Las Vegas Weekly

June 22, 2008 · 9:44 PM

Monti Rock III treated to rare airtime on KKLZ

By John Katsilometes

While driving home tonight I heard something on the radio that nearly caused me to veer off the side of the road and no it wasn’t a commentary by Michael Savage.

It was a disco classic by Monti Rock III.

You might know of Monti, or not, but he is one of the city’s foremost bon vivants and quasi-celebrities. But before that, he was one of the country’s foremost hair stylists/talk-show guests and quasi-celebrities. More than 30 years ago he recorded a couple of hit singles, including “I Wanna Dance Wit’choo,” with a since-disassembled act called Disco Tex and Sex-O-Lettes. In a numbingly bizarre and random coincidence, about 30 minutes ago I caught the intro to this song by Casey Kasem on a replay of American Top 40 on KKLZ 96.3-FM. The station replays old AT 40s each Sunday night, and Rock’s hit appeared at No. 23 on June 14, 1975. As the notoriously spot-on Kasem noted in his lead-in to the song, the dance number was “recorded by a New York hairstylist who had a difficult time convincing his mother the voice on the record was actually his!” That’s probably because Monti sounds as if he recorded the vocal track while being treated to the business end of a cattle prod, but nonetheless the song was a top-40 hit, appearing between Carly Simon’s “Attitude Dancing” at No. 24 and Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Listen to What the Man Said” at No. 22.

As usual, Monti finds himself in good company.

Share This