While you’re searching for photographic evidence of ZZ Top‘s tour with livestock (making sure it’s not the road crew you’re confusing with cattle), can you also help me confirm that Baretta’s bird, Fred, was eaten on one episode by a homeless Puerto Rican boy Baretta took in? While you’re at that, feel free to use this space to post any other thoughts that need to be shared. Thanks.
Hey, let’s make this a Twofer Tuesday, shall we? After the jump…
You gotta serve somebody.
KAISER CHIEFS KWESTION
Anybody heard the new Kaiser Chiefs album?? How’s the money moving on the likelihood it’ll be a huge sophomore stinker? (Not that I want that to happen — I quite liked their first LP.)
I haven’t yet, but plan to pick it up. Ruby’s one of those songs that’s still sticking in my head from a comp that a DJ friend from back home gave me about a month ago. They’re playing here on April 6th at The Electric Factory!
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The wife of Velvet Revolver singer Scott Weiland was arrested and faces a possible arson charge for setting on fire some $10,000 worth of her husband’s clothes, police said on Monday.
You go girl!
I wonder if she threw them out of the window of the mansion *first*, or just torched them in the bedroom?! I wonder what Scott Weiland did to deserve the “wrath of woman”…! Ha ha;)
Also playing on April 6th – The Photon Band – damnit Art!!!! 🙂 🙂
Blue Cheer are at the North Star on April 6th also…
What a great compilation – I’d buy it. I don’t know what “Pretty Ballarina” has to do with the concept, but it’s a nice song.
Ruby – I’ve heard it a couple of times. Not as catchy “I Predict a Riot” but it has a memorable chorus
Scott Weiland has $10,000 worth of clothes?!?
Scott Weiland has $10,000 worth of clothes?!?
I think it’s what he had sewn inside the lining that added to the value of his garments.
Shameless self promotion time: Most of you probably know that I keep a blog chronicling my travels on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Part of my purpose in doing this satisfies a desire to travel coupled with my interest in music and the roots of my beloved Rock music (alot of it was born right here in my home state).
This past weekend, I (finally) made the trek to Avalon, the home of Mississippi John Hurt. What an amazing find! We went from the land of Robert Johnson’s death in the murky Delta to the hills of rural Avalon and Valley. This trip (and its findings) are going to be seen in an upcoming blog entry to my site (stay tuned).
This adventure has turned out to be one of the most satisfying I have ever undertaken.
http://msbluestrailblog.blogspot.com/
TB
I would be interested in hearing from someone who voted for the 70s in the current poll why they think the 70s is the most misunderstood decade.
TB, I think the blog was a great idea. Before I moved to the midwest I had always intended to take a trip to at least Clarksdale, but now I’ll probably never do that. Your blog has been a vicarious substutute.
Maybe ten years ago I drove up to Nashville, picked up my friend who was visiting from upstate NY, and we drove back down the Natchez Trace. We stayed in Muscle Shoals the first night (where there really wasn’t much to see), and visited the Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo the next day, which was really cool. My yankee friend still talks about that.
But the next night we stopped at Kosciusko, which has nothing to recommend it besides being where Oprah is from, ok make that nothing to recommend it. We ended up bailing at Jackson and just heading back to New Orleans on I-55, bypassing Natchez, which I’ve also never visited, but it was cool to have seen parts of your state one would not ordinarily visit.
Very cool, TB. Thanks for the reminder.
cdm, I voted for the ’70s. I feel that disco has gained too much prominence in history’s memory of the decade and meanwhile history has failed to note the pain of living through rock’s failure (and punk’s eventual failure) and the roots of musical evils that would become prevalent in the early ’80s. Today, for instance, Journey is celebrated as a “cute” early ’80s phenomenon when, in fact, they were already poisoning rock music in the late-70s.
Glad you like it, BigSteve. I plan on jazzing the site up a little over the next couple of days, but I also plan on future posts going a little deeper than just shots of me standing at a sign. The John Hurt entry will feature not only the marker, but also his house, his grave, as well as a few shots of other significance in that area.
I also did some more searching for Robert Johnson and his elusive mystery.
I also plan on attending the marker unveiling for Eddie Taylor. (Robert Plant attended the unveiling in Tutwiler). all I can say is “stay tuned.”
TB
Speaking of Robert Johnson, I’ve been meaning to tell this story.
