_____________________________________

iris vander pluym
Q & A with monica murphy
on the re-release of Rainy Day

NEW YORK.... LIVE@ROXY3 marks another great recording from Peter Rauhofer, hard house streaming direct from the booth at the Roxy. The undisputed king of Roxy's infamous saturday night parties serves up a screaming 2-CD set, urgently transporting the listener to the club floor. Rauhofer has done it before (and flawlessly on the first LIVE@ROXY record, featuring WONDERBOX's "Turn Me Over"). LIVE@ROXY3 transmits to anyone, anywhere, the beautiful decadence of one the world's best gay parties. Nearly every Saturday night, Rauhofer cracks the code.

Rainy Day lands at Disc one, Track 2 on LIVE@ROXY3 - before Rauhofer's own Madonna remix. It's a Monica Murphy song, this one a co-write with her cohorts from WONDERBOX, Boris & Beck, along with Renee Stakey, an up-and-coming singer. Rauhofer's twisted mix of Murphy's WONDERBOX classic Turn Me Over was this writer's favorite cut on the first LIVE@ROXY, it seemed a stellar idea to find out more about Mr. Rauhofer's sweet tooth for Monica's tracks.

VOYAGE (BAR), West Village 8:15 PM

Iris Vander Pluyn: You've been a Peter Rauhofer fan for many years. How do you like appearing on another ROXY record?

Monica Murphy: It's amazing to me being even a small part of the ROXY records, but I have to say that Peter spinning them in these rooms is the coolest part about it....how cool is it that those boys at ROXY saturdays know all the words to my songs? They know every word, every note, and it's because Peter supported the records. He digs them. He spins them relentlessly. And whenever he drops those tracks at Roxy and the place goes nuts, a chill runs up my spine...that feeling is the reason I make records in the first place, to have moments like that.

IVP: How come you never appear "live at Roxy" yourself?

MM: Ha-ha. Well, let's just say I've never been asked.

IVP: I seriously doubt that...

MM: To do a live show and do it right, you need a record that launches like a rocket right out of the gate. That's when the promoters will book you, and you can do good gigs. For some reason, some records that I've done turn out to be sleepers...they stay under the radar for a while which is unusual for dance records.

IVP: But even if your record starts making more noise later on, couldn't you at least do some track dates?

MM: It's difficult, because from the label's perspective, they've already worked this record. The promotion budget is spent, and it's harder to get tour support.

IVP: What about doing shows in connection with LIVE@ROXY3?

MM: Well of course I would if Star 69 asked me to! But in the case of Rainy Day, it's not even my record, it's Renee's. So it wouldn't be me out there doing track dates. And she did some dates early on, but I think even by then the label had already lost interest in it. It peaked at number 10 [Billboard CLUB PLAY] and then dropped off. It had a nice little run. But after that, apparently it stuck around for a while at gay parties - same as [WONDERBOX's] Turn Me Over. Next thing you know, it's a year later and people are still spinning it, people like Rauhofer are still really digging it, and that's a very long run for a house single. People are still spinning Turn Me Over, and that record came out in fucking 1999!

IVP: Are you saying that the label dropped the ball on promoting the original Rainy Day single?

MM: No, not at all. Robbins hired one of the best promoters in the business to work that record, and he did a great job with it. It got club play, dance radio, it charted. But you know after a short amount of time a label like Robbins is going to move on and put their resources behind the next record or the one after that. It's just the business, you know, given that a typical house record has a very short shelf life. It's like a month or two at best - and Robbins, and everybody else, are always cranking out new tracks to get excited about.

No label in the world is going to babysit one record for a long time no matter how good it is, just to see if it's one that SLOWLY grows legs...it gets a shot, and that's it. So if it bubbles up again much later on it's own, it's because people like Peter Rauhofer got behind that record, not Robbins.

IVP: Did you shop Renee's record to Robbins?

MM: No not me personally, Doug and Boris did. We had another deal on the table with a different label and they seemed to really be behind the record, but that one...fell through. Then we pitched it to Robbins, and they loved it.

IVP: What killed the first deal?

MM: It's political.

IVP: Politics at the labels, or among yourselves?

MM: No, I mean the reason I won't tell you is political - for me.

IVP: Hmmm....I have to think about that. So I guess WONDEROX isn't a happy family these days?

MM: You can shut up now, Iris. You know what's gone on in my priate life and you swore you wouldn't ask me about that. And it's too bad for you, because it really is a juicy and highly amusing story that now I'm not going to tell you.

