Spin Spin Sugar

After the pop and schlock of that last post - well, I actually like all of those songs, but still - I decided to circle back to a song that I love.

Back in the late 1990s, as I approached the end of the third decade of my life, I decided some changes were in order. I started dieting, and exercising, and trying to get myself in shape, and trying to become more sociable. I started going out to a dance club almost every Saturday night. The club was The Galaxy at Tink's in Scranton. I've written about it before - actually, I gave so much detail on my routine there in this post that I don't need to rehash it here.

The one song that made or broke the night for me was "Spin Spin Sugar" by The Sneaker Pimps. Specifically, the mix known as Armand's Dark Garage Mix. If it was played, that was the point in the night when everything seemed to get better. If it wasn't played, the night felt like a disappointment.

This is a long mix, over nine minutes long. You probably won't get the same effect from listening to a YouTube version that I did from hearing it in the full surround environment of a dance club, with three beers in my system and smoke, perfume, sweat, and pheromones in the air, surrounded by fellow dancers twitching with anticipation of what was to come. But those were great times, and I'm glad someone put this video up as a souvenir of those days.

Crank up the bass. Here it is.


The original version of this song (which, at just over three minutes long, is considerably shorter than Armand's Dark Garage Mix) makes an interesting contrast. One of the machines that I currently monitor and analyze makes a kettle-drum sound very much like the bass/drum sound in this video, an I always envision a fat, bald, half-naked man with a barcode tattooed on the back of his head when I hear it.

Kelli Dayton, a.k.a. Kelli Ali, the woman who provided vocals for this song and all of the songs on the first album by The Sneaker Pimps, has an e-zine called The Psychic Cat Times as well as a MySpace page featuring her music. She has an interesting, yet sadly typical, story to tell. Check it out. I wish her all the best!