Harley & Muscle

Real Name:
William "Harley" Cataldo & Flavio "Muscle" Romaniello
Flavio "Muscle" Romaniello. Born: 5th June 1971 in Milan, Italy
William "Harley" Cataldo. Born: 25th July 1970 in Toronto, Canada
HARLEY&MUSCLE? are two House Music artists living in Milan, northern Italy. The friendship between William ‘Harley’ Cataldo and Flavio ‘Muscle’ Romaniello started in 1982, when the twelve-year-old William ‘Harley’ arrived in Italy from Toronto (Canada), his birthplace, and met the eleven-year-old Flavio ‘Muscle’ through some mutual friends. They were instantly bound by the same passions for Music, Harley-Davidson bikes and girls!
Whilst still in their teens, in 1985, these young guys began to hear the first real House Music of the early 80’s from Artists such as Farley “Jackmaster" Funk, Mr. Fingers, Tyree, all the DJ International label productions and the great house music coming out of Chicago, NYC and London. All this provin' a great disappointment to their friends who were listenin’ to mainstream Pop and Rock artists (Duran Duran, Prince, U2, Queen, Wham!, etc.).
In 1988 HARLEY&MUSCLE? were invited to a New Year’s Eve party and listenin’ to the DJ (a real nerd !) they understood that this party wasn’t going anywhere, especially without any kind of House Music. So after 2 hours hearin’ boring commercial songs, William ‘Harley’ saw a piano (which he had never played before), and said to Flavio ‘Muscle’: “Hey, let's rock this fuckin’ party !”. He sat down on the piano stool and began instinctively to play some classic house tracks, such as Rickster "Night Moves", Sterling Void & P. Brightledge "It’s alright”, Royal House ”Can U Party?", Phortune “String Free", Richie Rich "Salsa House", Bobby Konders "The Poem” and suchlike showin' an amazin' natural talent. In that moment Flavio 'Muscle', ex-violin and trumpet player, understood that the world of house music had opened up the gates for two new talents.
In 1990 the Canadian native William 'Harley' bought a Yamaha keyboard and with Flavio 'Muscle', joined forces in order to compose some very mellow deep house songs. A mutual friend Andrea 'Sus 4th' Mongini, a famous DJ in northern Italy, looking at them one night in a disco, where Flavio 'Muscle' was working as a Bouncer, said "Hey Guys, you look like HARLEY&MUSCLE?...!". This classic comment saw a new crew emerge into the House Music World, namely 'HARLEY&MUSCLE?'.
In 1994 William 'HARLEY' put his hand in his pocket and bought a Sampling Station Roland DJ-70. In this way, this dynamic duo recorded various demo songs on musiccassettes and started goin' around credible record shops in Milan buyin' House Cd's - Flavio 'Muscle' has a collection of over 5,000 House Music Cd's - and getting to know many other Dj's. At the end of this year Flavio 'Muscle', started to work in an Italian record Company, as an Accountant dealing with International royalty accounting, so he started lookin' for a studio to let them realise some HARLEY&MUSCLE? projects.
In June 1995, after they found a suitable studio, they began to compose their first record: "Another Lonely Day" issued on an italian label called 'Making Music History’. During 1996 this record was played by many Djs in different discos, it was presented on 101 Network radio in the underground music program "Dance Village" and it was continuously played in the italian famous radio House program 'Italia Network Satelite' on the same radio network.
At the end of the summer of 1996, HARLEY&MUSCLE? started to work on various projects with various collaborators and studios in Milan. Since that date many records and remixes have been released on many record labels all over the world. Among the others, HARLEY&MUSCLE? collaborated with singers as India, Kerri Chandler, Robert Owens, Gerideau, Dawn Tallmann, Billy Preston, Jimi Polo, Duke Brown, Nicole Graham, Marie Tweek & Byron Stingily, they remixed Artists as Gloria Gaynor feat. The Trummps, Loleatta Holloway, Kevin Yost, Dj Spen, Jocelyn Brown, Alexander O’Neal, Dan Curtin, Axus feat. Naomi, The Rurals, Brs, Hideo Kobayashi, Julius Papp, Physics, Charles Spencer feat. Kenny Bobien, Dino & Terry, Troublemen Dj Fudge, Spanka and Miguel Graca, just to name a few, releasing their productions & remixes with all the most appreciated labels as Guidance, i! Recordings, Distant Music, Bombay, Loveslap!, Diaspora, Peng, Bumpin’ City, Deep Touch, Black Vinyl, Kif, NeoDisco, Spanka, Irma Unlimited, Slip’n’Slide, Waako and Purple Music.
Up until 1999, HARLEY&MUSCLE? were 'Special Guest DJs' in the famous italian radio House program 'Italia Network Mastermix' meanwhile, in the year 2000, they begun to release their compilations called ‘Deep House’, ‘Radio Montecarlo New Classics’, ‘Addicted to House’, ‘Hi Jazz’, ‘Luxury Grooves’, ‘Large Music’, ‘Transport Recordings’, ‘A Lounge Supreme’, ‘Smash Disco’, ‘Seasons Recordings’, ‘Savannah’, ‘Jon Cutler in the Mix’, ‘Soulshine Soulful Session’, ‘Oriental Garden’ and other cds for various fashion shops & clubs as “Cafè Solaire”, “Frank Milano” e “G Llounge” in Milan with their own label called SOULSTAR RECORDS (www.soulstarrecods.com) distributed all over the world. Furthermore they became producers creating another label called LITTLE ANGEL RECORDS (www.littleangelrecords.com) in order to release albums of their artists as Island Groove, Desansis, Monodeluxe, Luv City, John Dahlback, Steal Vybe, The Defloristics, Neolectrique, Karu, Gene Hunt, Hanna, Enigmatic & Izmo together their own H&M’s Deep House albums called ‘Respected Everywhere’, ‘a(chǎn) Decade of Truth’, ‘Armed Response’ and the latest ‘Solid Passion’. Furthermore HARLEY&MUSCLE? produced, for the Italian market, important artists like Kay Rush, from Radio Montecarlo Network, with her own compilation series inspired to her radio program “Unlimited” and Giovanni Vernia aka Jonny Groove from the Italian tv show ‘Zelig’ broadcast on Canale 5 national television channel.?
As deejays HARLEY&MUSCLE? played their deep sets in the most important venues all over the world like Los Angeles (Deep LA), Cape Town (Caprice), Athens (Isla Club), San Francisco (Pink), Johannesburg (Taboo), San Jose (Foxy), Miami (Rain), Dubai (Chameleon), Kaunas (Pizza Jazz), Zurich (Kauflauten), Moscow (Fashion Club), Amsterdam (Barrio Habana), Vilnius (Gravity), Sofia (Opera), just to name a few and they collaborated with important fashion brands like J. Lindeberg, Miss Sixty and Yves Saint Laurent, for which they are the official Djs having different tours in all South Africa territory.