IVP: All righty...So why didn't you cut the vocals for Rainy Day?

MM: Doug and Boris wondered about that too - when we started working on the track we were still looking for the singer, and they were like "Are you SURE you don't want to sing this?" I was sure then. And I'm still sure now. I should have at least given it a shot, but I never thought I was the right singer for Rainy Day.

Renee has a straight-ahead, pure, powerhouse voice, and she did a good job on the vocals. If I had done it, it would have been a different vibe, breathier, quirkier - wait, is that a word?

IVP: Is what a word?

MM: "Quirkier?"

IVP: I say it is now.

MM: GOOD! Anyway, at that time I really felt this record needed a vocal that was different than what I would do.

But my point is that the record would have gone in a different direction if I had cut it, and who knows whether it would have worked as well?

ROXY, Chelsea: 12:45 AM

The floor at the Roxy tonight can be entirely summed up by one word:  hot. There's a throbbing mass of sculpted torsos, shirtless and glistening under Rauhofer's merciless barrage of beats. Pretty much every time the man drops a vocal record he twists, translates, and transforms it into a dubby odyssey. The blissed-out crowd nearly swoons.

The smaller drag queen contingent becomes more visible, oozing sensuality, becoming more animated as they chant and sing along. Rauhofer slams beats like raquetballs all over the room. Then you hear it, over the hiss of smoke and that ungodly megawatt sound system: the boys at the Roxy are singing.

I'm saving all my love for you
I'm saving for a rainy, rainy day
I'll wait forever if you want me to
to see my lover on a rainy, rainy day...

The dancers are visibly more alive, drunk with delight at their own giddiness. It's the highlight of the set, and more than a few weary souls will be humming it on the way home at 6:30 AM.

Then it occurs to me that I've seen this before. It takes me a minute to recall, but it happened about two years ago when I was here with my girls, who just want to dance without getting hassled and are way too beautiful to do so at any straight party in the city. That night, the song that exploded like shrapnel on the dance floor was Turn Me Over; otherwise, everything about that moment was exactly the same.

CAFE LAIKA, Lower East Side: 4:30 AM

IVP: Why do you think you go over in gay clubs?

MM: Jesus Iris, how the hell should I know?

IVP: You're cranky.

MM: I'm tired. All right I'll try to answer the question.

For one thing, Boris & Beck. Those guys have a HUGE gay following. That hard, New York house sound resonates with those crowds. It's partly the aesthetics of their beats and synths, just a raw, over-the-top energy. But something has to click for it to really make you want to dance, when it gets you excited, makes you feel like you're on fire.

Second thing is, I make hooks that have a quirky pop vibe, and they're fun to sing. That's my whole point in writing them. Fun. To. Sing. Little hooks that get into your head and take hold like a sinus infection. Good songs are supposed to haunt you, take hold of you, take you to some other place....Someplace FUN!

IVP: Wow, that was actually an intelligent, interesting answer for such a cranky bitch.

MM: TIRED bitch, Iris, tired bitch. What time is it?

IVP: Can you see yourself doing a record with Peter Rauhofer?

MM: Are you kidding me? I would love to work with that guy. I've put in calls, e-mails, sent some discs. I don't know anybody at Star 69. Someone I know offered to call Peter for me, but I don't know this person very well, and a move like that could backfire....The other day I heard the [Rauhofer] 12" Unique and I
loved the beats & synths....I would just really love to work with him. Maybe it'll happen.

IVP: That would be something - you seem to intersect with him in some way. It would be interesting to see what you could come up with together.

MM: In a way, we already know. The ROXY records are lind of our collaboraions. Listen, you hook it up for me while I'm in Spain. And hey, while you're at it, see if you can't talk him into doing a hard-flamenco-house record with me.

IVP: What's a "hard-flamenco-house" record sound like?

MM: I have no fucking idea. I'll make one and let you know how it turns out.

* * * * *

________________________________

reviews of Rainy Day...

* * * *
I still spin this song today because it makes the
dance floor go wild. The boys love to sing to this song.
-DJ X, perfectbeat.com

* * * * *
...it really is quite incredible. It can easily
move a large crowd (or even a small one). It's
catchy and easy to dance to...I've been playing
it for awhile.
-A.A., perfectbeat.com

* * * * *
Buy 2 Copies!!! One for playing, the other one for collecting.
-music.reviewindex.com

* * * *
.... energetic, fun, driving, the way a circuit anthem should be.
-Marquis, perfectbeat.com

________________________________