggie- Yeah in Jamaica Queens.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yeah.<\/p>\n Reggie- First off we had a routine they wouldn’t even attempt to do because everyone pretty much knew what we were going to do and it was routine that we were playing at that time to catch a groove, I can’t stop, super sperm and Get Down. We knew at the time what the crowd liked and we were basically entertaining. Plus you had d.j.s that played what they liked not keeping in mind what people liked. You try and please everybody you don’t play just for yourself. Plus that is when that plate came in, so we had routines that we knew to get it poppin at that time.<\/p>\n Master Don<\/p>\n Reggie- Well we would do a lot of switching up amongst the two of us, when we would do spin backs we would take turns, as well we would run around the turntables. Another thing we would do is while my brother is playing I would lift my brother up on to my shoulders, stuff like that. Our m.c.s played a role as well by gassing us up.<\/p>\n Reggie- Packed<\/p>\n Robert- Well they were really pissed off at that time once we finished our set. Everybody was talking about it, but people that were there knew what happen. There come back was \u201cOh they borrowed from Richard Long.\u201d I seen an article that he wrote about us saying we borrowed from Richard, we never borrowed from Richard.<\/p>\n Robert- I would give them a 10<\/p>\n Robert- Right because they were into the mixing. Rickey Grant, JD and Steve were good and I was inspired by them a lot. I think Rickey was a genius at what he was doing. He use to build his speakers in this place called St. James. He was into technology so he was good. He used to be in the Constellation when we were upstairs in the Diplomat. I think he is a genius.<\/p>\n Reggie- Automatically I would also give them a 10.<\/p>\n Reggie- Same area.<\/p>\n Robert- And they were a little older than us.<\/p>\n Reggie- No because when we were coming in they were going out.<\/p>\n Robert- Honestly I never heard their system. We knew of them but never heard them play.<\/p>\n Reggie- Never heard of them.<\/p>\n Robert- I heard of them but never heard their system.<\/p>\n Robert- He was a d.j. with a sound system I will give him a 10. He too was a genius. He use to build the cabinets for Richard Long and was the one that introduced us to Richard Long. Phase One was from 110th street and Corona, which is just on the other side of East Elmhurst where Ricky and Nu Sounds were at. But with Phase One he was an extremist and I mean that in a good way. On everything he would go beyond the call of duty to make his set right. He was really neat with his records and his sound system was pressteen. Everything he had was exceptional and we learned a whole lot from him. We use to go to his house a lot; we learned how to wire tweeters, speakers etc. and our key was to avoid distortion in our speakers.<\/p>\n Robert- I know him, I would give him a 7. I think there were too many fingers in the cookie jar wiring up his sound. He had the right speakers but too many people wiring up for him and I say that because I felt it never sounded very clear.<\/p>\n Robert- I will give them props and give them a 9.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well they had too much stuff, they were trying too hard.<\/p>\n Robert- I don’t want it to sound like we are being disrespectful but I too felt they had too much equipment. But skills as a D.J., Divine was nice, he was up there I am not mad at him. They were doing their thing and they were making things happen, as well they inspired a lot of people during their time when we were both gigging.<\/p>\n Robert- Well we knew that it wasn’t just about d.j.ing we wanted to do more to get the people excited.<\/p>\n Reggie- What we wanted to do was incorporate each other because instead of me playing and then my brother playing we felt let’s do something different. So I said I will master something I like to do and my brother will master something he likes to do and that was how we came about doing all the little tricks. We didn’t want to be completely twins on the turntables; we wanted to show the versatility between each other.