Back in early 1992, we were getting ready to move from Albany, NY to Brooklyn, so we decided to sell some records at a local record show in order to lighten the load. We moved some units, made a little money, but the thing we remember most was a bunch of folks running around the room, looking through old 45s, wearing T-shirts with “Empire State Soul Club” emblazoned on them. “What was this?” we thought.

A couple months after the move, we noticed an advertisement in the Village Voice for The Empire State Soul Club—a sixties soul dance night at the Irving Plaza. Intrigued, we made the scene. It was a gas, with DJs playing some great soul records: hits, non-hits, obscure stuff, not-so-obscure stuff. The place was packed and everyone was dancing. For some reason, it was a while before we were able to find out when the next one was. Soon we discovered that The Empire State Soul Club was holding events monthly at a downtown joint called the North River Bar, so we attended whenever we could. We also met some of the key players: Brother Weems, W. Lee, Jeff the Chef and Connie T. Empress, the Empress of Soul.

Before the end of the decade, Weems and the Chef moved out of town. A newcomer, Mister Fine Wine, was added to the DJ roster, and he was excellent. But soon after, Mister Lee and the Empress must have lost interest in keeping it all together because ESSC seemed to have fizzled out. It left a void that others tried to fill, including Greg Tormo’s Solid Hit Soul Club; as fabulous as it was, it never got off the ground. Unfortunately, W. Lee passed away in 2019. It wasn’t until the Subway Soul Club started in late 2001 that a new scene emerged—but that’s another story.

Over the last several years, The Empress has tried to keep the Empire State Soul Club name alive: passing out buttons, selling T-shirts, etc. A few years ago she started Soul Finger, another soul music dance night. Last year she decided to resurrect the Empire State Soul Club brand and brought it into Otto’s Shrunken Head on East 14th Street in Manhattan. Every month she would send out word about the new ESSC and it made us feel crummy because we now live about two hours north of The City, making attendance difficult.

However, when the new Empire State Soul Club celebrated its first anniversary, The Empress turned to Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus to be one of its guest DJs. As much as this was very important to him, it took a while to figure out if he could actually do it. After all, he was scheduled to work a Do The 45 in Beacon, NY on the night before. Would he have the stamina to do them both?

“IT’S THE EMPIRE STATE SOUL CLUB, DUMMY, JUST DO IT!!” his conscience screamed at him.

So he did it, along with two other fine guest DJs, and of course, the lovely, talented and gracious Connie T Empress. The other DJs were Nogood Nick and Agent Jay. Nick is a person we’ve known forever—he’s been a guest at the Subway Soul Club, Dynagroove, Wham-O-Watusi and recently Funky Kingston. The Boog has guested at Nick’s fabulous Rip Rig + Panic events. Agent Jay is someone we don’t know as well, but he’s a good guy and he played some really cool records. He’s the guitarist for the groovy, hip NY ska band The Slackers. We know him a little bit, but this is the first chance we had to DJ with him.

The Empress, of course, was the Empress of Soul! Miss Connie played some fantastic records. She rounded up the DJs thusly: She worked from about 9PM until nearly 10. The Boogaloo Omnibus was next and swung for about 45 minutes, then Agent Jay played his selections followed by Nogood Nick. After that, The Empress returned to the turntables and remained there until the very end. She played the best records of the night—at least the few we heard were the best. We had a long drive ahead of us, so we ditched out a little early.

To sweeten things up, Miss Nancy made some brownies that were devoured pretty quickly. A special nod goes to DJ Kojak, Connie’s friend who brought an excellent DJ set up, including a big sub-woofer, that made the music sound like magic. A shout out here to our pal DJ Pete Pop who accompanied us down to The City. He enjoyed the Empire State Soul Club scene immensely and we discussed it all the way up the Taconic State Parkway on the way home. Also, a cat from AM New York was on the scene and wrote a little article about The Empress and her Empire. Dig it here!!

Thank you, Miss Connie T Empress for inviting us down to swing with you. We’ll invite you up for a Funky Kingston some time this year.

Here’s a list of all the records played by Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus at the Empire State Soul Club one year anniversary party, held on January 10.

• The Quests–Soul Finger [from EP 4 Hits] (Columbia; Malaysia)
• The Foundations–Jerking the Dog (Pye; Spain)
• Luchito–My Baby Likes to Boogaloo [from EP Latin Fever! Vol. 2] (Original Gravity; UK)
• The Pioneers–At the Discotheque (Trojan; UK)
• Della Reese–It Was a Very Good Year (ABC)
• The Eddy Jacobs Exchange–Pull My Coat (Columbia)
• The Mohawks–Mony Mony (Pama; Netherlands)
• Jun Mayuzumi–Black Room (Capitol; Japan)
• Theresa Lindsey—I’ll Bet You (Golden World)
• The Marvelettes–Too Many Fish in the Sea (Tamla)
• The Sherwoods–Ice Cream (Kapp)
• Beverly Ann Gibson–Do the Monkey (Jubilee)
• Roosevelt Matthews with Billy Ball & the Upsetters–Tighten Up (King)
• Millie Small–Carry Go Bring Come (Fontana; UK)
• The Tammys–Egyptian Shumba (United Artists)
• Sidney Barnes—You’ll Always Be in Style (Red Bird)
• Lorraine Chandler–I Can’t Hold On (RCA Victor)
• The Cavaliers–Hold To My Baby (RCA Victor)
• The Honey Drippers–Impeach the President (Alaga)

None of these records are for sale.