New 'You'll Never Stand Alone' Remix...
[11
Alive, Atlanta Report]
DJ Tony Moran: Tears of Triumph
Reported By: Sean Rowe
Last Modified: 4/5/2005 4:36:38 PM
 “I
don’t restrict my whole musical journey from the pilot seat. I’ve been a
passenger so many times.”
-- DJ Tony Moran
It’s a handful of hours until his latest late-night gig and DJ Tony Moran is
fresh off of another plane and resting up in another hotel room of another
nationwide chain.
Recent stops: Winter Music Conference in Miami Beach, Winter Party at Palm
Springs and last Saturday’s tribal tantrum at Atlanta’s own Masquerade. Next
stops: the Mezzanine in San Fran, Krave in Vegas and the wide-open-spaces
Colliseum in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
The highlights, so far?
“I’d never played on a boat until I did an Atlantis cruise,” Moran said.
“You’ve got 2,000 people dancing on a deck. All the elements that are so
beautiful outside.”
“I did a panel on Thursday and Friday at Winter Music Conference and then I
went to Houston from there. After Atlanta, I’m going to San Francisco the
day after. I definitely have to try to sleep on that plane.”
A rest in-between?
“I got back from Palm Springs on Tuesday late night and I left on Friday, so
about three days a week I’m home,” said Moran, who cools his heels in New
York.
For nearly two decades, Moran’s rise to fame has read like a who’s who of
music’s grand dames (and, some dudes, too). An accomplished writer, producer
and re-mixer, Moran is best known for being able to re-work a Top 40
template into heart-pounding dancefloor drama.
Touting his latest success, the double-decker “Tour de Beats” release, Moran
is still riding high on his smash hit “Waiting for Alegria,” remixes for
Jason Walker’s “Set It Free” and Kristine W’s “I’ll Be Your Light,” and a
leaked re-work of Whitney Houston’s “You’ll Never Stand Alone.”
Yes, this is in addition to Moran’s original “You’ll Never Stand Alone”
anthm of yester-year. Funny how time flies in clubland.
Moran said, “I wound up remixing that for myself. I just loved that song. I
had finished [an earlier] remix and [Arista Records] had chosen to shelve
it.”
The label chose to release the Houston-Enrique Iglesias hookup, “Could I
Have This Kiss Forever.” Anyone else hear a pin drop?
“I wound up doing a new version [for 2005], I gave it to a couple of DJs.
Now, it’s all over the Internet,” he said. “I’m really happy that people
really liked it. It not coming out was a missed opportunity for Arista at
that time.”
That was then. This is now.
Standing bronze, buff and bare (okay, just shirtless), Moran unleashed a
barrage of his signature body-breakin’, booty-shakin’ beats while on the 1’s
and 2’s at the Masquerade in Midtown last Saturday night. Wave after wave of
afro-centric tribal beats washed across the largely gay male crowd
swallowing up the remains of the dancefloor.
Track after track effortlessly built and peaked, spinning highly textured
tales of love, loss and laughter for almost six hours. His first outing at
Masquerade, Moran only asked for an impromptu volume check at one point and
later dealt with the boom of an amp giving way under the relentless beat.
“I like to play very energetic, instrumental tribal beats. I also like to
play vocals. I do whatever I feel people are comfortable with,” Moran said.
“I cannot devote it to just the stuff that I love. I won’t be a jukebox for
everybody.”
“I’m not somebody out looking to educate people. Education is for you to do
on your own. I want to play things that are going to make people dance. I
love singing to those songs, putting my arms up in the air, hugging my
friends in the huddle,” he said.
The rising sun signaled the close of Moran’s most recent stop in the South –
but, not before he dropped his latest venture with the original dancing
queen, Donna Summer.
“It’s really rocking! I love the music that I make, don’t get me wrong,”
Moran said. “It’s the same way I felt when I did ‘You’re So Beautiful.’ I
kept pressing her to get her to put it out.”
Another repeat offender, Deborah Cox looks to return to Moran for a remix to
follow up his work on her most recent straight-to-dancefloor single, “Easy
As Life.”
“I’m really excited about the new one,” he said. “Even though we started it,
that doesn’t always mean that will be the single. I’m still working on it.
The demo vocals are done, so far.”
Moran said Cox and other in-studio projects are likely to have to wait until
he gets a break from his current tour on the club circuit. With a laundry
list of summer and gay pride events around the corner, that could be a
while.
“I work with different singers all the time, but because of just right now,
everybody’s gay pride is going to be happening in the summer, I’m only going
to be working on certain remixes…not developing a lot of new talent until
after the summer,” Moran said.
Still, Moran says he’s already set his formidable sights on a new
compilation from the Tommy Boy label and working with some new vocal talent
striving to make their mark on the house scene.
“There are four or five different people that will be on my next Tommy Boy
compilation.”
With his sights set squarely on the future, Moran confides there’s one remix
in his past that even eclipses his outstanding work with artists such as
Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, Jennifer Holiday and Patti
LaBelle.
“Janet. ‘Together Again’.”
“That record, I kid you not, when I finished it, I was like in tears,” Moran
said. “When I work on a remix, I don’t have a whole plan. It’s a journey I
start with whatever I’m feeling. In this case it was the verse [sings]
‘There are times when I look above and beyond…’”
“Right after I finished it, I gave it to a couple of DJs, and I was in Mardi
Gras in Sydney and just going out with my friends and there were thousands
of people everywhere and the song came on...,” Moran said. “It just became a
10,000-person huddle. It was just a moment when everybody opened their
hearts to everybody. I thought it was so pure and beautiful. I just stood
there in tears.”
NEWSFILE: 5 APRIL 2005
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