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well we were the only set of twins at that time. We didn’t know if there was anybody else out there like us, brother or sister, which did that. But other than Twins I think JD of Nu Sounds were pretty good, he knew how to work the crowd. He knew how to improvise and he had his little nitch. He was different from Smalls, he had his little antics. “Come on Whip it New York.” Just little things he said. He was short winded on some of the words. He didn’t do long stories on the mic like say a Hollywood, Smalls or Eddie Cheba. JD was just good at amping the crowd, he was very sporadic.<\/p>\n ” <\/em>Now swing your partner around, dosey-dosey Reggie- We never battled them, never. We never even met Herc back in the days.<\/p>\n (Robert and Reggie never heard the record Bust the Facts until I played it for them on this day.)<\/p>\n Robert- Wow…where did he say we battled them at?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Robert- I don’t know anything about that unless maybe he was down with Bambaataa.<\/p>\n Reggie- Nah he did some shows for us. We use to hire him and Red Alert to do shows for us.<\/p>\n Robert- Didn’t we do something up in the Bronx in one of those parks with Herc?<\/p>\n Reggie- We could have, but I don’t remember ever battling Kool Herc.<\/p>\n Robert- What do you mean the sound?<\/p>\n Robert- We loved it. We use to hire them when we were promoting some of our venues. We bought Cold Crush into Queens first. We bought Flash to the Travelers Hotel. We bought Bam and the Treacherous 3 to Queens; we bought The Crash Crew to Long Island. We bought the Funky 4 to Reese Center, as well as D.J. Hollywood. We did a lot of parties. We welcomed those guys.<\/p>\n Robert- I think the Cold Crush.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yeah and Bambaataa too. He used to come to our house. We did the Soul Sonic Force at the roller skating rink in Lefrack City. In fact me, Jazzy Jay and Red Alert remained friends to this very day.<\/p>\n Robert- We either met him through Winston Sanders or Sparky Martin. I believe we did Super Star 33, also a club called Ray Sharay. He was real cool his style was similar to a Eddie Cheba or Reggie Wells. Real smooth brother. I think I met him in Nell Gwen’s over by 42nd street.<\/p>\n Reggie- We was dealt with these guys name Larry and Thomas and another guy name Beast a couple of times. I believe Beast later went on to do security for Wyclef. But we have used Beast, Thomas, Charles and some other karate cats that we were dealing with. We also had this big huge cat name Walter. We always had big huge dudes when we were doing things.<\/p>\n Robert- We really didn’t have any security because we never really had any problems when we played outside. Back then the only fights were with the fists oppose to today where the fights are not the same guns are involved now. Back then it wasn’t as serious.<\/p>\n Robert- No but we did bring a machine gun one time. We had a friend that we knew that owned a Thompson machine gun. We played at the T- Connection for the first time and we had heard so much about somebody might rip us off up there. See we heard from a source that someone said we better not come to the Bronx or they are going to rip us off.<\/p>\n Reggie- The word was getting around if we come to the Bronx we are going to get robbed and I am not going to front we were nervous until we got in there. But that was why we bought the Tommie gun because we were hearing a lot of stuff. So when we got there we had one of the brothers running with us shooting the machine gun up in the air. To be honest we were just happy to get out of their alive.<\/p>\n Reggie- Well it had a 45 clip that was like a half moon.<\/p>\n Robert- Absolutely we borrowed it from a friend of ours, he had it hidden in his ceiling and we just said we need that. (Troy and the brothers start laughing.) He took it out the ceiling and we took it with us. We were scared as hell because we didn’t know what was going on. Matter fact that night it was a guy name Star Ski that we were cool with that was holding the gun for us and and a guy name Billy was with us too. Reg you remember that?<\/p>\n Reggie- I remember.