Living in New York City during the summer of 1985, my favorite jam was “I Wonder If I Take You Home” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. With its heavy synths, Linn drums and irresistible bassline, the defiant groove and teenage romanticism of the soulful single became an anthem. One heard it booming from zooming taxi cabs, screaming from behind the counter of uptown bodegas blasting WKTU, and shrieking from the massive boom-box speakers of Times Square breakdancers. With Ronald Reagan serving his second term in the White House, crack cocaine hitting the streets hard, Hollywood royalty Rock Hudson dying from AIDS (at a time when the press and government barely mentioned the disease), Jean-Michel Basquiat creating life on canvas, the introduction of new Coke and Back to the Future in theaters, 1985 was a pivotal twelve months that changed the world, and “I Wonder…” was an essential part of the year’s soundtrack.


Three months after the single was released, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam visited Tower Records on 4th Street and Broadway, where I worked at the time, to promote their recently released debut disc Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam with Full Force. During the cocaine-riddled ‘80s, when albums and cassettes still sold briskly, the massive Tower Records in the East Village was one of New York’s most popular meeting and hang-out spots. With its three floors and extensive selections, Tower was where young folks chilled with their friends, older folks lingered in the jazz department, and one could sample new music through old headphones. At 22 years-old, clerking at the busy store was my third full-time job in three years.


Two weeks into the gig, my supervisor asked me and few others to help move the record shelves upstairs for an in-store. Noticing my puzzled expression, he explained that an in-store referred to recording artists coming to the store to autograph their albums and meet the fans. “So who’s coming?” I asked with a hint of fan boy excitement. “Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam,” he answered. For a moment, I was stunned silent; and then, I smiled like a fool on the hill. Without a doubt, I was a huge fan of their hit first single and danced too it at the Ritz and Danceteria (where the group performed their first show the year before), but I was also crushing hard on the cutie-pie lead singer who reminded me of every girl I’d ever lusted after during the Puerto Rican Parade, every girl I’d knelt beside at mass inside St. Catherine’s of Genoa, every salsa dancing women I encountered at Broadway 96, and the red lipstick wearing chicks in-line at the Funhouse.

http://www.soulhead.com/2015/06/25/summer-soulstice-1985-lisa-lisa-cult-jam-wonder-take-home-michael-gonzales