Gazuzu - Go Go Gorilla

MS 89
Another fun bit of Italo goodness today although this time the record is actually a Dutch import.  For the purposes of this blog I’m categorizing all these European records as Italo regardless of their true country of origin.  I hope this doesn’t offend any purists.

In previous posts I’ve mentioned some of the common musical traits that Italian (European) singles from the early 80’s had that wound up becoming staples of the House sound.  This song perfectly exemplifies another common trait many of these songs shared that didn’t necessarily carry over to domestic House: It is INSANELY HAPPY!!  The bright, piercing synth leads, over-the-top drum fills, and party-style background vocals combine to create the musical equivalent of a sunny day at the beach …with ice cream …and a circus.

And it's not just the music that makes this song happy.  There's actual giggling in the background at certain points in the vocal version.  Like with a lot of Italo songs, it’s hard for me to catch all of the lyrics but I can definitely pick out something about “Leo Lion and Jake the Rattlesnake keep on funkin” and "the Tiger and the Elephant, you know they have big fun”.  Even the cover playfully replaces the High Fashion Music label’s usual “Disco Benelux” tagline with “Disco Banana”.

Silly as it is, this song was a pretty big hit in Chicago especially among radio jocks like Mickey "Mixin" Oliver.  Gazuzu scored another hit about a year later with Aruba that even more explicitly brings to mind sunny days. The duo Adams & Fleisner behind this group had their hands in a lot of music coming from the Netherlands at this time.  Their names are on releases from Gazuzu, X-Ray Connection, Digital Emotion, and Blanc De Blanc (to name a few) as well as a number of early popular DJ Tools-type records like Mix Your Own Stars.  Many of their songs were also released on several different labels.

BTW - For those of you interested in tracking the early development of House music tropes, check out the series of proto- bass drops that happen around 3’30” on the vocal version.

Track List

Side A
Go Go Gorilla (vocal version)

Side B
Go Go Gorilla (instr. version)
Go Go Gorilla (bonus track)

Side 1&2