Happy Birthday We Are Two!

Happy Birthday Disco, Soul, Gold  ... 
The page started two years ago today on Facebook & has risen with your thanks to over 55,000 followers. The page is now one of the UK most visited, Soul, Disco, pages for not only good memories, but for new releases that fall into our musical format, Birthday's tributes to some of the artists that we miss & still love. The Disco, Soul, Gold idea came from years of myself collecting records, remembering the pleasure of reading the vinyl sleeve notes. At the young age of around 9 I started collecting records, even at school my love of Soul music was obvious, as others would listen to Pop music & think what strange taste you have. It was always my dream to run a record shop, well at only 17 I managed Baker Street records in London's west end, with regular clients such as, Edwin Starr,  Paul Weller, Randy Crawford, Neil Francis, Leo Sayer, Peter Sellers & Fitz Brown.

 Fitz Brown gave me the chance & an a opening to DJ at one of the worlds most respected celebrate clubs, Tramp Nightclub in Jermyn Street. The Pay was poor, but I got to DJ & do private parties for the likes of, Tony Curtis, The Stones, Rod Stewart, Joan Collins, Georgie Best, Royalty, Tony Hall, Mel Brooks, in fact everybody who was anybody. You could earn thousand in tips to play a record, see the likes of, Mick Jagger, Sheila Ferguson, Bruce Forseyth dance to your music. The Record shop closed down as its main concern was the book shop upstairs & the rents were very high. I moved on to plugging records & received a #1 with Phyllis Nelson, Move Closer, Amii Stewart, Knock on Wood & many others. It was a job in which I had to give record shops free stock in exchange for sales. I was working in the day doing this, DJ-Ing at night, with my now ex wife as the chauffeur. Tony Monson gave me a spot on Solar Radio which I was so pleased with, I normally did this after spinning at Tramp. James Hamilton  (Record Mirror) gave me great reviews for my first three Solar Radio shows. At the time Solar was a pirate and in the meetings, which were great fun, we heard stories of rats, insects in some of the station's locations. Tony is a great character even came to one meeting with odd shoes or was it socks. The Message was if the DTI come leave your records & run!!! one evening the alarms rung, but myself and the records left, but i got lost in this massive industrial estate with my ex wife pregnant waiting in the getaway car.

After a few years I left tramp to open my own clubs after working in various other venues around 

the south. Club Musique Croydon, Sunset Maidstone, Samantha's Regent Street, Piccadilly theatre y supporting, The Foundations for three weeks. I worked in Maidstone's club The Sunset, we had special gusts like, Jimmy Ruffin ,Cool Notes, Direct Drive, Precious Wilson at the weekends & i was approached to spin at at their Under 18's night, my first thoughts were no I can't do this, but I did & we were turning away 100's of teenagers every week. Inside the club it was so full they were passing out, the manager of the club, told the owner that we were empty. So i got fired! Two weeks later I opened my own club across the road & built it up to over 500 teens per night, Yogi Houghton, Gary Hoxton Whores, were weekly regulars. From this success we opened every night at venue's around the South, Orpington, Gravesend, Ashford, Cheam, Weybridge, Town & Country London, plus many others. The owner of the Sunset club offered me any pay to come back, but I refused. We had regular guest such as, Tim Westwood, BB&Q band, Take That, David Grant, Silver Bullet, in fact most who had hit records released. Hard times came as peoples pockets became empty due to the recession & the first effected were the teenagers.

I met Noah Johnson through the teen nights & he introduced me to the recording studio, plus taught me how to write & produce songs. My first record release was, Young Free & Single under Dee Gee( Disco Gary), it reached #1 on John Leeches show & i had offers poring in for a record deal, first label closed down before pressings started, then Upfront Records signed it promoted it & closed down.

So I dusted myself off & started Wizz Records, the first three releases were done with Dave Morgan of Fresh Records (Love Station, Strike fame), we were on the way, 5 dancing men, cool cuts, radio one plays, club hits in fact around 30 with various releases. At the same time we had our own Distribution company, which started with me in a car, being given records by Nigel Reveller & Barnard fanning. I was driving around the south creating the Buzz with these & my own white labels. Soon other labels gave us theirs to sell, then we expanded to further vans & telesales,the problem was record shops were not paying, so we used a factor which gave us the money & as the cheques bounced, so they took the money back & soon we had no choice but to close.

So what do I do now, I  got a mortgage to buy a Public House which was a Free House, from this we sold & started with a small Restaurant chain, which we built up to 6 restaurants, I was the chef, created the Menus, looked after the staff & the day to day running, one night I had diner with 

The Three Degrees ex lead vocalist Sheila Ferguson in the restaurant. The restaurants won many

awards such as, ''Best Restaurant in the South'', OK Magazine feature, 2nd best by Les Routier, plus

many reviews by others including the Daily Telegraph.    

   My now ex wife did the books & looked after the children. We were doing well I thought, until my ex wife met a young man on our family holiday, from that point the bank accounts were empty as she showered him with gifts, including a flat in Brighton, restaurant in Brighton, plus everything a playboy would need, leather sofa's,designer suites, TV's, Computers and more. We divorced and then after 29 years the trust of my long term girl had gone, as I found out she had opened a joint account with this playboy with all our money, that was supposed to go to paying bills for goods we received , but instead went to their new joint account. We had accountants, but she threw them of the scent & it was not until we asked the bank for the cheques, we realized the stubs differed to the cheques themselves. Yes at the same time I was heartbroken, no family home, lost my pets, soon no business & no money.

 So i am told, she now owns a tea shop by the sea, after a long stay in France.    

 I am grateful for your support & for the love of music. Those that know me, know I love promoting, music has always been my life. This year i was given the opportunity to develop a unheard duo from Newcastle,  DSG Music the label has started again with SouLutions being the few releases, with the remixes I got arranged for the duo going to #1 in the Soul chart. 

We now have an in house UK Radio promotions service with recent promotions reaching the top 20 in various charts. Our current new release is by Neo featuring Drizabone called, ''Your Smile'' to be released on the 1st December. The Disco, Soul, Gold pages have risen to over, 3,600 on Twitter & 56,500 on Facebook  

Thank you to everybody for your support .
We are now looking for exciting new Soulful acts and songs to promote.

Gary Van den Bussche