Concert Video Pulls Out the Stop-Stops to Capture Washington’s Go-Go Scene

Today marks the release of “Go Go--Live at the Capital Centre,” a 100-minute video shot during October’s “Tribute to Go-Go.” That concert drew 14,000 kids for a non-stop blast featuring “the Godfather of Go-Go” Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Rare Essence, Experience Unlimited, Little Benny and the Masters, the Junkyard Band, D.C. Scorpio, Go Go Lorenzo, and Hot, Cold Sweat.

The video, retailing for about $29.95, is the first product of a new company, CD Enterprises, and G Street Express, a Washington-based production company that put on the concert.

It will be released concurrently with a 90-minute soundtrack cassette on I Hear Ya Records, a label run by G Street co-partner Darryll Brooks. A double album will be released in February with some extra cuts, including two from the Junkyard Band, whose synthesizers went out during the concert, and one from Rare Essence, which will recut a shorter version of “Go-Go Mickey.” The audio recording was done by Sheffield and, says Carol Kirkendall of G Street, “It’s phenomenal, the cleanest and best sound that go-go’s ever had.”

On the video side, “Live” should go a long way toward expiating the sins of “Good to Go,” the ill-fated film about Washington’s go-go scene that did nothing to capture the music’s constant pulse or communal spirit. Much of the credit goes to producer Pat Clark, and especially to director Sheldon Shemer, who directs the Centre’s coverage of the Capitals and Bullets games and did more than 500 concerts on the Telscreen before leaving Capital Centre nine months ago to become an independent producer.