The first release from the Charlotte, North Carolina based band Hardcore Lounge, “Dance of My Life” is now available from Possumwalk Records. The twelve songs on this release represent different chapters in the lives of brothers, Chris and Wes Johnson. In early 2001, Chris and Wes started collaborating on songs that would eventually become part of the repertoire of the yet to be named Hardcore Lounge.

The brothers had been fixtures on the local music scene for years. Chris works in television broadcasting and played in the local band Cyclone Mack. Wes, works in film and television production, and had been documenting local performing artists in Charlotte since the late 1980’s. Their father, Kenneth, had been part of early broadcasting and recording history with The Johnson Family Singers, performing songs from sacred to secular. The family recorded on Columbia and RCA and had their own CBS network radio show that originated from then radio broadcasting powerhouse WBT. A second career as a minister had the boys singing in church choirs as soon as they could hold hymnals.

Chris and Wes Johnson have appeared with various versions of Hardcore Lounge since their first show in December 2001. When the time came for their first public appearance, they didn't have a name for the group. They hosted a Full Moon Party at a small coffeehouse in Charlotte called Cafe Bisous. That night they called themselves "The Full Moon Ensemble". At the end of the night when Debbie, the owner of the place, was asked what she thought of the band, she said " I thought it was hardcore lounge". So that is how they got their name. They aren't really hardcore, and they aren't really lounge, but the name seems to fit.

The second release is "Dance of My Life-Remixes" was released on March 1, 2012. Wes and Chris had been into dance music since we were kids growing up in the 1970s. When disco died and went back underground in the 1980s, we continued to appreciate it. When the Rave scene finally hit Charlotte in 1990s we became friends with some of the early DJs. Some of these early jockeys have moved on from Charlotte and gone on to professional careers as DJs in places as far away as Bangkok, Thailand. Over the years we have all stayed in touch.

During production on our 2010 release “Dance of My Life” we came up with the idea of letting our friends remix one of the tracks. The obvious choice was the title track. We thought it would take a few months to wrangle the project, but it ended up taking over a year to pull it together. Then we decided to release all of the versions on one CD.
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