#march fadness

[davidgriffith]

75 minutes until tip off! Vote “It Takes Two” at www.marchxness.com

[davidgriffith]

“It Takes Two” in the Sweet 16 of March Fadness

RIGHT ABOUT NOW...NOW...NOW...

Calling all old skool Hip-Hop lovers on Tumblr: I need your help. 

This Wednesday (3/22) Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s iconic 1988, multi-platinum hit “It Takes Two” is doing battle in the March Fadness tournament of 1980s one-hit wonders, and I need your vote.

I’m going up against Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science.” While it was a big hit in its day (1982), anyone who has read this far in the post knows that “It Takes Two” is far superior.

Here’s how the voting works: On Wednesday morning at 11 am EST voting will open. You can vote on the March Fadness website AND on by Twitter poll. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you closer to the time. Note that both votes count, so if you really want to show Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock some love, vote in both places.

In case you’re wondering what March Fadness is, it’s an annual tournament of songs, kind of like the March Madness basketball tourney, but for writers who are music-lovers. Each song is repped by a writer who has to write an essay about why they think they’re song is the best.

Here’s a look at the bracket: 

You don’t have to read the essay to vote, but I promise you the essays are worth your while. My essay on “It Takes Two” is all about being 12 years old, growing up in Decatur, a city on the vast, flat prairie of central Illinois, wanting to be a DJ, and hearing the song for the first time in my buddy’s basement and how it change my life in a profound way. Oh, you should also know that we ran a fake radio station out of the basement that we called WPIG (basically we made mix-tapes and introduced the songs like we were DJs). I still have one of the tapes, which is somehow still playable 35 years later.

You can read the essay HERE. 

Here’s a little taste from the beginning of the essay, which I’ve titled “The Situation That the Bass is In.” 

For the first 47 years of my life, I believed that Mike Ginyard, aka MC Rob Base, was celibate.     In 1988, when Base and his childhood friend DJ EZ Rock’s, single “It Takes Two” dropped, I was thirteen and did not know of anyone, besides, the adults in my life, and maybe Tanya, the hot as hell sixteen-year-old daughter of my paper route client, Mr. Yarbrough, who was having sex.     And so, every time I listened to “It Takes Two” in the basement of our split-level ranch in Decatur, IL, on my father’s capable system—Pioneer receiver with 5-band graphic equalizer, JVC CD player, with a hand-built 70s HeathKit turntable, and Pioneer speakers with 15 inch woofers—the line “...don’t smoke buddha can’t stand sex [sic], yes…” struck me funny.     The only people I knew that did not have sex on principle were the priests and nuns at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and I would come to find out years later that I was even wrong about that.

Thanks for reading, and check back here daily for new content dedicated to this iconic song.

HIT IT!!