The disco beat

I wouldn't call myself much of a fan of disco at all but I do find myself using this beat quite often. I usually throw it in for 2 or 4 measures during a transistion from one part of a song to another. It does add a little spice and move things nicely...very upbeat.
As I said, not a disco fan, but I use this beat proudly. It works in so many places.
I got your back Larry...
 
The thing about disco was that it was gay music. In HS, anyone who looked like John Travolta in SNF before the movie came out would have been deemed gay. But after the movie, that look got you girls.

Oh no, it didn't get all of us. To me, the obsessive focus on appearance smacked of vacuousness. It's hard to get excited about men who give me funny looks whenever the conversation strays from the bleeding obvious.

But I take your point that disco was more yin to rock's yang at the time. At least it was a more powerful feminine-leaning form of musical expression because, prior to that, most yin Top of the Pops music going around back then came in the form of mawkish ballads. Maybe not coincidental that it came to prominence not long after the wave started by The Female Eunuch? I don't really know ... just speculating ... there were a number of strong women in popular music (if a small percentage of a male-dominated scene) - Shirley Bassey, Aretha, Janis - although they were not usually Top Ten artists like, say, Gloria Gaynor.

In a way disco did to black soul and funk what bands like Led Zep and The Stones did to the blues; black music was simplified, smoothed and cleaned up for popular mass consumption. Often this was not done cynically, just that some white musicians heard all that fabulous black mojo and wanted to be part of it.

Fast forward to Eminem, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and RATM ...
 
The thing about disco was that it was gay music. In HS, anyone who looked like John Travolta in SNF before the movie came out would have been deemed gay. But after the movie, that look got you girls.
\]

Somebody forgot to tell the girls in my HS that! :) I still didn't get any action...

That came later with the don johnson white coat! no joke...
 
Ahhh, the day the music died.....(remember this nonsense....)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbeFSYP2qsg

Cmon guys.....those bass lines make ya want ta groove..... I'll I know, is that when something like this comes over the speakers, EVERYONE hits the floor......you just need a little taste of soul brutha's and sista'zzzz......a wonderful era....I bought my ticket to the, "Soul Train", and am still on-board!!!!!!
Undeniably "grooooovy"......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glrl4LcvU5g

Rod Temperton all the way baby....."dig that polyester look"
http://images.google.com/imgres?img...on&gbv=2&hl=en&sa=G&ei=V013S_SoKKTIswP5lcnLCA
 
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Oh no, it didn't get all of us. To me, the obsessive focus on appearance smacked of vacuousness. It's hard to get excited about men who give me funny looks whenever the conversation strays from the bleeding obvious.

But I take your point that disco was more yin to rock's yang at the time. At least it was a more powerful feminine-leaning form of musical expression because, prior to that, most yin Top of the Pops music going around back then came in the form of mawkish ballads. Maybe not coincidental that it came to prominence not long after the wave started by The Female Eunuch? I don't really know ... just speculating ... there were a number of strong women in popular music (if a small percentage of a male-dominated scene) - Shirley Bassey, Aretha, Janis - although they were not usually Top Ten artists like, say, Gloria Gaynor.

In a way disco did to black soul and funk what bands like Led Zep and The Stones did to the blues; black music was simplified, smoothed and cleaned up for popular mass consumption. Often this was not done cynically, just that some white musicians heard all that fabulous black mojo and wanted to be part of it.

Fast forward to Eminem, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and RATM ...

Then came Heart and Pat Benatar. Also The Runaways who are going to be the subject of a film being released next month. The Wilson sisters talk about this a lot in interviews. When they were coming of age, you were either a disco Queen like Gloria Gaynor or Donna Summer, or a singer songwriter like Carly Simon or Joni. never mind the idea that a woman could even play the drums or guitar. Moe Tucker was so ahead of her time. Disco certainly did have a lot to do with empowerment, black, gay and feminine, no doubt about that. It was also one part Phil Spector.

You're probably right about the connection between the British blues and disco. It's an interesting perspective. Disco was over marketed when everyone was doing it Miss you, I Was Made for Loving You, and Carmine's Do You Think I'm Sexy. He made more money off of that then Vanilla Fudge and Cactus for sure. :) So white guys who were into black music capitalized; but Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes were from Stax as well. It did allow people to make a lot of money.
 
