Swag Tuesday

Today's Swag Tuesday prize is two tickets to Evolution Of A Dancer, this Sunday's epic ten-hour journey through the history of gay dance music. Starring legendary DJs Susan Morabito, Michael Fierman, and John Ceglia, the party takes place at Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan's West Village. Doors open at 6pm and the aural excursion begins with the '70s music of the famed 12 West club.

Advance tickets. Event site. Party blog. Subway info.

JMG: Can you explain the "evolution" in the party's name?

Michael Fierman

The title “Evolution Of A Dancer” came out of our notion to present a completely unique dance event: one that told a musical story in a literal chronological order. A dancer, no matter what his or her age, can step on to the floor and be taken on a trip to hear and feel how dance music has evolved. How one movement in dance music follows another. One will not only recall some precious memories of clubs gone by, but also experience the music of today through the lens how “how we got here”. This is not just another oldies party by any means. By 11PM we will have reached the 21st century and all three of John, Michael and Susan’s one hour encores beginning at 1 AM will feature uplifting new music that is in keeping with our goal: not just to preserve the past, but to keep our community’s dance music alive and well into the future.

JMG: What kind of audience will this party draw?

Susan Morabito

We anticipate having an audience who remember music from all the decades we will be covering. Those who remember the music from the 70s will most likely get there on the earlier side and as the night progresses with each hour the music moves along the decades right up to current times. As the music evolves the crowd will most likely shift a little. And of course, like last year, we had people who were there from the first note until the last. Though this will be a prominently gay male dance event, the number of women who attended this event last year was delightfully surprising and we expect more women to be in attendance this year. Evolution of a Dancer is a celebration of music and dancing, it doesn’t cater to any particular group, Evolution of A Dancer is an inclusive event.

Enter to win tickets to Evolution Of A Dancer by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of you comment. Entries close at midnight on Thursday, west coast time. If you cannot be in Manhattan on the day of the party, your winning entry is transferable to your favorite dance lover. I attended last year and had a fantastic time.

FRIDAY: Blowoff NYC @ Highline Ballroom

Blowoff will bust its sweaty, furry self into Chelsea's Highline Ballroom this Friday. Doors open at 11:30pm. Advance tickets here. This party will probably sell out.

Weekend Mix - DJ Bill Pfeiffer

Get your big game on with this special super jam from hot NYC DJ Bill Pfeiffer! Setlist. Podcasts. Facebook.

UPCOMING GIGS: This mix was recorded live at Friday’s Sugar Daddy one-off party at Union Fridays at Monster. Catch Billy at his occasional “Body Rock” party at Rockbar and check Billy's other mixes and tracks on his Urban Gardens, Inc. labels’s Soundcloud site.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: DJ Sin Morera. DJ Herbie James. DJ Paul Ferrer. DJ Dave Huge.

NOTE: This is the fifth in the revived JMG Weekend Mix series in which we highlight major national and up-and-coming DJ talent. This series ran for 28 installments in 2010 with entries from such well-known names as Susan Morabito, Corey Craig, David Knapp, Paul Goodyear, Ted Eiel, and many others. Lots of great names coming in 2012!

Soul Train Was My First Gay Bar

My family moved to Orlando in 1971 when I was eleven years old and that presented me with a horrifying dilemma. You see, American Bandstand and Soul Train played in that market at the same time. It was only a thirty-minute overlap, but oh how that 1:00pm to 1:30pm period tortured me. There were no VCRs (much less YouTube), so any television moment you missed was often gone forever. So I'd kneel before our mammoth 25" Admiral floor set and jerk the dial compulsively between channels 2 and 9, usually prompting my mother to scream from another room, "If you break that thing, you'll answer to your father!"

American Bandstand was the "safer" of the two shows, of course, what with Dick Clark's bland interviewing style and the safe-for-school moves of the dancers. But very early on I began to realize that there was something about many of the male dancers on Soul Train. There was an undefinable otherness to their look, their moves, their carriage. I became fascinated with a handful of them, watching for them each week, tracking what they wore, their ever-changing dance partners. Dance partners who, not incidentally, were often introduced as sisters or cousins on the occasions that Don Cornelius asked for names.

I was in my late twenties when it finally dawned on me that during those early years of my Soul Train viewing I'd been hearing the very first and faint pings of a gaydar that would rarely fail me once I recognized it for what it was. Today, of course, the fact that the Soul Train dance floor was heavily populated by gay men is almost hilariously obvious. Just keep your antenna up while clicking through those muddy YouTube video transfers or when tuning into the reruns on cable. So thanks for that, Don Cornelius. As always in parting, I wish you love, peace, and soul.

RELATED: Until my voice changed, I could totally imitate that opening scream of "Soooooul Traaaaaaaaain." True story.