100 Days of Disco

Slave - “Just A Touch Of Love” (1979) Ok. So I ate...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:21:00 -0600

Slave - “Just A Touch Of Love” (1979)

Ok. So I ate myself into a coma yesterday. Duh. My diet starts tomorrow. T Giving eve…what can I say? Total Loveville? What was supposed to be a night of Designing Women and sweatpants, turned into well..Wetnaps, Kelis, lotion rubdowns, and roller chair rides and I wish THIS

XOXO

Rita

Loleatta Holloway - “We’re Getting Stronger”...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:58:00 -0600

Loleatta Holloway - “We’re Getting Stronger” (1976)

and we’re back….

I know Whitney be thankful for Loleatta Holloway tonight. Ethan’s been blowing up the Mike Simonetti (of Italians Do It Better) “Getting Stronger” edit of Whitney’s new single “Million Dollar Bill” for a while now - checking the download on Soundcloud led me to find Ms. Holloway’s extensively sampled original. Thanks for the history lesson, Mike! I’ll be back with some more special gifts from Loleatta this weekend. In the meantime…

Whitney Houston - Million Dollar Bill (Radio Edit) - 2009

xo_a

P.S. - I’m working on some mixtapes collecting songs from the first “100” Days…get ready. Maybe as a gift for Chronica? (duh, Christmas + Hannukah)

Ann-Margaret

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:47:00 -0500

Midnight Message - 1980 Everybody Needs Somebody, Sometimes 1981 xo, Garrett

EURO-FANTASY '84

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:32:00 -0500

Follow me, all ye super-freaks. Let us wade through the billowing mists and emerge on the...

ahhh, this is the kind of disco i just can’t get enough...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 22:06:01 -0500

ahhh, this is the kind of disco i just can’t get enough of. BELLE EPOQUE! glass candy covered this song, but i have to say, the original holds up just fine.

i mean, seriously, these gals have everything. gold lame + weird TV appearances, CHECK.

silver lame + dancing on bavarian rooftop, CHECK.

studded leather jacket + scarves, CHECK.

sparkly leggings with matching eye shadow + white pantsuit + playing in front of a giant roulette wheel (introduced by a cutie in a rainbow-striped shirt, no less!), CHECK.

and i can’t even begin to figure out what this is supposed to be—there’s no way this is the original group, but it sounds just like them—weird russian lip-synch television spectacular, anyone?

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE REAL BELLE EPOQUE IS NOT THESE CHOAD-BURGERS. (btw, if you watch that video, the bass player’s screamy vocal bits are kinda priceless—it’s like chunk from the goonies found emocore).

GLAXO BABIES “MAXIMUM SEXUAL JOY” (1980) JAMS TO...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:12:44 -0500

GLAXO BABIES “MAXIMUM SEXUAL JOY” (1980)

JAMS TO THE MAX!

The Glaxo Babies are a long-time favorite…so much so that I secretly maintain (it’s been some time) the official Glaxo Babies MySpace page on behalf of vocalist Rob Chapman.

The Glaxo Babies were a Bristol band from the late 70s, probably best known for their song “Who Killed Bruce Lee?” and “Shake the Foundation” (later covered by the Pop Group, with Ari Up from the Slits). Rob Chapman left the band after the release of Put Me on the Guest List, and joined Sam Dodson’s Transmitters. The remaining members of the Glaxo Babies went on to form Maximum Joy with vocalist Janine Rainforth and a former member of the Pop Group. The Glaxos reformed in 1985 to make some recordings, most of which can be found on The Porlock Factor, a Cherry Red release from a few years back. “Maximum Sexual Joy” is probably one of the wildest cuts you will hear—from their more experimental debut full-length, Nine Months to the Disco.

—Jamillah

*this is my last post on 100 DAYS OF DISCO for some time. I hope folks have enjoyed my posts as much as I’ve enjoyed participating in this projects with friends and loved ones far afield. I will be continuing to maintain my covers blog, SECOND WAVE, in the meantime and will drop in here periodically. xoxo

LaTour

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:04:00 -0500

1987 Radio personality, voice over actor, William “Bud” LaTour arrives in Chicago 1991...

Taste Town Mixtape

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:37:32 -0500

Taste Town Mixtape: Hi All, I resign from my post here at 100 Days (for now) with a little prezzy...

One of my all time favorite Ron Hardy songs.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:35:01 -0500

One of my all time favorite Ron Hardy songs.

Soul Messengers - “Our Lord and Savior” (1976) FULL...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:55:00 -0500

Soul Messengers - “Our Lord and Savior” (1976)

FULL CIRCLE AND FUTURE FORWARD!