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Then came Heart and Pat Benatar. Also The Runaways who are going to be the subject of a film being released next month. The Wilson sisters talk about this a lot in interviews. When they were coming of age, you were either a disco Queen like Gloria Gaynor or Donna Summer, or a singer songwriter like Carly Simon or Joni. never mind the idea that a woman could even play the drums or guitar. Moe Tucker was so ahead of her time. It certainly did have a lot to do with empowerment, black, gay and feminine, no doubt about that. It was also one part Phil Spector.

You're probably right about the connection between the British blues and disco. It's an interesting perspective. Disco was over marketed when everyone was doing it Miss you, I Was Made for Loving You, and Carmine's Do You Think I'm Sexy. He made more money off of that then Vanilla Fudge and Cactus for sure. :) So white guys who were into black music capitalized; but Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes were from Stax as well. It did allow people to make a lot of money.

Suzi Quatro was maybe the first? A sassy chick leading a male band ... I thought she was very cool in her heyday. There was also much androgyny chic in the rock scene at the time, as though the guys were instinctively trying to fill the female void (pardon choice of words but it's too funny to rephrase :)

The beauty of Moe is that she, and the band, were so unselfconscious about it. Her gender was a non-issue. Perhaps if she was a normal drummer it would have been different, but she wasn't competing with anyone, just putting it out there on her own terms. She had no chops to speak of but these days she is one of my biggest inspirations although at the time I was entirely in the thrall of hot male drummers (take "hot" both ways). More fool me. What other drummer would have made their drumming sound like a racing heartbeat in Heroin the way she did? I love that kind of intuition.

Pardon the digression ... thing is, disco, while being opening the door for women, was deeply conventional in a gender normative sense. Until Sheila E you didn't get female disco/funk drummers - none that I can think of, anyway. Disco chicks either sang or danced, safely tucked away in their musical kitchens and bedrooms. The genre is deeply conventional in a number of ways and the only subversion I could/ see was a vacuous hedonism aspect - party, dance, have a bonk - and at the time that stuff was pretty well a given in the pop.rock scene anyway. Yes, we all like to party on, why carry on about it? :)

I think that at the time the industry aspect was becoming more entrenched and musical experimentation was seen as too hit-or-miss, whereas disco was reliable and safe - guaranteed to attract partygoers and get them drinking. It was a safer bet than the rock scene with its wilder, more untidy fan base with shallower pockets and egotistical prima donna wannabe performers. Disco guaranteed that people would be dancing - and therefore drinking - whereas with rock bands you never knew when they might embark on self indulgent soloing or some "experimental" notions that would clear the floor, plus there were more women keen on discos and they attracted patrons.

The scene is still alive and well in the clubs today. I was always the drummer who made people dance, so I hardly ever danced, so I didn't relate to that scene back then and I still don't. If the music is too loud for conversation I at least want a good band to watch or it's just a bore for me. However, I greatly enjoy some of the old disco recordings.
 
It's just you and me now.

Believe it of not, Suzi Quatro was not big in the US, and had only one hit although she played Arthur Fonzarelli's girlfriend on Happy Days. that was her American claim to fame. Linda Ronstadt was big in the US and had a string of hits throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Totally agree about the gender 'liberties' of disco. Not only was the role of woman musically limited. But there was often a sexualizing that went along with the role as in I Feel Love. The difference was that disco queens and took on an iconic role not often offered to woman in music, and rarely if ever in rock. The role of women in metal is well documented as is the role that women had in hippy communal contexts including music, where there role was subjugated to house cleaning, grocery shopping and other 'duties' while the men laid around got stoned and made music. The men were the 'artists' after all.

Suzi is probably one the earliest to bring together punk and hard rock, I was thinking it was the Runaways until you mentioned Suzi., and then also Debra Harry.Of course It is interesting then that thrash is seen as blending of metal and punk, yet it really brings together more the simplification of punk now masculinized through speed and volume. I think you could argue that it was the woman who really understood the punk ethos because they were truly oppressed in music, where as The Ramones really had nothing to rebel against. They were from a middle class part of Long Island. Patti Smith was doing punk before The Ramones, as well. Yet, you see who gets credit for all that.
 
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It's just you and me now.

It's not the first time we've cleared the floor, Ken. It's as though everyone's boogeying along to funky Michael Jackson covers and suddenly the band breaks into The Nutcracker Suite :)

Believe it of not, Suzi Quatro was not big in the US, and had only one hit although she played Arthur Fonzarelli's girlfriend on Happy Days. that was her American claim to fame. Linda Ronstadt was big in the US and had a string of hits throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s.