<\/p>\n Robert- No in fact when the night was over we called the police so they could escort us out of there because we really thought they were going to jump us.<\/p>\n Robert- We played the State Building on 125th street.<\/p>\n Harlem State Office Building 125th Street 7th Avenue before the grounds were remodeled<\/p>\n Robert- We also played the Audubon. D.J. A.J. and The Funky Four were there with us. This was the early 80’s.<\/p>\n Robert- Well Riis Center, 8th Street and we would intertwine with the Hotel Diplomat. As well as Shalay, The Fog House and USA.<\/p>\n Robert- No we didn’t do that. Name some other places Reg<\/p>\n Reggie- We did the Savoy Manor.<\/p>\n Reggie Yeah we did that, we did that a few times.<\/p>\n Robert- Yes and we also did one with Jerry Blood Rock at that same station. We did a lot of stuff for him as well as Mr. Magic. The Supreme Team Show interviewed us also.<\/p>\n Reggie- Marley Marl use to come to our parties to see what we were doing and he admired our sound system and a lot of things we were doing at that time. We knew that he was a d.j. in Queens Bridge. This was before he was producing anything, he was a local d.j. in the area and we had gotten wind of it and every time he would come around we knew that we had to impress and we let him know that we were there. Whenever he would come by we would turn up the volume to make him recognize. He never knew that we were getting down like that, but we did it on purpose.<\/p>\n Robert- No he didn\u2019t make a record yet but it was a d.j. thing.<\/p>\n Reggie- I guess it was more territorial.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah<\/p>\n Reggie- You know how some cats spray their mist where ever they go.<\/p>\n Robert- I don’t know I never really seen him d.j. at that time. We heard about him and you have to remember he was working with Mr. Magic at WHBI. He was the d.j. over there. He hadn’t made any records yet when we were doing our thing.<\/p>\n Robert- The Fat Boys, we just felt let’s try the Fat Girls and one morning after putting them together we got them on the Morning Show with Regis and Kathy Lee and we surprised the Fat Boys with the Fat Girls and\u00a0 they did not like that.<\/p>\n (Troy Laughs and then the brothers laugh.)<\/p>\n The Fat Boys and The Fat Girls<\/p>\n Robert- The Fat Boys were watching and Reggie is right they didn’t like that. Regis said I got a surprise for you and he walked out with the Fat Girls and they almost chocked. I wish I could find that tape.<\/p>\n Robert- No because we had already developed a relationship with Buffy and Kool Rock Ski. Buffy more because I use to go and see him.<\/p>\n Reggie- Absolutely because when they were on the stage their reaction was not good. I wish I could get a copy of that. Do you think they archive stuff like that?<\/p>\n Robert- I would like to see that but we also did a PSL on Channel four with The Fat Girls and Mele Mel. It was a commercial about Crack, saying Don’t do it. We were rapping a little and they were rapping. I would like to get that.<\/p>\n Reggie- We did a couple with Jeff Harris too but I really want to see the one we did with the Furious 5.<\/p>\n Robert- Yeah it got them on Spring Records with the Rifkin’s, B. Rifkins and Julian Rifkin. They were on the same level with Ice Tee. So they had the deal and Patrick Adams was the one that did the session and the record for us.<\/p>\n Robert- That was at Profile Records and we did it at 1212 Studio in Queens.<\/p>\n Robert- Right.<\/p>\n Reggie- Wow you remember Paul C?<\/p>\n Robert- Good brother Paul Cee-<\/p>\n Robert- It was a compilation.<\/p>\n Reggie- How did you know that?<\/p>\n Robert- Wow.<\/p>\n Robert- Go on Reggie you elaborate on it.<\/p>\n Reggie- We basically did that independent and we got everyone together and then we distributed our selves. We sold everything that was out but we didn’t follow up by printing more records and continuing to distribute. It was kind of difficult back then because we were going to the stores ourselves. We went to stores in Brooklyn and Queens and leaving it on consignment. So we were pushing it ourselves, I believe if we would have stayed in the game who knows where we would have been because we learned a lot at that particular time.