So this is where the original “Flawless” came from before George Michael got a hold of it, eh? In the footprint of their previous top ten hits over in Great Britain is this debut LP by a trio called uno and consisting of these eleven fiercely flawless dance tracks in the house! I asked them how they felt about GM covering them and the response was, “We “gagged” of course at first. This is an idol wanting to cover your song. Wow! Then we thought of performing it with him the way Sir Elton did ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down’ in some huge stadium. That never happened, at least not yet. He is still alive so it might someday.” I thought about that track and the movie of the same name; ironically Paul told me, “Don’t forget, we wrote Flawless with the intention that it would be in the soundtrack for the film Flawless, but it didn’t have a soundtrack in the end.”
These three amigos known as The Ones [ATOC A Touch Of Class/Peace Bisquit] are JoJo America, Nashom Wooden and Paul Alexander, and are begat from the production team that brought such trend-setting acts as the Tom Tom Club, RuPaul, Ultra Nate` and Jody Watley to the fore; namely Bill Coleman and Pease Bisquit Management. They came together “at a bar/club we all hung out in many nights ago but we bonded as friends at Patricia Field Boutique were we all worked. Within the day to day we all became great friends, sang together as a result at a different weekly party called Squeezebox a few years later. There NY’s Downtown stars performed with the house band about five cover songs each week.
After a modern guitar start, their music flows across the dance floor as several styles abound within their core! It is an array that embodies the type of musical cocktail that has shaped my tastes and that was featured on a leading New York City FM radio station between the late 1970s and early 1990s.
I dig these interesting guys already! We’ve apparently similar NYC sensibilities and party experiences, and they even love Grace Jones like I do! “All three of us live for Grace Jones and fight over who loves her the most.” Paul said when I asked about major musical influences. “She showed us that style and image counts more than the actual singing voice. She didn’t have a wide range or the strongest voice but she was fierce and that excitement was enough to make you want to see her and buy her music. She paved the way for Madonna who came up right after her using all that Grace showed the world. Things like the importance of a good show that people talk about, always looking good for camera, reinventing your sound often”
It is interesting that their collective motivations took shape in many of the same clubs that I used to frequent. When I asked them what their favorite classic ones in New York City were, they said, “Clubs like as Area and Palladium, Club USA. Parties like Kenny Kenny’s Panty Girdle, Larry T’s Love Machine, or Lina at Make Up Room, where the fashions and looks given weekly was everything. Sound Factory, Choice, Twilo, where it was all about the music and dancing for hours. Places like Boy Bar, Pyramid, Jackie 6o where it was for the shows and the unexpected.” I used to LOVE Area with the scenes in the windows as you walked in! Paul also told me that “The entire Nineties club history in NY serve as inspiration. There [were] lots of great clubs and parties and songs that we refer to with each other.” Among my favorite songs are “I Feel Upside Down” which is bangin’ and the next one, “When We Get Together” keeps us in-step preceding “Flawless”. The tracks aren’t mixed together, so you can pick and choose without bleed-over and their selective use of the Vocoder sound works as a signature to their having fun during the creative process. “Really funny and hard serious work; All said and gone, when we get together [song title] we have a lot of laughs. It relieves the stress and pressure and keeps us friends.”
Talk about similar experiences! Paul Alexander recounts, “I have been on a dance floor and the woman dancing next to me was Diana Ross. Gone to a club and there is a surprise show from Prince; Hung out with a drunken super model who then decides to strip.” Been there, done that. Those memories fuel a lot of the songs they do and they inject that magic into the music as on “Blast” where you’ll get that Studio 54 back-in-the-day rush.
Living in America, they think about how commercial a song sounds and how specific their lyrics are all the time. They agree that while they don’t always want to sound commercial, they have to sell have a sound that sells, with a certain commercial pop appeal on some songs in order to get the less commercial ones heard. “We have not really put gay lyrics in any of our songs; we are keeping it asexual for the moment but maybe the next CD.”
What comes through here is that their real friendship fuels four-and-a-half star creative juices – I hear that!