Totally agree about the gender 'liberties' of disco. Not only was the role of woman musically limited. But there was often a sexualizing that went along with the role as in I Feel Love. The difference was that disco queens were often powerful divas, certainly in the gay baths where many got there start, and took on an iconic role not often offered to woman in music, and rarely if ever in rock.

Surprised that Suzi wasn't big in the US. She was very popular here. I was crazy about Can the Can when it came out. I couldn't believe that a female frontperson could be so cool!

Yes, Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor supplanted Liza Minnelli and Dusty as gay icons. It's still a pretty limiting role because they are still required to be sexy but better than nothing.

The role of women in metal is well documented as is the role that women had in hippy communal contexts including music, where there role was subjugated to house cleaning, grocery shopping and other 'duties' while the men laid around got stoned and made music. The men were the 'artists' after all.

Heh, how true :) Instrumentally, the music scene is very male-oriented (by "music", I exclude the most vacuous plastic pop). I've found it hard to find suitable women to play music with because they tend to be either too trained and out there playing sessions or they can barely play. I have met very few intermediate level female musicians, so my bands tend to be either mostly guys or they'll have a female vocalist.

Indie would be the most feminine-friendly of the rock genres for instrumentalists. I guess it's more organically transgressive than other styles. Despite the overt rebelliousness of metal, it's very conventional. A bit like "Let's all rebel by wearing black clothes and getting tattoos and we can all be rebellious in the same way"; the norms of some subcultures are probably more strictly normative than the mainstream. Guess that's to do with the teenage norming phase. You don't find a lot of mixed gender metal bands - they segregate like bathrooms - lots of boy metal bands and a few all-girl metal bands.

Suzi is probably one the earliest to bring together punk and hard rock, I was thinking it was the Runaways until you mentioned Suzi., and then also Debra Harry.Of course It is interesting then that thrash is seen as blending of metal and punk, yet it really brings together more the simplification of punk now masculinized through speed and volume. I think you could argue that it was the woman who really understood the punk ethos because they were truly oppressed in music, where as The Ramones really had nothing to rebel against. They were from a middle class part of Long Island. Patti Smith was doing punk before The Ramones, as well. Yet, you see who gets credit for all that.

I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, even punk had that kind of conventionalism. That big testosterone power garage band thing - MC5, The Ramones and The Stooges in the US, the Pistols and The Damned in the UK, and The Saints and Radio Birdman in Oz.

I think the reason why Patti wasn't seen as punky as The Ramones was that she was seen as following the tradition of intelligent female folk singer songwriters like Joni, Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Punk was more associated with scruffy boys you wouldn't take home to mother making an anti-musical racket. Yet it's not such a huge step from folk music to punk - the protest aspect and the simple, unpretentious rootsiness of the music. It's all light years from disco, though :)
 
I supported Suzi at the Lido at the Isle of Man TT races in 1979. Nice girl, lots of booze, big husband!

Sounds like fun, KIS! She did seem to like bikie-ish kind of guys. Weird how little women often find themselves huge guys. I always found it a bit creepy lol

This performance is a classic for lack of coordination between clappers and band.

In the beginning there was T-Rex and Status Quo who beget Suzi Quatro, Slade and Gary Glitter, who beget Adam Ant. Well, someone beget someone, not sure what order it went. Kind of makes disco seem pretty classy, doesn't it? :)
 
I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, even punk had that kind of conventionalism. That big testosterone power garage band thing - MC5, The Ramones and The Stooges in the US, the Pistols and The Damned in the UK, and The Saints and Radio Birdman in Oz.

I think the reason why Patti wasn't seen as punky as The Ramones was that she was seen as following the tradition of intelligent female folk singer songwriters like Joni, Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Punk was more associated with scruffy boys you wouldn't take home to mother making an anti-musical racket. Yet it's not such a huge step from folk music to punk - the protest aspect and the simple, unpretentious rootsiness of the music. It's all light years from disco, though :)

Yeah, Patti Smith was a bit artsy, and had some connection to poetic writing. In the beginning, she was doing garage rock with symbolist lyrics, one part The Standells, one part Rimbaud. Cale produced her too, or at least Horses, didn't he? He had pseudo-artsy tendencies that can be heard there and on the early Stooges albums.

As good as The Stooges and MC-5 were at creating the punk mold, their music was still blues-infused and at times even soulful. But it you look at Suzi or later and esp Joan Jett, you really see a punk attitude infused with hard rock energy. Some of Jett's breakthrough hits like I Love Rock n Roll and Bad Reputation portray a confident woman, in touch and in control of her sexuality, even empowered by it. Or The Runaways, I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are. Smith was not selling her sex appeal. lol But Jett was really able to get down to the brass tacks of what the genre was saying. It was about self-empowerment.

BTW off topic but totally true about Moe and not just on Heroin but Venus in Furs and Waiting on the Man etc, She was doing word painted drumming, very innovative even by today's standards. A lot of that was Cale with his classical background.
 
Yeah, Patti Smith was a bit artsy, and had some connection to poetic writing. In the beginning, she was doing garage rock with symbolist lyrics, one part The Standells, one part Rimbaud. Cale produced her too, or at least Horses, didn't he? He had pseudo-artsy tendencies that can be heard there and on the early Stooges albums.

She does seem to be from a different lineage - more of a Velvets approach; no surprise that John Cale would be interested. BTW, have you seen his YouTube solo performance of Heartbreak Hotel? Goosebumps stuff.

I don't know a lot of about Patti (or punk generally) and should catch up on her. I spent too much time in my youth getting psychedelic to fancypants proggers and fusionists :)

As good as The Stooges and MC-5 were at creating the punk mold, their music was still blues-infused and at times even soulful. But it you look at Suzi or later and esp Joan Jett, you really see a punk attitude infused with hard rock energy. Some of Jett's breakthrough hits like I Love Rock n Roll and Bad Reputation portray a confident woman, in touch and in control of her sexuality, even empowered by it. Or The Runaways, I Wanna Be Where the Boys Are. Smith was not selling her sex appeal. lol But Jett was really able to get down to the brass tacks of what the genre was saying. It was about self-empowerment.

Yes, Suzi and Joan were totally brash. I guess that's their rebellion against sugar and spice. You hit the nail on the head - Patti was just playing music and in that sense she had more in common with Moe than Suzi or Joan - and was a universe away from Donna Summer....


BTW off topic but totally true about Moe and not just on Heroin but Venus in Furs and Waiting on the Man etc, She was doing word painted drumming, very innovative even by today's standards. A lot of that was Cale with his classical background.

I like that term "word painted drumming". Venus in Furs is amazing. John C and Moe had this real musical symbiosis - he filled the spaces with the drone and she punctuated it.

I can't find a single thread in the Drummers section about Moe. She was so radical that her influence is almost nil. You'd need a lot of guts to front up to an audition with an upturned bass drum played with a mallet! I see her as a drumming version of Dylan - lots of good ideas to borrow and execute with a little more panache :)

Maybe the closest thing to her in spirit was the program music played by some of Zappa's drummers ... "the music was thud-like" *rumble rumble* :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNoQcJAB4Qc (can't find the Bongo Fury original).
 
I don't know a lot of about Patti (or punk generally) and should catch up on her. I spent too much time in my youth getting psychedelic to fancy pants proggers and fusionists :)



I like that term "word painted drumming". Venus in Furs is amazing. John C and Moe had this real musical symbiosis - he filled the spaces with the drone and she punctuated it.

Zappa was partially responsible for the squelching of the first Velvets album. He hated the Velvets. Since they were both "psychedelic bands" on Verve, he insisted that his debut be released and given a chance before the Velvets debut was released. He didn't get it. But in retrospect, it's kind of surprising he didn't appreciate the satire or maybe he did and realized it was a better album than his debut.

I was not a punk enthusiast either, until Talking Heads, who I loved. Joe Jackson was great as well. Then of course came the next Crimson. Once ELP and UK broke up, Bozzio formed Missing Persons John Glascock died, it was all over. lol I loved Joe's Garage. I never disliked many of the punk musicians who showed some sort of mental activity. Talking Heads really took the whole disco thing to a new level with Remain in Light, which like The Velvets debut inspired a lot of musicians to form bands.
 
Zappa was partially responsible for the squelching of the first Velvets album. He hated the Velvets. Since they were both "psychedelic bands" on Verve, he insisted that his debut be released and given a chance before the Velvets debut was released. He didn't get it. But in retrospect, it's kind of surprising he didn't appreciate the satire or maybe he did and realized it was a better album than his debut.

Yes, they are at opposite ends of the musical coin in one way - dexterity versus minimalism. But they were pretty similar in spirit. He was probably worried that the Velvets would be seen as breaking taboos that he wanted the credit for breaking. