[Amerikkka] Uh-huh, uh-huh

[Ron Edwards]

Soul Train, 1975

Don't give me that look. Watch it all the way through, and think ... look, everyone, white and black people are having fun together.

I don't want to hear about schlock, commercial, banal, apolitical ... Whatever. Late 70s arena rock had no artistic or moral platform to stand on, as far as that's concerned. Nor anything about de-blackifying pop music, for which late 70s rock bears the key blame. What's that you said about Soul Train? Funny, Elton John and David Bowie didn't seem to agree. If disco sucked, then only as much as any pop music ever sucked, and a lot less than a hell of a lot of 80s music. (Plus, I guess it's OK to do disco and call it hip-hop as long as no terrible white-and-black goings-on were going on ...)

And something about audiences rejecting it? Bullshit. Let me tell you how it was.

1. Disco was cheap. Cheap to produce, cheap to provide, and cheap to enjoy.
2. Disco was sex. Available, fun, varied, and relationships were just a whole 'nother issue.
3. Disco was a leveler. Black people danced with white people, gay people danced with straight people.
4. Disco permitted all abilities. You didn't have to be good at it, but if you were, then credit was due there too.

Everyone, everyone had Heatwave's Too Hot to Handle, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album, Donna Summer's three-peat gold albums, Chic's C'est Freak, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, and Barry White. Everyone.

Then some time in 1978-79, wham: it "sucked." It was for faggots. It was over. It was dead. And if you even hinted that maybe you kind of liked those couple of years sweating and body-rubbing and laughing with people, or that it was pretty amazing to exchange smiles with a black person for no good reason, or that maybe Saturday Night Fever was a pretty good movie if you actually watched it, then shut up. That was eighth grade for me. I especially remember my friend Mickey, whose dad owned the local radio station, turning on a dime and transforming from a hard-core blow-dry glitterball dance jock into a surly anti-faggot arena KISS-rocker in the space of a weekend. And never mind that I totally knew what the words "Queen" and "AC/DC" meant ... no one else seemed to, all of a sudden. In a heartbeat, disco was all-and-only gay, and rock was straight.

Something happened there. I am reading.

Interesting detail: despite the sudden and overwhelming signal among mainstream young men that disco was a gay scene, much disco dancing had been abandoned by gays, or shifted among many to gay-only venues, well before the nationwide "craze," because the scene had been invaded and overwhelmed by youngsters and straights. And to go with that: the primary topic and auditory cue for disco was the female orgasm, especially when prompted by the lovin' man who knew just what to do because she told him. Which is how gay, again?

I'm really thinking this has a lot to do with non-professional, plain ordinary black and white people dancing together, and with tons of straight meet-up hook-up sex.

[Joshua Bearden]

I like what you're saying. I want to know what you're reading.  Or are you remembering?  Is this original research or do you have citations and references?  I want to follow along, (I'm not trying to debunk or snark, honest).  I was not musically aware until 1981.  The transition you speak of was well established, for sure, but at the same time I recall a lot more ambiguity in the media iconography.  In school and among my friends: poor white, black and hispanic for one year (we were Canadian hippie immigrants living in Abilene, Texas); then affluent white evangelical (after we moved a distance of about 3 blocks and got adopted by 'the right' church. Among those friend regardless of race and class it was clear that Disco was pariah.  But on the TV both sitcom and drama, I have the impression that Disco was frequently referenced signifying masculine virility.  Maybe it was all ironic, but there wasn't a lot of irony on TV back then. Probably I just didn't understand what I was even seeing.  I was nine years old after all.

So all that is to say, I'm very intrigued whenever you write on these topics, but would love to have some suggestions and guidance to allow me to follow along.

Cheers

[Joshua Bearden]

aaaaaahhhh yes.

anecedote:  co-worker randomly walked into my office 5 minutes ago and said "josh, make some noise..." (I was being so quiet reading your post I guess she thought I was working too hard for a Friday)

So I clikced that link... and everyone got happy.

[Ron Edwards]

That's great!

A certain amount of the above post was personal upwelling, but it's being prompted by Alice Echols' book Hot Stuff. Echols has written several books re-examining accepted narratives, especially when the acceptance is identical and entrenched in both media and academics. Her writing is scholarly and fearless, which is really rare.

[Vernon R]

Yeah disco got painted as crappy music for too long.  There was some crap there for sure but there was some great stuff and the music leading up to it and the Funk stuff that was really close to Disco had some great music.  I've always loved Sly & the Family Stone.  I have to snicker at some of the over-serious lyric in some of those Bee-Gee's songs "When the feelings gone and you cant go on, Tragedy"  but I'll take that any day over Celine Dion doing the same thing. 

I dont know if they were the cause or just took the brunt of the labelling but the Village People sure are the poster boys for the Disco - gay connection you mentioned. 

[Ron Edwards]

I'm still only partway into Echols' book, but I'm betting there's a whole chapter on the Village People. An early chapter explains in some detail how ownership of discos and specific gay-only partying provided the infrastructure for the "craze," although technically discotechs had been around for a decade or more already. It seems to have had a lot to do with the sudden re-imaging of gay men from sniveling nerds (and/or brassy-female lookalikes) into strapping strutters.* But the mainstream "craze" appears to have been at least equally a het thing, and I'm hoping she's going to dwell on the ordinary person's disco life, gay or straight, not the high-end Studio 54 stuff and similar. Her introduction seemed aimed that way.