As we embark on the last round of our game, I realize my song for the day is not as disco as it could be, but I’m using it to illustrate some important connections through time and space. It’s been a fun internet hang with y’all and we’re soon approaching full circle. But what’s next?

* * * *

I remember first listening to Fool’s Gold’s “Surprise Hotel” (listen in Latham’s post from 9/25) earlier in the (late) summer…as soon as I was able to pick out the lyrics as being sung in Hebrew, I was thrown back to the discovery of the Soul Messengers on the compilation Soul Messages from Dimona last year. While Fool’s Gold frontman Luke Top brings Hebrew lyrics into Afropop, the Soul Messengers conversely introduced African rhythms to Israel three decades earlier - both, of course, utilizing the distinctly American idiom of FUNK.

According to the Numero Group, the label responsible for re-releasing tracks from the Soul Messengers and countless other lost or little-known recordings from the 60s and 70s,

“The Soul Messengers began in Liberia when Black Hebrew emigrants from the U.S. Prince Keskiyahoo, Shavat, and Yehudah joined with local African musicians to form what was likely the continents first funk band. Reforming in the Promised Land with Elihu on bass, Shimor and Anavyah on congas, Shlomo on drums, Nathan on percussion, and Amnon, Ahman, Abshalom, and Sar Elyahkeem filling out the horn section, they became the most popular live act in Israel.”

Soul Messages from Dimona is a must-have album, both as a musical gem and cultural curiosity - the compilation centers around several bands of Black Hebrews (or African Hebrew Israelites) who made pilgrimage from their midwestern homes in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland to settle and make music in the Negev community of Dimona. While Soul Messages samples a wide range of moods from spaced-out to uptempo, I chose “Our Lord and Savior” for 100 Days not just because of its danceable beat and horn lines, but also for its curious rehashing of the hook from the semi-fictitious one-hit wonder band Steam’s anthem, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”

Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (1969)

Long after Steam came and went, “Na Na Hey Hey” permanently infiltrated the consciousness of the American sports-watching public, thanks to Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust, who popularized the use of the chant against opposing teams in 1977. I find it more than interesting that this string of connections leads us back to Chicago (where 100 Days was born) and Comiskey Park at the end of our “game,” for it was a strange day at Comiskey in 1979 when disgruntled radio DJ Steve Dahl staged an infamous event called “Disco Demolition.”

Frustrated with the conversion of WDAI 97.9 from rock to disco format, and the resulting loss of his job, Dahl spearheaded a promotional event in which any Sox fan bringing a disco record to the July 12th double-header could get in for 98 cents. Along with much sarcasm and buffoonery (see video below at 3:30), Dahl assembled the heap records at center field between games, and blew them up. This was enough to send the hot, bothered, beer-fueled crowd streaming on to the field, creating an all-out anti-disco riot beyond even Dahl’s wildest expectations.

In his 1998 article “The Last Days of Gay Disco,” Village Voice writer Peter Braunstien does some pretty deep cultural psychoanalysis of the situation, placing a radical queer lens on the relationships our culture has with rock and disco music. Braunstien reads the Comiskey Park fiasco as the violent culmination of a tension between the threatened heterosexual masculinity of rock music fans and the hedonistic, gender-bending, queer-utopic, mirror-ball world of disco:

“At the moment when…Studio 54 achieved zeitgeist status, rock rediscovered a rage it had been lacking since the ’60s, but this time the enemy was a culture with “plastic” and “mindless” (read effeminate) musical tastes. Examined in light of the ensuing political backlash, it’s clear that the slogan of this movement—“Disco Sucks!”—was the first cry of the angry white male….Comiskey turned into a giant coded gay bashing, a frightening harbinger of an enraged, homophobic America, given sanction in the mock-patriotic venue of a baseball stadium.

OH DANG. Regardless of one’s take on the issue (see documentary photographer Diane Alexander White’s almost offensively bland, nostalgic read here), there are many that say July 12th, 1979 marked the day that disco “died.” The turn of the decade swept the hot mess that was the 70s under the rug and ushered in a new style of political and cultural repression, and as such, disco (and, let’s not forget the other major counterculture of the late 70s, punk) went back underground to reinvent itself.

Well, as we finish up the 10th and “last” round of 100 Days of Disco, I’ll speak for all of us when I thank all of you for your readership, support and comments. There will be no disco demolition here, though. We’ll keep this thing going, and perhaps find some new directions along the way.

xx_aay

Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel (2009)

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:19:17 -0500

This band has been generating a lot of hype lately, and gauging from this amazing single, they...