I went to my niece’s wedding in Chicago a few weeks ago, and we had a thread right before then about non-sucky wedding music. The music for the dancing part of the reception was what you would expect (Motown, then hits of the 80s, the electric slide, etc), but the DJ played music all during the sitdown dinner that preceded the dancing, and I was surprised to hear Robert Johnson’s version of Sweet Home Chicago wafting through the hall at one point. My unmusical brother who was sitting next to me claimed that I was the only person out of the 200 or so there who would know that, which I’m not so sure about.
At the church the music was mostly string quartet arrangements of pop tunes. At the end they walked down the aisle as man and wife to All You Need Is Love, which almost redeemed the Nickelback recording that was played earlier in the ceremony.
I also voted for the 70s for reasons nearly the opposite of Mr. Mod, except for the disco markdown. My 70’s had three distinct phase. The early 70s (70-72), that were at first a continuation of the baccanal that was the late 60s. Records that you could never imagine on commercial radio somehow made it. Decals era Beefheart, Fraser and Debolt. These things were heard on real rock radio stations. Of course, that was quickly fixed and I moved into the mid-70’s doldrums where I began to virtually abandon rock for things like Electric period Miles or obscure art-rock like Faust or Henry Cow. Rock really seemed dead to me. I wasn’t fond of the mainstream of english glam or American arena rock. In 1976, my first real exposure to NY punk rock brought me back to rock and, although it failed to conquer the world, even momentarily, it established a new paradigm, loser rock if you will, that made space for many things I’ve enjoyed since.
I selected “today’s music” in the Big Choice Poll, because so many of The Kidz think there’s something new and interesting in today’s rock music, when — for the most part — there really isn’t.
Any word on Fred’s death yet? I swear I recall an episode in which some homeless Puerto Rican boy who Baretta was trying to help ate the bird. I hope this chilling memory is not a false one. Thanks.
Nobody ate Baretta’s bird. Fred was far too smart to be eaten by some kid.
I’m still thinking on the poll. People older than me seem to have decided that rock music was only made from 1964 – 1979, and a lot of people of many ages think today’s music isn’t new and interesting (ahem), and a lot of it is every bit as interesting as anything else is (or was). The 70’s seem massively misunderstood, and I can’t believe how many kids seem to think that Big Star and The Stooges were huge bands that everyone loved, and the Never Mind the Bollocks sat on top of the charts for 53 weeks. I guess I have to lean that way, since I think MY generation misunderstands today’s music at least as much as today’s generation misunderstand’s yesterday’s music.
Where is this pole located? And no, I am not referring to the one down at the local club.
I admit that I am very unfamiliar with this site’s conceptual design, but I like it. I am also as intrigued as can be concerning some of the perspectives voiced concerning the 70s decade.
2K Man’s point about innovators who were widely ignored in their heyday but are perceived nowadays as being popular back then makes the most sense to me.
I picked the 80s which I think is often viewed as a musical wasteland but I thought had a very vibrant underground scene.
The Poll is on the top right of the screen just under the ad for that cool-ass fender guitar cell phone.
writehearnow, it’s great having you aboard. You raise an interesting point about the process of finding your way around the site’s design. In the Categories list on the left column you’ll find a User’s Guide link:
https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/c18/
Some of what you’ll find are posts responding to technical difficulties, which should be resolved by now. Others, like one entitled “Finding Your Way Around,” or something like that, may give you some grounding in what we’ve put together. I’m sure with modifications to the site over time that not everything in that post is accurate. We should probably go back and update it. There are other posts on really nerdy/dedicated things like styling your comments. There’s probably info, too, on requesting Back Office privileges, which enable Townspeople to get behind the scenes and craft their own threads. You’re a really good writer and knowledgeable rock fan. I’d encourage you and some of our other newer participants to acquire those privileges. Thanks.
I chose the nineties, because it largely goes unsaid that “alternative” was a phrase invented by corporate record labels, and their enablers, to cover their buying up, ripping off, and crassly imitating bands on independent labels.
Two recording engineers passed away this week:
Don Smith, known for his work with the Stones.
Geoff Workman, known for his work with Queen.
Wanted to mention this.
Michael Shelly of WFMU interviewed former Beatles drummer Bernard Purdie last weekend. Download or stream here:
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/34475
I actually think that the Music History books got it right in reference to Disco. Having lived through that period myself, I really can’t think of anything from the 70’s that was a bigger deal than Disco. There are certainly equals to Disco from the 70’s — Zeppelin & horrible Soft-Rock are the first things that spring to my mind.
No matter how one feels about Disco now or then, you’re fooling yourself if you don’t think that it was fucking huge!
I jus’ had to get that off my chest. I truely despise revisionist history making.
IMO Disco was a HUGE FAIL. It was a NY media hype thing that went viral.