<\/p>\n Robert- Well we are dipping and dabbing in the real estate business, we are also doing some production here and there, some independence stuff, some mixing, recording and producing.<\/p>\n Reggie- Yes because that is one of my loves and we are doing our parties again as well we have been enjoying some of the documentaries that is getting ready to come out. We are in 2 documentaries about to come out. We would like to do our own somewhat like the untold story but a forgotten one. So we are going to do something like that in time.<\/p>\n Reggie- One is with Hassan and Ron Lawrence and they talk about Queens and Brooklyn D.J.s, the sound system and that is a very good one. And another two cats name D.J. Swan and Barshon Gibbs and they are from Queens Bridge doing a docu called Lost Tribe. They interviewed us and there are supposed to be some other people in there from Queens Bridge because a lot of things came out of there. Like some of the people that didn’t get the recognition or notoriety as well as ourselves. I guess the difference between now and then is we never had a hit record out. So were trying to change that a little because it would be nice if some one starts to recognize not just Kool Herc because Kool herc got the accolades when he was in the Bronx. But him and Hollywood didn’t have any records either but they got their props on the hip hop honors and I think it’s about time that they need to recognize some of the cats that have not made records. I think they need to let us tell our story because we all have a good story to tell.<\/p>\n Reggie- Russell Simmons will tell you himself when the records weren’t out he was doing parties just like we were, It was no records out at that time. There is a story before the record and it has to be told. I don’t think it’s fair that you have Hollywood and Herc in there and no one from Queens or Brooklyn.<\/p>\n Robert- Well I know that when the music was happening it was really disco but it evolved. I can’t say the Bronx started it and I can’t say Queens started, but I know that at that time it was disco music, it wasn’t no hip-hop! So we have our own version and definition on what was going on in Queens and Brooklyn. We were more known for sound systems and having the best sound systems in Queens and Brooklyn. I can’t tell you about anybody in the Bronx that had a big sound system and that is no disrespect.<\/p>\n Reggie- Are their pictures of any of the crews large sound systems?<\/p>\n DJ Barons “The Mighty Sasquatch Part 2”<\/p>\n Robert- See the only equipment people had at that time prior to Richard Long were Vega’s and B 36’s that are also Vega’s and Crazy Eddie bought those out. Crazy Eddie started selling the B 36’s and Vega’s and everybody started buying them. But we wanted to be different so we went somewhere else and got something different.<\/p>\n Reggie- We got those B 36’s in I think 1976. After that everyone was using the B 36’s. Even the Infinity Machine and up to this day their maybe a mobile d.j. that uses the Berthas now. Today a lot of cats are just mimicking and I am not mad at them. But see like I said earlier we knew Richard Long personally and I can say back in those days I don’t know anybody with a Richard Long sound system. Only Richard Long was making big sound systems back then.<\/p>\n Robert- In fact there was this guy that bought all those Richard Long systems out of all the clubs Richard Long had set up and I don’t know the guys name but he now controls the patent design. So now you can get it from only one person and if you get them from someone else they are basically mimicking it.<\/p>\n Reggie- So I would like to see those pictures of guys from the Bronx sound systems. I seen one of those videos with Herc driving around in a car and he had two shore columns. I don’t know if that was his system but that was the only thing I saw.<\/p>\n I would like to thank The Disco Twins for their great pictures and flyers. Also like to thank Denise-djladylove Briggs for her flyer and D.J. Baron for his photo.<\/p>\n
\n I didn’t hear a peep from a place called QUEENS.
\n It was ’76, to 1980…
\n the dreads in Brooklyn was crazy!
