Danseparc Dance Club – 1985 DJ Danny Mix West Sacramento CA
The highlight of my alternative dance clubbing days was at Danseparc in West Sacramento, CA. It was THE dance spot in northern California in the mid-1980s! The club’s DJ booth was the front half of a Mack or Peterbilt truck cab – it was the fucking cooooolest!
AND THE MUSIC WAS INSANELY COOL! Just found spearcy‘s YouTube channel with the digitized version of DJ Danny’s cassette recording in 1985.
DJ Danny 80s Mix from Danseparc (1985)
Cassette 1 side A (Unfortunately, the YouTube channel owner had to delete this video because of copyright infringement):
Cassette 2 side A (Unfortunately, the YouTube channel owner had to delete this video because of copyright infringement):
Cassette 2 side B (Unfortunately, the YouTube channel owner had to delete this video because of copyright infringement):
Cassette 3 side A and B (Unfortunately, the YouTube channel owner had to delete this video because of copyright infringement):
It is nice that you recognize Danny. He was one of my closest friends and his full name was Daniel Raymond Garcia. He died of a heart attack years ago. He had a little home in the Del Paso Heights suburb of Sacramento for years and one entire bedroom was the “DJ room”, set up with a mixer and Technics 1200MKs, plus thousands of records on racks aligning the walls. He had two brothers who worked in a gas station garage in the area between Land Park and Florin in Sacramento. Danny’s roots were from the 70’s gay bars of West Sacramento, followed by his years at the 18 and over gay bar “Bojangles” in the early 80’s. The bar was initially owned by Terry Sidey who pretty much runs the entire downtown Sacramento gay bar area, but lost Bojangles to Randy Chan in a card game. Randy was a great card counter, and was barred from many Nevada casinos. Professor Gary Henderson, a pharmaceutical doctor who taught at UC Davis and created Danseparc lured Danny from Bojangles to go work at Danseparc. The pay was $400 per night on Fridays and Saturdays for a 9pm-4am shift. A guy named Larry Scott operated the sychronized floor and overhead dance lights to the music Danny played at Danseparc (Larry met a young French lady at Danseparc named Natalie and she was the love of his life for years, he then years later subsequently became an international model for Armani with his peak in the 1990’s and last I heard he was in Florida and hoped to return to modeling) . I took Danny’s place at Bojangles after a DJ named Michael Barker left the position. I would leave Bojangles on the weekends and go help Danny with the late night (2am-4am) shift, then we would close and sometimes leave or sometimes stay drinking until dawn. The only times I would not play so Danny could have a break were on nights that I had taken a chemical vacation and was not really functional to spin. Danny encouraged me and I to this day remember my first beatmatched mix at Danseparc: Ultravox’s “White China” followed by Gary Numan’s “My Dying Machine” – a flawless mix that I then finished by lifting the wrong turntable tonearm. We had a laugh and Danny reminded me to PAY ATTENTION. A fun thing to do was putting white powder on a 12″ which had a b-side with no grooves and hit play on the turntable (33RPM slowed down with the pitch control) to see if we could get the spiraled line into our nostrils. We did.
Danny went on to do a brief stint at a miniature golf course off of the I-50 highway past Rancho Cordova that had an underground club for the 16 and older set. That was his last job. Danseparc had closed and after a year hiatus, reopened as “Take Two'”, a bar catering to the lesbian audience and I took that position while it was in operation. Danny, Michael Barker, Jim “Hip-Hop” Hopkins and I were closest to Danny in his final years as DJs. I miss him dearly. He was an original. He would call me in the middle of the night and ask me to drive to “Ben’s Big Burgers” on Del Paso Blvd in Sacramento and get him a burger, then we’d stay up until sunrise with some good pot. His family was very loving and accepting of him and his mother was a great cook (and very funny woman who always as Rick James said, “passed the J”). I plagiarized skills from Danny and he was the king. We brought the Razormaid remix service to Danseparc and because I had a car that could get to San Francisco, I would do runs and pick up import product at the Castro’s record stores and bring back two copies of everything – one for me and one for Danny. Then we would write our initials on our 12″ singles…DRG and BC. I had the closest relationship of all of us with Danny for over 18 years before his death. He left with a whisper but set the standards for no talking all-night beat-matched mixing in Sacramento. Thank you for recognizing an icon. This is the only time and place that I have told details. Most will go with me to the grave but because of your site and post Mr. Walley, I felt obliged to add some history. Regards – BSC12666
What a great behind-the-scenes history, Brian. Thanks so much.
Hi, just came across your site. Do you happen to remember the address for Danseparc? I met my husband there and am wracking my brain trying to remember the exact location. Thank you.
Danseparc dance club was at 2400 W. Capitol Ave (cross-street: Pecan St) in West Sacramento, CA. Source: The Pelican Guide to Sacramento and The Gold Country
As you can see on Google Maps it’s still an empty lot where the club once stood.
The way I found out about Danseparc was from a cool flyer (might still have it somewhere). I was sitting in my car with pal Maurice in the parking lot of BoJangle’s. A boy in a kilt was putting flyers on the cars. He gave us one through our rolled down window. I didn’t live close to West Sac but went to Danseparc a lot in early ‘85- the music was awesome.
The underground dance place w/ mini golf course mentioned was called The Mineshaft. It was a sweaty basement room. They eventually put a big slab of concrete outside with a tall chain link fence around it for dancing instead. I think it was around from ‘83-‘85 but not sure.
What a cool story about how you found out about Danseparc. Thanks for adding The Minecraft info. Yep, Danseparc def left a lasting impression on me too!
I would go to DanseParc in 1985-86 with my buddy Bill Palank aka Dr. Bill (RIP) and Brent Smith. One of the nights, I noticed a local photographer was taking black and white photos of the new wave dancers. I knew him from my apt. complex at Point West. I brought 6 photos. Does anyone know his name? I heard he died from a fall (est. 1986).
Hey Bryan, you might also try asking on Facebook as well.
This is such a fun discovery! I went to Danseparc once and loved it: It was Junior Prom, 1985! I wore a rad 1950’s black velvet and taffeta dress. My date was my totally adorable new-wave friend I’d had a crush on for 4 years…he wasn’t into girls, but we left prom early and he knew where to find an awesome dance club, LOL! Thanks for posting. I was recently thinking curious about that night and i had no idea where i was….at 16, lol!
What a great story! Love that you had part of your prom at Danseparc, at 16. And your outfit sounds rad!
Danseparc, I remember dancing non stop for hours. That was my pure freedom. Loretta Ramirez, the cashier, asked me out on a date. I had zero social skills but I was definitely a very good dancer. Wish those youtube soundtracks were still up there, I would make Apple playlists out of them.
Thanks for sharing your Danseparc days, Duncan. It was always a blast!
Thanks for the memories. I hung out at Danseparc during my days while attending UC Davis. It was great to get away from the college scene and dance to awesome music that I still listen to today.
Good memories. And good music, that I also still listen to today.
HI Reid,
Just and Idea, but maybe mix poster spearcy could re-upload Danny’s mixes to Mixcloud?
https://www.mixcloud.com/
It’s essentially made for this type of thing! Would be so cool to listen to them again~