Anyway, I was thinking, sure enough the Village People caught a lot of finger-pointing at the time, but as I understand it, despite the panning of Can't Stop the Music (which I am suspicious about; it became an instant cult hit and remains so), various members did well in other groups and the group itself has been quite successful since the early 90s, generally lauded and respected. (I haven't troubled to investigate exactly how many and which members preferred which gender as partners, although I understand it's received some attention.)

Also, I am now in love with Chaka Khan. She was a young Panther in Chicago! Who knew?

Finally: paging Justice Platt, there is a book called Right to Rock all about black music that didn't fit the musicology retro-narrative. I just ordered it and I bet you should too.

* Allen Ginsberg, post-Stonewall: "They've lost that wounded look."

[jonathankorman]

This makes me think of Michael Ventura's long essay about the origins of jazz and rock 'n' roll "Hear That Long Snake Moan". The forces arrayed against White people and Black people dancing together are relentless.

edited to fix link - RE

[glandis]

Disco, hm? In case there's anything interesting/useful in it ... I remember when it was everywhere, and of course you listened to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, and I remember when it was an enemy, one of the things that The Clash and The Ramones weren't. Then there was the Gulliver's disco fire (google tells me in 1974), a cautionary tale when we started going to clubs. Those are the biggest/strongest personal associations. Those and my friend Adam who stayed a disco fan all through high school and beyond.

Trying to look deeper, I guess I mostly think of disco through the lens of "music industry takes maybe-creative thing and turns it into soulless product," possibly with Donna Summer as poster child. Maybe an example of the music industry getting real good at doing it real quickly. If there was a substantial pre-commercial disco phase, I missed it. Maybe due to age (I'm just 50 - hey, that feels good to type, "just" 50). Or maybe location (last 20ish years near Ron's old stomping grounds, but first 20ish in the heart of suburban Connecticut).

Then again - this sounds bizarre even to me, but there was a thing I remember happening where community centers/churches would hold dance events, which we went to before we could get into the clubs. First Saturday of the month might be Square Dancing. Third Saturday (or whatever) - for a brief window, I think, Disco (maybe not CALLED that, but that music). I recall pretty diverse crowds for suburban Connecticut (well, that's a complex subject too - I actually knew, was befriended by, worked with and etc. more black people in lilly-white suburban CT than out in progressive CA). And yeah, some very un-churchly goings-on were the point of the whole exercise - sorry to say I was a bit too naive and self-conscious (and, honestly, flat-out young) to take much advantage.

So - maybe a tiny-brush of personal confirmation to disco getting a white suburban guy face-to-face with somewhat-clearly black-sourced culture. Though I probably brushed more (though still distantly) against the, um, Studio 54 aspect you mention, Ron.

[Ron Edwards]

This is turning into a real topic - maybe not something I need to dissect in detail, but which needs to be right in every particular. The end-stage is fascinating, especially since Echols has convinced me that the disco sound and a great deal of the technology went straight into the genres which professed maximal not-disco status. She also rightly points out that in the general, non-media culture, e.g. wedding receptions, straight-up disco is flatly the most popular and enjoyed music.

Some great bits so far:

1. The same person managed Donna Summer and KISS.

2. The U.S. Navy provided the ship and otherwise underwrote the Village People's "In the Navy" as a recruiting device, apparently oblivious to the song's content (or maybe not, if maybe someone in that office had a sense of humor).

3. A girl disco-group called Musique played perhaps the single most explicit song in pop history, "In the Bush."

4. The whole death-of-disco, disco-sucks thing was thoroughly planned by music producers and orchestrated through key DJs in California and Chicago.

More personal details from the late 70s:

- Explaining to my friend's asshole Teamster dad that the Village People were all about gay stuff, to his consternation. (Seriously, no one but me picked up on this at the time? What the hell!)
- Listening to Dennis Erectus, broadcasting from KOME nearby in San Jose, one of the key disco haters.
- Wondering why no one admitted that the Stones' "Miss You" is a disco song.

[Justice Platt]

This is gonna be scattered-I find myself real inarticulate this weekend.

Funkadelic-Cosmic Slop video

Hell of a change from the freak flag situationist white/black togetherness to KC, yeah?  And why they gotta make the horn section work the hardest?  I think what looks to have changed is that being Ron Bykowski seems to demand something, some kind of a break with whatever straight life you might have had, while being KC just means throwing a good party.  Ironic that that's still enough to scare the straights, though.

And while this doesn't invalidate your point about hip-hop, it's worth pointing out that Kool Herc threw his first back to school party in 1973.  Hip-hop was its own thing well before Rapper's Delight & Heart of Glass.  I expect you know this-mere pedantry on my part.  And, of course, it's not the first time I've had occasion to think that "old school hip-hop" is another excellent example of a standalone complex.  (Also "Hank Williams" for a different fandom.)

I found a nice cheap Amazon copy of the "Right to Rock"-Vernon Reid is a fascinating dude.  I would be very surprised if you didn't find back issues of the 'zine "Motorbooty" worth digging up, especially #5.