\n You couldn’t bring out your set with no Hip-Hop
\n because the pistols would go…”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nTroy- Thank you for your time my brothers now let’s get to the bottom of things, where were you born and raised at?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys were born in a hospital in Harlem and went straight to Queens?<\/h5>\n
Troy- That would be 114th street and Amsterdam Avenue and it is actually connected to St. Lukes Hospital. Across the street is Columbia University and down the block is The Grant Projects. I too was born in Women’s hospital. So who was born first between Reggie and Robert?<\/h5>\n
Troy- How many brothers and sisters are there?<\/h5>\n
Troy- What schools did you guys go to growing up?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So were you guys into sports growing up?<\/h5>\n
Troy- How far did you guys go in the martial arts in regard to your belts?<\/h5>\n
Troy- You went to different gyms learning the arts?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins02.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So what made you guys learn karate and once you did learn it did you guys become bullies, how did it affect you growing up?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins03.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins04.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So what inspired this taste for hip hop music?<\/h5>\n
Troy- When you guys first started out were you using one or two turntables?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So take me back to the very beginning what made you guys get those turntables.<\/h5>\n
Troy- In those early days do you recall D.J. Plummer?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins05.jpg\")
\n D.J. Plummer<\/p>\nTroy- So when would you say you guys started actually doing your thing?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So why d.j. instead of m.c.?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Alright now with Cory D what was the deal with him sitting in a tree saying his rhymes?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys are doing your thing as well you had Nu Sounds, Grand Master Flowers, Maboya, The Smith Brothers and others doing their thing, did you guys ever get a taste or hear a tape from Harlem or the Bronx with Kool Herc, Flash or The Funky 4?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins06.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins07.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins09.jpg\")
\n Hotel Diplomat<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins10.jpg\")
c<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins11.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So in the Hotel Diplomat there were 3 different parties going on inside of one building at the same time all through the night?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So did you pay at the front door on the first floor or did you pay once you got to the floor you were going to party at?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you had to pay for 3 different parties if you wanted to go up and down to party?<\/h5>\n
Troy- And your equipment stayed there for people to use when you weren’t there?<\/h5>\n
Troy- How much were you charging these guys to rent your system to them?<\/h5>\n
Troy- You guys made a killing for 1977.<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins12.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins13.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So where did you get these Berthas from?<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Troy- How much did he charge you for them?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So did he make them in his house or did he buy them from somewhere else and sold them to you?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins14.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Where was Dance Master from?<\/h5>\n
Troy- How did you and your brother meet Richard Long?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins15.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins16.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- What type of brother was he?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Why did he die?<\/h5>\n
Troy- I seen a picture of them together but I didn’t realize that.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So Richard Long was real cool with you guys?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins17.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So what was Richard Longs actual M.O. was he an independent were he made equipment in his house and he sold equipment to everybody?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So have you and your brother thought about making speakers or have you guys already went down that road as well?<\/h5>\n
Troy- When I ask that question I mean have you guys went so far as to have a Patten number and selling it out of stores?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Now as far as your m.c.s you had Cory Dee, D.J. Smalls as well as m.c. Robin Hood. How did these guys get on with you and your brother? I know Cory lived in your building but what about Robin Hood and Smalls?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins18.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins19.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Where was Smalls from because I don’t think he was actually from Queens, did he come from the Bronx also?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how long did that last between you guys and him?<\/h5>\n
Troy- O.K., did you guys ever considered doing a record with him?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins20.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- I didn’t know he ran with you guys. Did you produce his record?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So was there a time when all 4 guys were running with the Disco Twins?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did they ever do routines together?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So those guys never thought about doing any routines together like what was going on up in the Bronx and Harlem?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Later on you had some female mc’s running with you, Nasty Tee and Star Child?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did she try and take it to the next level by making records?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Were there any other mc.s that got down with you guys?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys would have a tape made at your house and then take it to a store and have the plate made or you actually made the plate at home as well?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So can you break it down a little bit more for me because guys like Fab 5 Freddy and others would tell me these plates were big and made of metal or something and no one wanted to carry them around. But you are telling me it in a different way, you are actually saying it is vinyl and it was soft and it would run out after a certain amount of plays.<\/h5>\n
Troy- Was it heavier then a regular record?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So what was the first plate?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So where did this beatbox sound come from did ya’ll take it from another record?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Which one of you said “Where’s that b—- that said she wants to suck my d—?\u2019<\/h5>\n