A Very Special Day

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:42:39 -0500

Today is a very special day for many of us here at 100 Days of Disco. Just about everyone one of us...

Farewell post

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:20:00 -0500

Hi Guys, I spent the last hour and a half reading the exciting developments on this blog, where I...

In honor of the first WORK—Keri Hilson’s remix of...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:38:00 -0500

In honor of the first WORK—Keri Hilson’s remix of Soulja Boy’s “Turn My Swag On” (courtesy of Willie May)

Hopped up out the bed turn my swag on
Took a look in the mirror said what’s up?

~~REHGORDON~~

Jackie Moore - This Time Baby

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:01:00 -0500

One of my fav. disco beats of ALL TIME! Jackie Moore did a lot of soul/r&b but turned...

WHY DOES YOUR LOVE HURT SO MUCH? I am out of control into this...

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:26:00 -0500

WHY DOES YOUR LOVE HURT SO MUCH?

I am out of control into this track from 1982 by Carly Simon. It’s got this slow and sexy beat, great keys, with an intensely slinky bassline that drives me bonkers. Produced by Rogers & Edwards of CHIC fame.

This is unfortunately NOT the highly superior Extended 12” version of “Why?”, which you can listen to here…

I found this song after doing some research into Balaeric Beat music of the 1980s. It was a DJ style popular in Ibiza when people were rolling hard on E. Some of the classic Balaeric stuff is really cheesy - too cheesy, with lots of Spanish guitar and Pure Moods/ Windham Hill New Age-isms - I don’t get it. But then there is some really weirdly beautiful, sultry jams that I am really digging…

Balaeric isn’t a style of music, but rather a style of DJing… What I like about this style of DJing is that, from what I understand, DJs would find records that had these low BPMs, records you might otherwise never think as being something you would hear in a club with people dancing til the early morning. They created their own genre from many different genres. You’d here something like this Carly Simon jam, a guitar indie band from England (The Woodentops, Aztec Camera, It’s Immaterial, etc), some Electronic Body Music and Belgian New Beat, Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love”, maybe some kraut-y motorik tune, and then that cheesy New Age stuff too… I dunno, this is the kind of DJ I strive to be - mixing genres, playing more chill stuff, not being boxed in to any formulated style. There was a style and feeling to Balaeric, but it wasn’t very strict - it was very fluid… I like that…

I guess this got pretty popular a couple years ago, but I missed it. If anyone has any other Balaeric style jams they want to throw my way, please do!

ANOTHER BALAERIC CLASSIC!

-Chris

Adeyhawke- Adeyhawke Theme (2008) This is me...

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:50:25 -0500

Adeyhawke- Adeyhawke Theme (2008)

This is me blogging.

Love,

Joe

Maximum Joy - Building Bridges (1982) In light of the recent...

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:23:00 -0500

Maximum Joy - Building Bridges (1982)

In light of the recent blog entries on racial/cultural divides, and that today is the anniversary of the September 11th plane crashes, I thought I would cast a little hope into our little blog and the web world at large with this beautiful dub/disco jam that asks the ever-important question:

How do you feel about building a bridge?

Between you and me,

Between them and us?

This was originally released as a b-side to Maximum Joy’s 12” White and Green Place (1982) on Y Records. In 2005, the label Crippled Dick Hot Wax! issued a compilation that includes most of this too-short-lived band’s slender output. The compilation is titled Unlimited (1979 - 1983) and I highly recommend adding it to your music library.

And in other news: I am sending out vibes of peace and hope (also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) to all the humans and animals and plants in the world. As Yoko Ono says, “a dream we dream together is reality.” LEZ DO IT!!!!

For inspiration, get to know one of our modern day freedom-fightin’, bridge-buildin’ badasses: Malalai Joya.

Latham

Slapping Diplo with the Stanky Leg

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:43:00 -0500

So, the videos of Flying Lotus’ “Parisian Goldfish” and Major Lazer’s...

I Got A Feeling- Black Eyed Peas Okay. Say what you want. I can...

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:36:00 -0500

I Got A Feeling- Black Eyed Peas

Okay. Say what you want. I can hear it now, ” Rita, quit it. this shit blows!” I’ve totally let go of my apprehensive adoration for this no ifs and or buts party song celebrating going out with friends. Isnt that like what we live for? The lyrics are kinda ridic (Fill up my cup (Drink) Mazal Tov (L’chaim) Look at her dancing ( Move it Move it) Just take it off) But, daaang it sounds GOOD in the car. And, it totally was bangin at this dance orgy I DJed last weekend. Let yourself go.

xoxo-Rita