Cultural Cowardice

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
if the point is that there was no such thing as underground disco akin to diy punk, absolutely. everyone wanted to sell.

that kind of underground scene - pressing and distributing your own records, putting on your own shows, etc - was just barely coming into existence at disco's peak, anyway, beyond being antithetical to disco proper, tho it maybe gets hazier as one approaches the disco-influenced, disco not disco edges in the early 80s

anyway I was talking about the brief industry exploitation of a queer underground culture. I myself said it was complicated because "they were never separate" but the point that practitioners were willing participants in said exploitation is a good one. the real retreat would probably be the disco backlash. the sound stayed on the radio but the queerness was pushed back into the clubs. in disco's case it's particularly/tragically complicated b/c AIDS so completely devastated the specific flowering of urban gay culture that powered disco.

but the retreat is an industry retreat, as ultimately all of these are I think, which I also said to begin with - the mechanics of production and distribution.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
sadmanbarty said:
building up muscle memory so that it's comfortable
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ya I mean it takes a while to be able to get your arms and foot - or feet, if double-bass pedal - operating independently of each other. just gotta practice.

also specific motions - helps to be in good aerobic condition but you're still gonna get lactic acid buildup from playing fast until your body adjusts to that motion

can be alleviated to an extent by technique, maybe equipment setup but really just gotta do it a bunch

same thing with tremolo picking on a stringed instrument

the point about lack of tension is good, tension increases (I believe) lactic acid buildup
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
let's not get bogged down in squabbles over personal taste again. let's stick to my overarching
framework. lights out into the territory. let's inaugurate the next great age of exploration and discovery.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
arguing over which disco records are good is retrograde dick measuring. self as record collection.
the curated self. let's get back to building the compound and mixing the kool aid shall we.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
other people are allowed to start threads you know!
(actually i didnt start this one, i just sort of claimed it)
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Corpsey said:
From mind blowing to crowd pleasing

What "bravery" has to do with it is another question.

Arguably there was bravery in the Beatles experiments because they were previously a pop band with a clean image, and because nobody was necessarily going to be receptive to something so strange as Tomorrow Never Knows.
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Underrated post. Particularly in the case of club culture / dubplate culture - whether it's big beat or hardcore / jungle that you're talking about, the DJs and producers were basically giving the crowds what they wanted. Is it really about bravery vs cowardice or just an environment that rewards different stuff?
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Slothrop said:
Underrated post. Particularly in the case of club culture / dubplate culture - whether it's big beat or hardcore / jungle that you're talking about, the DJs and producers were basically giving the crowds what they wanted. Is it really about bravery vs cowardice or just an environment that rewards different stuff?
Click to expand...

im personifying a culture. i explained this already. think of Blake's giant Albion. this is how this stuff actually works.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
oh shit I've been disco called out by the man who coined post-rock. it's getting real.

well no worries my dude I got you

blissblogger said:
couldn't have picked a selection of tunes that more abundantly proved my point
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first, all those tunes are great. sure, just my view (tho going by their discogs, YT, DJ rotation, etc status, not just mine) and reasonable minds can differ.

now, would I put them specifically up against Chic et al? no. to quote myself again, "absolute strictest view of true obscurities"

so let's get down to it
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
remember the claim is "confidently assert that there is nothing as good as "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" or "We Are Family""

so the standard isn't didn't chart at all, no famous names involved, whatever - it's not MJ, Chic, Gaynor etc level commercial success/well-known

did make a real effort to exclude anything obvious - some of these probably have minor chart placements, were high on dance charts, big club tracks etc

kept it very temporally/stylistically strict - nothing too outre to mar the undoubtedly high disco standards of blissblogger

so no space disco, exploitation disco, hi-NRG, proto-Italo, little Eurodisco in general. as altho they are all good I'm sure they would be de facto scoffed at next to real authentic disco like Chic.

cut out Caribbean disco cos it's mostly too creolized to be "disco" proper, and African disco didn't really getting going til the 80s with disco boogie, so that was out too

no remixes or edits unless contemporary (and no modern disco, obviously, even if I wanted to, which no)

it's artificial because disco DJs were never only playing just "disco" but whatever

brace yourselves (and I hope you hear something you enjoy because disco is joy)
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
peaked 83 on R+B charts. would put up against any classic era disco track by anyone.

the anthem at a teenaged Ron Hardy's 1st residence at a gay disco in Old Town back when it was the still the red light district, that endless drum break

one of the most obscure Patrick Adams productions (incidentally could easily have done just Patrick Adams tunes, every bit the equal of Nile Rodgers)

early - maybe the earliest? - Tom Moulton mix

bit of a Darnell bros vibe but actually masterminded by a guy from Crown Heights Affair, great breakdown

legendary, the man like Celso Valli, rare (maybe only) case where the original is better than the Patrick Cowley remix
 
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