Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Disco Inferno
30 years ago, disco joined the Beatles as a victim of American prurience.
Both had their records burnt by outraged rednecks.
Burning records that you've bought is beyond stupid. Still, you can't ever underestimate the public appetite for burning creative endeavours. This infamous act, organised by a hairy KBBL Zeppelin freak DJ Steve Dahl on the baseball field of the White Sox remains suspicious because of the suggestion that it was prompted by racism and homophobia.
John Lennon got the Beatles burnt for saying they were bigger than God - whereas disco merely sucked, whatever that means. So did disco suck?
Some disco is banal. Some of it is like having your teeth drilled. Disco's mechanisms of blissful ecstasy are easily copied, soaring strings, tight rhythm guitar, pounding bass, the snap of a snare - these production techniques are available to the meanest hack.
Not all crossover disco is bad, but it is what we hear most. Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" is triumphant Eurodisco. Madonna thought enough of to sample it 30 years later in "Hung Up" (a form of gay cat mint if my experience in the nightclubs of Kings Cross are anything to go by). Yet there were many more hacks, destroying the cool attitude of disco. Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" is the antithesis of disco - crass, overbearing and demanding. Yet the production is all disco. The song fails because even while disco is persistently about sexual desire, I have never met anyone who would confess to finding "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" an alluring experience. It's the Chicken Dance. Statistically, 67 per cent of respondents to my informal survey confirmed uncomfortable flashbacks to their geography teacher strutting his stuff as the school end of year dance.
The most ludicrously bad of these crossovers is "The Ethel Merman Disco Album". This is a terrible form of musical schizophrenia, akin to eating a trifle made with Worcester sauce. The Ethel Merman Disco Album is a series of mannerisms, production methods, a sort of gravy that could be poured over any song.
Real disco, that is music made by artists who for whom it is more than fashion but a form, is great. It requires high musical skill to put it together. Real disco has irrepressible, gregarious spirit. It is unashamedly hedonistic. It lacks any sort of reticience, which accounts for the popularity of mind boggling casual cocaine use to power the experience along. Studio 54 is the only nightclub in the world that packed up and forgot to take their cocaine out of the stashes in the walls. Then they got arrested for it. That's a whole higher level of "don't care" that most of us will never achieve.
Yet as the United States immolated what was the most popular genre of music since rock n roll the rest of the world didn't fling the Bee Gees on the fire. The world's best selling soundtrack remains "Saturday Night Fever" with 40 million copies. Most of those occurred after the bonfire of 1979. The world loves disco, and even if it was cold shouldered by its motherland. The quality of the music helped too, with disco cream such as T Connection's "Do What You Wanna Do", Michael Zager Band, "Let's All Chant", Machine's "There But for the Grace of God" and Hamilton Bohannon's "Let's Start to Dance". Disco is impeccably good, and the good stuff has barely risen to the top because there's so much of it. It's musical pedigree is long, starting in the early 1970s. It is the invention of Hispanics and African Americans. Disco steals from absolutely everywhere, from soul to jazz and funk, latin, rock and classical. It is costly to make, which accounts for the quality. You had to be good to make the money back. Orchestras are not cheap.
Disco was burnt on the White Sox's baseball field in 1979, but like a phoenix from the ashes, it rose again. The addition of a drum machine and the use of sampling that was already happening on rap records allowed disco to mutate into house in the clubs of Chicago.
This transformation has gone unrecognised in disco's country of birth even though America has, for the last fifty years of popular music, set the standard for nearly every major trend (hard rock belongs to England and reggae is Jamaican). This disinheritance is peculiar. The records are still played now in house clubs across the world. The records are endlessly sampled by DJs of all kinds. If a dance record has an extraordinary hook you may assume that hook was ripped from disco.
The screaming ab dabs that are the Scissor Sisters is disco, as is Hercules and Love Affair, and, in repeat of crossover artists of yesterday, the Freemasons are making hi energy disco production available to Beyonce (currently pretending to be former disco diva Diana Ross). Their galloping beats, synthesised strings, breathless vocals, cat calling, trumpets echoing the lyrics as they rush past - disco. Whether America fore swore disco or not they are still listening to it.
These are fantastic records, made by master musicians. The United States needs an institute of disco. Once it was the Paradise Garage. I dare you to do it again, fellas.
You can visit the Peanut Duck for more disco biscuits to go with your coffee. I'll be trying to pick what I think is the best for the rest of the week. Ethel will not be putting in an appearance.
Both had their records burnt by outraged rednecks.
Burning records that you've bought is beyond stupid. Still, you can't ever underestimate the public appetite for burning creative endeavours. This infamous act, organised by a hairy KBBL Zeppelin freak DJ Steve Dahl on the baseball field of the White Sox remains suspicious because of the suggestion that it was prompted by racism and homophobia.
John Lennon got the Beatles burnt for saying they were bigger than God - whereas disco merely sucked, whatever that means. So did disco suck?