Actually what was HUGE and SUCCESSFUL in the 70s was Rock Music in general. And I sure as hell ain’t talking just in the United Snakes. Never has there been such a global hotbed of diverse musical excellence as there was in the 70s. Punk was another 70s media hype fail. A commercial flash in the pan with at best a comical college level underground followup.
What killed the 70s was the media marketed, big label driven, commercialization of the music itself. The mainstream has never recovered and in fact has been steadily devolving ever since.
People love to ignorantly blame the musicians themselves for all the live performance concert/arena pomp and excess, but that’s just more horse poop. It’s certainly not that the musician’s egos didn’t buy into and uniquely design a good portion of the whole nine, it’s the fact that they were coached into a level of acceptability and expense. It was all the labels right down to their larger than life, greed driven, implosively multifaceted demise in mass.
The decade that followed was thee absolute most plastic, grandiose disgrace in all of rock music’s history.
I’m not sure how you’re defining success but even though it was a fad, Disco was huge and it’s impact was pretty far reaching.
I was definitely on the side of Rock during Disco Wars of the late 70s but to dismiss it as just hype is inaccurate.
You can’t call Disco a huge fail. It was anything but that. It seemed more like music where its fanbase wasn’t a bunch of nerdy geeks, just a lot of people that liked to dance. There’s a lot less nerdy music geeks than there are people that like to dance, that’s for sure. Disco had movies about it, and TV shows dedicated to it. I hated every second of it, and went to a Disco bar once, and hated the hell out of that, too. But there’s no doubt that was the biggest scene in the 70’s, and that Four on the Floor Disco beat still informs music today.
Punk was underground. It bubbled up a little with the Pistols because they were from England, (and record labels smelled a new British Invasion) but it certainly wasn’t a fail, either. For something underground, it was hugely successful and people today still know who Stiff Little Fingers, The Buzzcocks, The Dead Boys and The Ramones are. Elvis Costello, The Police and Talking Heads came out of that movement, and I don’t think their careers are anything any musician wouldn’t love to have as one of their failures.
The 70’s get revised enough as it is. I know the popular classic rock stations play the same playlist they played when I was in high school, but no one ever mentions the fact that the classic rock dinosaurs got extra life from Disco and Punk anymore.
Maybe that’s the problem with some rock these days. The music that’s underground is kind of a retro thing, and the big music of the day (country) is just the Arena rock of yesterday with cowboy hats. There’s nothing good for rock to steal from.
I am not “dismissing” 70s Disco as much as I am defining it within the 70s context.
Disco was a lot like the electronic music found in Rave clubs today. It existed mostly for and of that sole context. That’s why there was such a narrow Disco fashion trend people that were constantly poking fun at.
There are many types of contemporary electronic music. Many elements I am a big fan of, however rave music tends to be a mostly dumbed down and monotonous musical derivation of more sophisticated styles of electronic music.
To define disco as a natural musical progression outside the realm of it’s club born and media perpetuated identity & hype is inaccurate IMO.
Monetarily? You bet it was HUGE for a VERY brief time. All commercial driven hype/glam. Little substance and primarily all “Saturday Night Fever”.
“You can’t call Disco a huge fail. It was anything but that. It seemed more like music where its fanbase wasn’t a bunch of nerdy geeks, just a lot of people that liked to dance. There’s a lot less nerdy music geeks than there are people that like to dance, that’s for sure. Disco had movies about it, and TV shows dedicated to it. I hated every second of it, and went to a Disco bar once, and hated the hell out of that, too. But there’s no doubt that was the biggest scene in the 70’s, and that Four on the Floor Disco beat still informs music today.”
In my opinion this assessment is a strawman. You are equating Rock music fans apart from Disco fans as being “nerdy geeks”? That’s horse crap. The 70s arenas were not filled with nerdy rock geeks.
Lets take a look at record sales in the 70s and you tell me which sold more albums per artist, per genre, Rock or Disco?
I don’t think you understand how big Disco was. It wasn’t a fad, it wasn’t just in the clubs. Electronica isn’t even close in its impact. There’s no Saturday Night Fever. Hell, let’s break it down to the lesser Disco movies. There’s no Fame, Flashdance or even Car Wash, which had a big selling soundtrack. Flashdance was an 80’s thing, but that just shows how much longer than Saturday Night Fever Disco lasted.
I had a Disco Sucks shirt. As an art form I find it lacking, but as a musical movement, it was one of the biggest and most successful ever.
We cannot equate all subsequent dance trends with disco. The ONLY reason Disco picked up the momentum it did was via Hollywood.