Troy- So there is more to this, what else is being said?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So I’m sure that is going to blew some peoples minds after not hearing it for 20 plus years. Was there ever a time people wanted to know how they can do it also?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Good story, who was the guy?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how big was your system back then? Also is your system just as big today or have you and your brother cut back on the amount of pieces you have?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins21.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So say from 1978 to 1982 what was your system like, and how did you transport the equipment?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So ya’ll bought like the breadbox postal truck and stripped it of its name and painted over it white?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins22.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So you kept it blue and everybody in Astoria and parts of Queens knew you and your brother was coming when they saw your truck?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So why would twitters be up on a pole?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how did ya’ll guys know to go up there to get these twitters?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So did anybody over time take them from the poles and manufacture them and put them in stores as tweeters?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Help me out here Twins, to my knowledge tweeters are little speakers right but I am getting a different impression about them from you guys. (A tweeter is a loudspeaker designed to produce high frequencies, typically from around 2,000 Hz to 20,000 Hz (generally considered to be the upper limit of human hearing). Some tweeters can manage response up to 45 kHz. The name is derived from the high pitched sounds made by some birds, especially in contrast to the low woofs made by many dogs, after which low-frequency drivers are named woofers.)<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins23.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So what\u2019s the difference between the tweeters off the lamp post and the tweeters in the store?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys were like geniuses at the time being as no one else had them. How long did it take before the whole music community started to get their hands on it?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how many clubs do you think Richard Long was involved with because many people refer to him when it comes to the best equipment and all the clubs back then.<\/h5>\n
Troy- He never went pass 59th street?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did he ever go to Harlem or The Bronx?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So take me back to your system, the Eq, the Amp!<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did you have an echo chamber back then or did you use the Reverb?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Your echo chamber was something you held in your hand, stepped on or a dial on the system?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did you have a beat box like Master Don or Grand Master Flash?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys may have had it before Flash.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So 10 years go by and we are now in the 1990’s, was your system pretty much the same?<\/h5>\n
Troy- You guys also had the folded horns?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Train Station Horns?<\/h5>\n
Troy- O.K. so is your system pretty much the same today other then the subway horns and tweeters from the light post?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins24.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- O.K. so with the turntables are you doing like a lot of people are doing today using CDs or are you still with the wax?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins25.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- And why do you say that?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So back in the days when you guys were making a lot of noise in Queens who’s system did you respect other than your own?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins26.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Did the guys you mention or any other crews have any surprises for you and your brother were you might have said, \u201cYo Robert did you see that, where did they get that from!\u201d<\/h5>\n
Troy- And somebody like The Infinity Machine would have something like 24 speakers in there set?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins27.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So with all of that when it was turned on it was basically about the same amount as your 6 speakers?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So during those days you won a battle by your system not by your d.j. skills or your m.c?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins28.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins29.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So you and your brother would do this in shows or parties as well as Battles?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So what bought on this battle?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins30.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Did you guys win both times?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys are doing tricks and trying to amaze the crowd what did the Infinity Machine do to amp the crowd?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So the routine actually was ya’ll played records for the crowd, was there anything else other than playing the records? Like a dance or something or taking off your shoes and…say Master Don he use to mix with a British Walker shoe on each hand or spinning a basketball at the same time as he cut the records.<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins31.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins32.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So the crowd would be eating it up and the park jams would be packed?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So did he Infinity Machine have any tight routine to come back at ya’ll or were they just living off the system they had.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how would you rate Nu Sounds from a 1 to 10?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you would give them a 10 on their system as well as their performance in front of a crowd?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So where was they from?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you and your brother never battled those guys?<\/h5>\n
Troy- The next one is Cipher Sounds?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Alright what about Rat and Monkey?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Jamaican Sounds?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Phase One?<\/h5>\n
Troy- O.k. next up King Charles.<\/h5>\n
Troy- O.k. Infinity Machine?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins33.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins34.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- What stopped them from getting a 10?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So what bought on these tricks you two were doing while d.j.ing?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Was there any other crew just as good as you when it came to that part?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Was there ever a time you battled Kool Herc and the Herculiods? The reason why I asked is Kool Keith made a record called Bust the Facts and spoke about you battling Herc.<\/h5>\n
\n like musical chairs and ring around the rosie
\n The party you pace see, Kool Herc with J.C.