Some disco is banal. Some of it is like having your teeth drilled. Disco's mechanisms of blissful ecstasy are easily copied, soaring strings, tight rhythm guitar, pounding bass, the snap of a snare - these production techniques are available to the meanest hack.
Not all crossover disco is bad, but it is what we hear most. Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)" is triumphant Eurodisco. Madonna thought enough of to sample it 30 years later in "Hung Up" (a form of gay cat mint if my experience in the nightclubs of Kings Cross are anything to go by). Yet there were many more hacks, destroying the cool attitude of disco. Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" is the antithesis of disco - crass, overbearing and demanding. Yet the production is all disco. The song fails because even while disco is persistently about sexual desire, I have never met anyone who would confess to finding "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" an alluring experience. It's the Chicken Dance. Statistically, 67 per cent of respondents to my informal survey confirmed uncomfortable flashbacks to their geography teacher strutting his stuff as the school end of year dance.
The most ludicrously bad of these crossovers is "The Ethel Merman Disco Album". This is a terrible form of musical schizophrenia, akin to eating a trifle made with Worcester sauce. The Ethel Merman Disco Album is a series of mannerisms, production methods, a sort of gravy that could be poured over any song.
Real disco, that is music made by artists who for whom it is more than fashion but a form, is great. It requires high musical skill to put it together. Real disco has irrepressible, gregarious spirit. It is unashamedly hedonistic. It lacks any sort of reticience, which accounts for the popularity of mind boggling casual cocaine use to power the experience along. Studio 54 is the only nightclub in the world that packed up and forgot to take their cocaine out of the stashes in the walls. Then they got arrested for it. That's a whole higher level of "don't care" that most of us will never achieve.
Yet as the United States immolated what was the most popular genre of music since rock n roll the rest of the world didn't fling the Bee Gees on the fire. The world's best selling soundtrack remains "Saturday Night Fever" with 40 million copies. Most of those occurred after the bonfire of 1979. The world loves disco, and even if it was cold shouldered by its motherland. The quality of the music helped too, with disco cream such as T Connection's "Do What You Wanna Do", Michael Zager Band, "Let's All Chant", Machine's "There But for the Grace of God" and Hamilton Bohannon's "Let's Start to Dance". Disco is impeccably good, and the good stuff has barely risen to the top because there's so much of it. It's musical pedigree is long, starting in the early 1970s. It is the invention of Hispanics and African Americans. Disco steals from absolutely everywhere, from soul to jazz and funk, latin, rock and classical. It is costly to make, which accounts for the quality. You had to be good to make the money back. Orchestras are not cheap.
Disco was burnt on the White Sox's baseball field in 1979, but like a phoenix from the ashes, it rose again. The addition of a drum machine and the use of sampling that was already happening on rap records allowed disco to mutate into house in the clubs of Chicago.
This transformation has gone unrecognised in disco's country of birth even though America has, for the last fifty years of popular music, set the standard for nearly every major trend (hard rock belongs to England and reggae is Jamaican). This disinheritance is peculiar. The records are still played now in house clubs across the world. The records are endlessly sampled by DJs of all kinds. If a dance record has an extraordinary hook you may assume that hook was ripped from disco.
The screaming ab dabs that are the Scissor Sisters is disco, as is Hercules and Love Affair, and, in repeat of crossover artists of yesterday, the Freemasons are making hi energy disco production available to Beyonce (currently pretending to be former disco diva Diana Ross). Their galloping beats, synthesised strings, breathless vocals, cat calling, trumpets echoing the lyrics as they rush past - disco. Whether America fore swore disco or not they are still listening to it.
These are fantastic records, made by master musicians. The United States needs an institute of disco. Once it was the Paradise Garage. I dare you to do it again, fellas.
You can visit the Peanut Duck for more disco biscuits to go with your coffee. I'll be trying to pick what I think is the best for the rest of the week. Ethel will not be putting in an appearance.
Monday, July 13, 2009
KBO
So what do you do when everything seems pointless?
Get out, get ratarsed, get some work, get back on the horse. KBO.
I have a TERRIBLE hangover this morning. This bastard is right behind the eyes.
But even if I'm a phsyical wreck, I'm feeling much better. Gram Parsons is singing in the lounge and the block is broken. Gram can do the self pitying artist shit today.
Get out, get ratarsed, get some work, get back on the horse. KBO.
I have a TERRIBLE hangover this morning. This bastard is right behind the eyes.
But even if I'm a phsyical wreck, I'm feeling much better. Gram Parsons is singing in the lounge and the block is broken. Gram can do the self pitying artist shit today.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Pointless
Sometimes, doing this work feels pointless. You're bashing away, making crumbs, sending off work into the abyss and it never comes back.
When you get a job, its a fixed fee, unlimited number of hours gig, with a client that makes you go back and back again.
I'm frankly terribly miserable about my prospects. Eating compliments, great. Getting published for free? Easy. Getting paid, hard. Getting paid well, near impossible.
I'd like to say that I have a rock solid belief in my skills, but frankly I don't. I can draw. But I think I don't have the will to do this anymore, because the highs are flat and the rewards so scant.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
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