It lasted for a about 2 years max. More like a year and a half. I am not equating you with a disco fan either.
Did you take a look at the statistics on album sales in the 70s yet?
No, I’m not equating rock fans of the 70’s with nerdy geeks. I’m equating the Punk movement, which was very underground outside of a handful of bands with nerdy geeks. The average rock music fan of the 70’s just had bad taste. They hated Disco, but they loved Hot Stuff, and they made Frampton Comes Alive and The Eagles Greatest Hits the biggest selling albums of the decade.
I think I liked my naugahyde jacket better than those.
I don’t want to look at the charts, but I will. You’re gonna put crappy songs in my head today!
http://cashboxmagazine.com/archives/70s_files/1976.html
Looks like Disco was King of the #1 spot in 76.
From Cashbox also: 77 was the year of Debbie Boone, but Disco had a lot of #1’s there. too.
78 – Cashbox says Disco is number 1.
79 looks like 78. 80 and 81 there’s some more country creeping in, but Disco is still strong.
I was there. I remember it. It was huge, it was everywhere and it lasted a long time.
I was probably the first person to say that disco’s role in the ’70s has since been overrated. Let me explain: certainly the music was popular and prevalent for the last couple of years of the ’70s, but what I was trying to get at is that, today, when you ask a kid 12 to 20 years old, “What do the ’70s represent for you?” They describe a white guy in Travolta’s white suit with an Afro and holding up a peace sign. It’s bizarre to me and a bit twisted. Prior to disco the ’70s had a rich, varied musical culture. Today disco has, in the minds of the general public, gone back and claimed some musical movements that preceded it (eg, TSOP and the earlier proto-disco that was coming out of Florida, thanks to the likes of George McCrae, and that would lead to the more innocent, geeky KC and the Sunshine Band). Disco has gone down in history as a New York City nightclub movement for understandable reasons, but I’m saying that there was a small percentage of the young population that was actually as committed to that culture as kids today think was the case. AND I’m saying that the early days of the disco scene included pockets that were not so exotic or hip or whatever. It was simple DANCE MUSIC before it was a lifestyle coopted by the likes of Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol. “Do the Hustle,” for instance, was a simple, pure, elegant dance tune. It had nothing to do with the drama of that horrible “Last Dance” song and that crap rock-disco that Giorgio Moroder was pushing at the end of the ’70s. The Cultural Bad Boys put their stamp on disco and rode it into the future.
By the way, last weekend my wife and I were recalling how much we loved the Whit Stillman movie The Last Days of Disco. That guy was 3 for 3 in our book. Has he made a movie since then?
Mod, agree with your comments on disco and definitely on Last Days of Disco–a very good movie that was the third best movie by Whit Stillman. No, he has made none since. Every few years I see an article on him. Hard to figure.
But let’s face it: every era gets caricatured. The 50s was more than poodle-skirted teens at the sock-hop; the 60s was more than naked, muddy hippies; the 70s was more than The Man in the White Suit on the flashing dancefloor; the 80s was more than a synth-playing dude in a Flock of Seagulls hair-do; the 90s was more than a flannel-clad grungester in a mosh pit; the 00s was more than….well, I really don’t know. But you get the idea.
True, misterioso. I am enjoying reading the diverse takes we had on Disco. Surely no one who lived through it is “wrong.”
Out here in the Midwest, a full time Disco guy was just as odd a sight as a Mohawk wearing Punk. But come the weekend, fans of both worlds came to life and hung out at their places.
I do remember one thing in particular about why I didn’t like Disco. The Disco bars would have signs that said, “Men 25 and over. Women 18 and over.” Man, that ticked me off, but then again, I didn’t want to go in and those girls wouldn’t have liked me anyway. But Disco really did seem like kind of an older thing. I suppose it took a lot of money to have the right clothes and pay the cover charges.
Did you guys have any of those gigantic bars that would have a room for rock bands, and quiet area with couches and tables and a Disco bar, too? We had a few of those and sometimes worlds would collide. I always thought it mush have been hard to fight in a parking lot in a 200 dollar suit and a pair of Florsheim’s.
I just read that J.D. Salinger died. There’s a picture of him accompanying the story, so he must have really existed:)
Using disco as the single most representative thing about the 70s is clearly stupid. But anyone who doesn’t understand that disco was huge either wasn’t there or is applying rock standards where they are not appropriate. Album sales are not a good measure of a genre that was not album oriented. The lack of any evidence of long and successful artistic careers by writer performers (as we evaluate rockers) doesn’t apply to a producer-driven gernre. Disco was a lifestyle for many more people than punk ever was. And this was not just a New York thing.
And the musical influence of disco was enormous. Rock in the 70s had lost touch with its origins as dance music, but that changed as the 70s became the 80s. The music of Gang of Four is unthinkable without disco, for example. The Rolling fucking Stones made disco-influenced music (Miss You). There was a ‘dance remix’ of Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark for chrissakes. This was not because they were embracing some weird underground style.
Downplaying disco is like saying hiphop is a passing fad we can all ignore.
Comparing Disco with Hip Hop is absurd. There is positively NO comparrison. There are 10s of sub genres of Hip Hop, there were none of Disco.
Disco was a VERY specific fashion trend in commercial music. Within the scheme of contemporary rock music, which Disco is assuredly not a part of, Rock music in the 70s overshadows the rise and fall if Disco 10 to 1. No question.
I was very much alive and well in the 70s. The actual specific fashion trend that was mainstream Disco, came in and was gone within a 2 year window. Yes, it was huge commercial iconic occurrence, but it was short lived and assuredly media perpetuated.
Again, comparing Disco with Hip Hop is a false musical comparison. Hip Hop has already outlived Disco 3 to 1. The one (Hip Hop) is a cradle genre baring many children and the other (Disco) was a relatively short lived NY born fad. It was as much a social phenomenon as it was a musical phenomenon. Commercial marketing did it’s pathetic best to make it seem larger than life because that’s what slime does best. Hype.
writehearnow, I don’t know where you grew up or when Disco first appeared on your radar, but I think the truth is somewhere between your perceptions (and mine too, since I also think that the legend of Disco has been inflated or given a spin other than what I remember in popular culture growing up in Philadelphia) and BigSteve’s. I’m not saying that we should cease arguing about this – NOT AT ALL – but that we should make sure we’re acknowledging that our different perspectives may lead to a fuller perspective rather than a “right” or “wrong” one. I do think there was a more gradual, natural lead-in to Disco that’s been forgotten AND inflated, if that’s possible, and that along with a possibly more gradual denoument into the early ’80s may help us see the point of view of those like BigSteve and 2000 Man.
You might want to check out the recent series of reissue compilations called Disco Discharge. Ok maybe you don’t, but there’s one volume called Classic Disco, one for Hi-NRG, one Euro Disco, one Electro, etc. To say there were no subgenres of disco demonstrates that you don’t know much about disco.
I think that part of the problem is that you have too narrow a definition of disco. The wall between rock and disco was far less distinct than you make it out to be. Was Chic not a rock band? It was guitar bass and drums, and even if the music they made under that name could be classed as disco, its members did lots of work on records that certainly would be classified as rock (Power Station, David Bowie, etc).
Also, if you’re going to claim to be quantifying things (“10 to 1”), you need to say what you’re counting. Argument by assertion is a logical fallacy.
Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with house and techno music, which are the two main branches of post-disco electronic dance music. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with recent bands like LCD Soundsystem, Scissor Sisters, Blowoff, or Hercules & Love Affair, all of which are heavily influenced by disco and its descendants. But all of this music exists whether rockists are aware of it or not.
Mr. Mod, you are an EXCELLENT “moderator”. I like that “fuller perspective” perspective.
BigSteve
Disco is Disco and pretending it’s bigger, or that it contains sub genres that are not really “Disco” sub genres to begin with, doesn’t change anything.
Dance clubs existed prior to “Disco” and dance clubs existed and will exist after ‘Disco”. *That does not mean any of the aforementioned are technically connected with respect to musical evolution.
“Post” this. “Post” that. Horse hockey! Post Punk, Post Rock, Post Grape Nuts.
I am a 32+ year musician and am presently an experimental electronic musician/producer.
“House” music is a sub genre OF “Techno”. For an accurate understanding of the birth and origination of “Techno”, look up Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson. I grew up right down the road from them and was born in the same year as Juan.
I am admittedly coming at this whole 70s Disco perspective from an intentionally limited American angle. I realize the parallel European angle carries a broader and more so progressive definitive vista with respect to subsequent Disco/Discotheque.
The thin borderline you elude to via Chic is utterly incorrect.(forgive me Steve, I’m an aggravating idiot in print at times, albeit a challenging/ed one, but a nice guy in person. I just LOVE musical discourse and general rock music discussions). Chic were a Disco bandwagon gig born as one of a million Soul/R&B bands that hopped on the Disco boat back in the 70s.
Disco is Disco bro. There is no Rock about it whatsoever.
PS. Is it possible to post photos in Town? I wanted to show some “pertinent info”
*Steve, I left this sentence in tact within the progression of what I wrote as i wrote it because I wanted you to understand that I can and DO learn as I go. Not to blow sunshine, but remember what Mr. Mod stated about a broader perspective or whatever? I realized after I wrote this what BS it was. Not in that I honestly believe that any form of electronic dance trance/house/idm/whatever was directly descended from the NY born 70s “Disco” music, but rather in the undeniable Discotheque culture and club atmosphere similarities. Disco certainly enforced the birthed cultural notion of what is “clubbin'”
I’m sorry, but I can’t even disagree with you effectively, write, because you never back up anything you say. You say there are no subgenres of disco, and I point to external evidence beyond my own opinions that there were indeed subgenres. Your response is simply to assert once again that there were no subgenres.
Your claim that house is a subgenre of techno is absurd. I know who Juan Atkins and Kevin Sanderson were. I’ve read Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, the standard text on the history of dance music. An example of the conventional wisdom on this history is this bit from the Wikipedia article on ‘Detroit techno:’
Frankie Knuckles’ residence at The Warehouse (what gave house music its name) was 77-82. Atkins issued his first single (as Cybotron) in 1981, but Sanderson’s first record (as Kreem) Triangle of Love is not until 1987. Derrick May, the other member of techno’s big three, issued his first record in 1986. At best one can say they developed in parallel, but most critics would call techno a variant on house, which came a little earlier.
I’ll stop now, because we’re boring everybody else. This is Rock Town Hall, not Dance Music Town Hall. But I will say that the location and year of your birth does not change musical history, though it does explain a lot about why you would favor Detroit over Chicago in this matter. And please stop telling me that you’re a musician unless you can explain why that matters.
Steve
My apologies as the term “House” did in fact originate prior to the term “Techno” even though what we now know as House and it’s diverse types is far different than the early Chicago reference.
I wouldn’t be so quick to refernce the above inaccuracy as “absurd” so much as it was a linear inaccuracy.
Big difference between citing sources from a wiki article or some book of singular limited perspectives and actually having “been there and done that” as I have. House music as it is understood today came assuredly post 1985, and was not actually refined as a complete style of electronic dance music until post 1990.
The Warehouse origin of the term “House” is just one story and is widely and strongly disputed. What you are honestly putting forth here is not so much musical origins as it is semantic origins anyhow. Now, *that’s* boring.
Boring? Come now Mr. Steve, you are are putting an aweful lot of quick research into arguing something that could be even remotely defined as boring. This discussion does NOT center on Rock music so the notions of limiting it to such are a bit silly. Personally, I am not inclined to deduce my own importance as great enough to garner an audience anyhow, as I am bit more concerned with the truth at hand than mere spectacle.
This is what I define as “absurd”
Big Steve wrote:
“The wall between rock and disco was far less distinct than you make it out to be. Was Chic not a rock band?”
bottom line: Disco is as East is from West with respect to Rock and you claimed there was a very thin line there. NO connection whatsoever. You also proposed the false notion that Chic was a Rock band. Now that Sir, *IS* absurd.
Sorry I can’t hear your baseless assertions. I’m listening to the Disco Mix Extended Edit of the Kinks’ I Wish I Could Fly Like Superman from 1979. I’m done.
Uh… “Miss You,” anybody? Or “I Was Made For Loving You,” for crying out loud. Even KISS went disco for a while there.
“Uh… “Miss You,” anybody? Or “I Was Made For Loving You,” for crying out loud. Even KISS went disco for a while there.”
How do these two examples illustrate that there is a thin line between definitive Disco & definitive Rock?
Nonesense. Miss You by the Stones was the beginning of the putrid washed up Stones for certain, but it sure as hell wasn’t Disco. Same with the Kiss tune. Neither of these Songs were “Disco” whether they had a commercialized danceable beat that got play in Discos, or in some ways were similar to Disco or not.
Just because some failing, burnt out, old & washed up rockers were directed to do something with a dance beat because their producers thought it would be a good idea doesn’t mean there is all of a sudden a thin line between Disco & Rock.
That is utter BS.
It means those idiots were failing at definitive Rock and needed to pull something out of their tired bottoms in order for the record label to keep from loosing money.
Ever heard the term, or better yet the phrase “don’t be a sell out” ?
Donna Summer was Disco, NOT The Stones or Kiss. Get a clue.
Now, you tell me. When exactly did Kiss or The Rolling Stones become comparable to Donna Summer?
Rock & Disco are two COMPLETELY seperate entities. Anybody that denies as much must have grown up in a different Universe than most other Rock fans that I am familiar with. You should be ashamed.
“Kiss went Disco”
ROTFLMAO!!
writehear, why so troubled by acknowledging that Disco was a ^little^ more than a 2-year fad? Chic definitely straddled earlier ’70s funk, disco, and rock – and their music led directly into rap. “Miss You” is definitely a case of the Stones incorporating disco into their work. It fit them like a glove. Kiss always suxx so I won’t bring them into the conversation. You make a lot of good points. Don’t waste them.
writehear, let me see if this makes sense to you. Let’s agree that “disco” and “rock” have a number of things in common: for example, they’re both largely written in 4/4 time; they’re both frequently sung in a real or fake “black” vernacular; they both frequently exhort the listener to shake their ass, have sex, get high, whatever. The point here is that *any* disco song has at least *something* in common with *any* rock song. I assume you can get behind that. They are quite clearly not completely dissimilar. An example: “Brown Sugar” by the Stones is not completely dissimilar to “Bad Boys” by Donna Summer.
Now, if the Stones purposely incorporate new drum beats, pulsing bass lines, synths, clucka-chucka guitars, and other groove elements into their music — elements clearly designed to entice discotheque patrons onto the dance floor — surely you can see how the line between rock as performed by the Stones and the genre of disco has been made thinner?
If you can’t get behind at least a piece of that, then I don’t know how we can talk about this. Whether disco as made by the Stones signaled the end of their ability to rock is beside the point. They intentionally wrote a song that makes the line between rock and disco very thin indeed. They were *able* to do so because the two styles are in fact somewhat similar to begin with.
HVB
“House music as it is understood today came assuredly post 1985…”
I don’t understand the point. Punk music as it is understood by most people today came post 2000 or so. Ignoring history doesn’t change it.
i can see what writehearnow means about not giving too much credit to the influence of disco on over-the-hill rockers, but i wonder how he explains the influence of krautrock, a decidedly rock genre, on the birth of disco.
Hmmm…
‘Twould appear someone has a bit of a chip, …oKay lemme rephrase: a freakin’ boulder on their shoulder when it comes to the topic of Disco.
There is a great deal here to respond to. I will try and capitulate my relative stance in response.
Disco was in fact an in vogue, main stream commercial driven fashion/music trend that lasted approximately two years. Of course this time line excludes it’s extremely esoteric underground rise to mainstream notoriety.
Disco and Rock music are two distinct and completely different musical genres. Of course they are both forms of music, but to make these broad sweeping overtly simplified generalizations and attempt to draw obvious similarities one to the other is a bit far reaching IMO. By a direct comparison to Rock Music as a whole, Disco was a grain of sand on the beach of contemporary music. No question. It was however a very powerful media driven commercial music money maker during it’s short lived era of popularity.
Chic were never a Rock band anymore than The Rolling Stones or Kiss were a Disco band.
To state that Some Girls in any way was a positive or progressive step forward for The Rolling Stones is a critical notion based in sheer subjectivity. One cannot successfully argue such perspective based notions, but IMO, The Rolling Stones haven’t done too much hence Let It Bleed that’s worth a damn.
Punk music is all but dead and House music is alive and doing better than ever. The comparison IMO is pretty much moot.
Kraut Rock’s inluence on Disco…hmmm. I know where you are coming from but I am not “seeing” it apart from a periphery that seems to work as well in forward as it does in reverse. Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express along with progressions through and to Electric Cafe seem to opperate on an almost parralel with the US Disco era. I understand how the pioneering Kraut Rock electronic synthesis and sequencing were a huge influence on EDM. However, one could find themselves myopically suffering a bit of a musical astigmatic perspective trying to justify or defend a direct linear influence on US Disco via Kraut artists like Klaus Schütz.
I apologize for my very much opinionated staunch stand on the separation of Rock & Disco. At the time when high profile bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Kinks & Kiss were were “using” Disco underpinnings and remixes to gain a market oriented contextual commercial footing to sell records, Disco was on it’s death bed and frankly so were the artists IMO, via their desperate ploy to do so. I simply do not accept this as a thinning of the line between Rock & Disco. I see it more as just a pathetic, albeit successful attempt to sell records.