\n The Herculoids battle, The Disco Twins
\n Funky rhymes with breakbeats, the DJ spins
\n for the L Brothers, steppin right in the scene
\n Mean Gene was maxin, Rockin Rob went to work
\n While the tables would turn, the old needles used to jerk<\/em><\/strong>“<\/em><\/p>\nTroy- He doesn’t say. I thought you guys might have known about this record. I guess one day I will bump into Kool Keith to find out the story behind this record.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So you guys battled Bam back in the days?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how did you guys feel about that sound in the Bronx and Harlem once you guys found out about it?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Those routines, Flash and The Furious 5, Cold Crush, Treacherous 3, Crash Crew, all those records they were making as well as their style and swagger!<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins35.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Who did you have the best relationship with out of all those players?<\/h5>\n
Troy- How did you guys get so cool with D.J. M.C. Les Love the owner of Harlem Lanes?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins36.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins37.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So who did the security back then for you guys, The 7 Crowns, 5 Percent Nation or the people from Astoria Projects?<\/h5>\n
Troy- What about when you were doing outside jams in Astoria?<\/h5>\n
Troy- What about the stick up kids? In the Bronx and Harlem there were many dudes robbing people at the party inside the bathrooms and along the train stations. People were getting their equipment taken from them right in the middle of a jam. How did you guys deal with that type of thuggery, did you guys have to ever use your karate on any one?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins38.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Who said this.<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins39.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Can you describe it?<\/h5>\n
Troy- That\u2019s like the old machine guns from the 30’s that Al Capone and his henchmen used, ya’ll some funny brothers.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So at the end of the night there were no problems?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Was there any other time you played The Bronx or Harlem?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins40.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So your main spots in Queens were Astoria Projects, I.S. 8 and Fantasia?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Did you ever play Madison Square Garden?<\/h5>\n
Troy- That’s up in the Bronx.<\/h5>\n
Troy- You also use to advertise on The Supreme Team Show on WHBI?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how did you guys get up with Marley Marl?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins41.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So why did ya’ll treat him like that, he had not made a record yet?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So Marley Marls name started getting up there fast? Did he have really good d.j.ing skills.<\/h5>\n
Troy- What inspired the girl group The Fat Girls?<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins42.jpg\")
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins43.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- So did the Fat Boys ever respond to you and your brother about them?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So they never spoke on it, you just seen a look on their face?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Yes they should, in fact they should have recorded every last one of their shows over the years.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So did that help the Fat Girls as far as getting them a record deal?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So now the record Do the Wop and Get Back, There It Is by you and your brother?<\/h5>\n
Troy- With Paul C?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how did that record go down the Power House joint Don’t Sleep on Us. One half of the record is Soul and R&B the other half Rap?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Just putting in work trying to get as much history about the two of you. I have to give props to the website known as www.oldschoolhiphop.com<\/a> message board because they have contributed to some of these questions I am asking you.<\/h5>\n
Troy- So how did that work out for you guys?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So what are you guys doing today and what do you hope to accomplish in the future?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Yeah I seen quite a few guys you have been working with, are you ready to go full time with this?<\/h5>\n
Troy- So what are the two videos you guys are on right now?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Right.<\/h5>\n
Troy- I hear you but I am sure they are working on it. So what is your position on this video or documentary that says Queens and Brooklyn started hip hop?<\/h5>\n
Troy- Well the big sound systems from the Bronx would be Breakout and Baron of the Funky Four and that would be that same type of equipment that you guys were talking about, as well as Kool Herc owning a hell of a sound system. There are other crews that had big systems but these two crews were talked about by many.<\/h5>\n
Troy- I will try and find some and send them to you but I don’t think the Funky Four have any but there are legendary stories all through the Bronx and Harlem about these booming speakers and powerful amps. A couple of months ago I got the chance to interview Baron and Breakout and we went through their whole system and they too felt like you and your brother felt, they wanted the best for that clear sound.<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins44.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTroy- Thank you Fellas.<\/h5>\n
![\"Disco](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/discotwins45.jpg\")
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