Mighty Aphrodite

Can't get you out of my head: World's No. 1 Kylie Minogue fan explains his trueobsession

Kylie, the goddess
Manuel Olivo in his Kylie Showgirl T-shirt
For Manuel's birthday, a Kylie cake, naturally
Manuel Olivo with friends in New York City for concert
In this 2008 photo Manuel in one of his favorite T-shirts

This story begins in 1990, at a club called Heaven. I was dancing the night away, when a video began playing on the screens next to the dance floor. A stunning woman was singing a Brit-pop song about stepping back in time. I stopped dancing, because I had to know who this singer was. I walked—no, ran—to the DJ and asked him who she was.

He said, “The song is ‘Step Back in Time’ by Kylie.”

"Kylie who?" I asked.

The DJ looked at me like I had just woken up from a coma.

"Minogue," he said.

And thus began my love for Kylie. It was "Love at First Sight." I went to Record Rack, the local import store, and bought everything she had released up until then.

My first Kylie concert was in London at Wembley Stadium for her KylieFever2002 tour. The concert was epic.

What is it about a Kylie concert that makes it an event? Kylie has at least as much fun at her shows as her audience, and she interacts with them. She requests that we do Mexican waves for her after, asking to have the lights turned on so that she can see her audience.

Her productions are amazing. Each time I see her on tour I wonder how she could possibly top her last one, and she never disappoints. Whether she makes her grand entrance (and they are always grand) in a Metropolis robot costume (for the KylieFever2002 tour), sings while doing the splits (Kylie "Showgirl" tour), or descends on a giant skull (KYLIEX2008 and Kylie For You, For Me tours), she always puts on a fantastic show … and it’s really obvious she loves performing, because she sings her concerts live.

Kylie’s zest for life was again obvious in the grace with which she handled her cancer diagnosis treatment. Her public discussion of her experiences gave permission to her fans and countless other women to talk openly about breast cancer. Five years after her diagnosis, she announced that she was cancer-free.

Kylie has also survived the fickle nature of the music industry. In the late '90s, the industry nearly wrote her off. She had just released her album Impossible Princess—ironically, a fanbase favorite. Kylie wrote and co-produced most of the songs herself. Unfortunately, the album was released the same week Princess Diana died in the car accident in Paris. The album was pulled and retitled Kylie Minogue.

The change hurt Kylie's career drastically. Her record label dropped her. No one would sign her. The Pet Shop Boys persuaded Parlophone to allow them to record a duet with her. "In Denial" was a massive hit and Parlophone offered Kylie a record deal. She released her first single "Spinning Around," which stayed on top of the charts for four weeks. With the release of her album Light Years, Kylie was back on her game. Not one track is filler. The album is pop perfection, boasting such classics as "On a Night like This," and the gay anthem "Your Disco Needs You."

Kylie’s On a Night Like This tour was a huge success—all tour dates sold out. She followed up with Fever, an album containing her biggest single yet: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head." The single remained on top of the charts in over 40 countries for weeks.

The tour to support the album, KylieFever2002, was the first one I attended. I have since traveled to the UK twice to see her, once in 2005 for Kylie Showgirl and again in for KYLIEX2008. I also flew to New York for her Kylie For You, For Me tour in 2009, her first ever tour in America, which immediately sold out.

This year Kylie brings Kylie Aphrodite Live 2011, her most elaborate tour yet, to Houston (Tuesday night, Verizon Wireless Theater.) With the title album, Aphrodite, she has again achieved pure pop perfection, and I am dying to see how she will yet again top her history of stellar grand entrances.

Following her ups and downs, her personal and professional tragedies, her recoveries and triumphs, it’s impossible not to love Kylie. Her love of people and performing is infectious. Her focus on others is obvious not only in her love for her fans but also in her humanitarian work, which she mostly does anonymously.

Call me a Kylie superfan … since 1990 and counting.

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super duper

Quirky Houston DJ drops genre-blending mix CD inspired by video games

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

If you’re the type of person who has dubstep, Southern hip-hop, and Koji Kondo’s iconic “Ground Theme” from Super Mario Bros. in your streaming-music library, then Squincy Jones has created the perfect playlist for you..

Photo by Dustee Torres

DJ Squincy Jones

Super Nintendub is the name of the mix where the Houston-born-and-bred DJ mashes up all those aforementioned music genres. A capella bars from Houston heavyweights (Megan Thee Stallion, Paul Wall) and other Dirty South MCs (Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG) gets laid over grooves from underground dubstep artists (Numa Crew, Blay Vision, Hamdi). But we also get music from various Nintendo (Castlevania III, Ninja Gaiden) and Super Nintendo (Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI) games. Jones also throws in audio samples from commercials and gaming-heavy movies like WarGames, The Wizard, and the Adam Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.

Needless to say, Jones has always been a gamer. He’s had his run of game systems: NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, even the old-school Atari 2600. He recalls his days blowing the dust out of such cartridges as Contra, Double Dragon, and Duck Hunt. In the past, Jones has released a series of mashup mixes – titled Blend Pack – with cover art that resembles/salutes classic video games.

“I'm a huge fan of all the eight-bit and 16-bit stuff,” says Jones (government name: Shane Rector), 41. “I play a lot of the new games, or I have played a lot of the new games, but not as much anymore. You know, being a parent and having a full-time job – you don't really have time for video games anymore.”

Super Nintendub is a sequel to Nintendub, a dubstep mix he played during a party way back in 2008. “I added some a capellas, [like] a Bun B a capella,” he recalls. “I had some other Dirty South tunes from the time. I layered them because they're at the same tempo as dubstep. Another friend that does music gave me a folder of Nintendo songs. So, I just randomly layered it on top and kinda slowed down the Nintendo music, and it sounded cool as hell to me.”

The mix picked up fans overseas when he dropped it online. “I've always wanted to make a follow-up to it because I got so much good feedback,” he remembers. “People from all over were writing about it."

Jones decided to release Super on compact disc, sold in rectangular keep cases – packaging that’s very familiar to gamers – with double-sided artwork also by Jones. (A digital link is available upon request to those who buy the CD.) While the limited-edition disc is available for purchase on Jones’s Bandcamp page, the CD mix shouldn’t be confused with the Super mix that’s currently playing on the page.

“I wanted to have them in the mix as well,” he says. “But I'm not entirely, you know, confident with my production skills. So, I just kinda had it on the side to go along with the release of this mix.”

Since releasing Super in September, Jones says he’s gotten good feedback from those who’ve bought a copy. “Because it looks like a video game,” he says, “a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, cool! Is it an actual game or an actual DVD or whatnot?’ But it's always hit or miss because some people are like, ‘Oh, man, I don't have a CD player’ or "Wow, you actually printed a CD,’ because everything's, you know, digital.”

He’s looking into playing a big-screen version of Super, where videos of the rap songs are spliced in with video-game footage and other retro clips, somewhere around here. “I was thinking like either a movie theater or somebody mentioned Aurora Picture Show, or maybe Wonky Power, to do like a viewing or showing or whatever – kind of have a party for it.”

Even though Jones enjoys merging gaming and music – his dual obsessions – he still prefers to be known as more than a video-game DJ. A veteran of the Houston DJ scene for a quarter of a century, he continues to do gigs like his upcoming monthly residency at Eight Row Flint.

“I do open-format DJing,” he says. “I've done raves and dubstep parties. I've played on the radio. I've played at Mid Main, where it’s a mainstream crowd. In this day and age, everybody has their branding or whatnot. I just love video games, so I just kind of take that as my branding, I guess.”

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