With respect to a “chip/boulder on my shoulder”: Not at all. Really. It is ultimately true that I am a born and bred rock n roller at heart, that much is true. However I do not see/feel Disco music to be anything but a different musical genre (complete with it’s own righteous integrity like all other musical genres besides it) apart from Rock. I do however see the Rise of Disco and it’s subsequent commercial driven success as being that which paved the way for what would be the bleakest and most plastic commercialized era in contemporary music. The 80s. God, what a sickening time (of course there are exceptions)in contemporary Rock Music history. IMO, simply the worst musical decade since the birth of Rock itself.
If Donna Summer is definitely Disco, then a cursory look at AMG shows that her mainstream super popular disco career seems to have lasted from 1975 – 1983. If I do the math, that seems like 8, and further ciphering shows that 8 is more than 2, so apparently the Queen of Disco’s career was 8 years, so Disco was 8 years.
There’s your problem. You just blew off Exile on Main St. I can’t take you seriously. Your penance is to play side 3 of Exile on Main St. until your ears bleed.
“Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation was a Billboard pop #1 hit in July of 1974, and “Rock Your Baby” by George McCrae followed it at #1.
The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was the Billboard #1 album from January to July 1978.
So even cutting the disco era off at its peak, that’s four years right there.
Soooooo, yeah why keep pushing the two year time limit, when it is obviously not true???
Speaks of hidden agendas to me.
I voted Captain Beefheart in the current poll, but I also really like Waits. Despite their apparent surface similarities, big, deep hollering voices and a tendency toward the aggressively harsh sound, they really come from different places. Waits is much more of a traditionalist. He brings a junkyard’s worth of musical detritus to what is, at heart, a traditional approach to songcraft. Beefheart, at his best, almost completely obliterates the most basic conventions of the electric blues based music that he started out in.
“Soooooo, yeah why keep pushing the two year time limit, when it is obviously not true???”
I never stated that Disco came into being and subsequently became extinct in two years. I stated that the popular fad or fashion scene that Disco was lasted a max of two years and it did. I also stated that this was entirely commercial media driven because it was. 78/79. Maybe just a touch in 80 but 1980 definitely saw the fad/fashion commercial death of Disco. It’s public image was no longer cool and all that remained started being referred to as “dance music”. Disco as a fashion/fad was dead.
writehearnow, with all due respect to you and the mentally handicapped, with whom I’m in no way identifying you or vice versa, what’s “retarded” about your argument is that you refuse to acknowledge the popularity of disco BEFORE the magic years of 1978 and 1979. I can agree with much of what you’ve been arguing if you specifically mean the MASSIVE WORLDWIDE POPULARITY OF DISCO AS A HEAVILY MARKETED AND CODIFIED PHENOMENON, but how different is that from arguing that Disco’s popular run lasted from the release of Saturday Night Fever (1977, by the way) through the first of its knock-off, cash-in movies, 1978’s Thank God It’s Friday? As a few people have pointed out, “Do the Hustle,” “Rock the Boat,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Fly, Robin, Fly,” KC and the Sunshine Band, et al were massively popular and completely identified with a happening new thing called DISCO years before 1978. After 1979-1980, sure, I’ll back your contention that Disco as a self-contained genre burned out quickly and was taken to new musical heights or depths, depending on how you look at it, by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna, and their ilk, but if you can’t acknowledge the 3-year run-up to the genre’s explosion with SNF you’ve got to admit you’re more interested in yanking our chains. If that’s been the case, bravo! Looking forward to more of your thoughts on other hot topics in the Halls of Rock.
PS – If I’m “retarded” for not seeing that writehearnow has already acknowledged the popularity of Disco prior to 1978, then I’ll accept that label. Sorry. I’m simply trying to make sure this isn’t a battle over the release dates of SNF and TGIF.
OK, ok, I’ll concede that Disco’s high profile did apparently last just a tad longer than the two year time frame that I proposed. It’s also important to note that I am only referencing the United Snakes here and not the Euro Disco angle.
Maybe 3 years TOPS. Remember, SNF came out in Dec. 1977, so it’s big splash was more so in 1978 than 1977. In fact I quite clearly remember the soundtrack tunes getting the height of their airplay in the summer of ’78.
HOWEVER, Disco WAS a short lived, commercial flash in the pan failure by comparison to Rock. Disco is NOTHING like Rock and Rock is NOTHING like Disco. There is NO thin line between Rock and Disco.
You know what prompted me to exclaim that Disco was a HUGE failure don’t you?
It’s because someone stated that the 70s represented a “Rock Failure” and that Disco was more memorable.
*That* is nonsense. The late 60s and the 70s were in fact the greatest time in all of Rock history. The 70s cannot ultimately represent both a failure and a success. Assuredly, Rock succeeded and assuredly Disco ultimately failed.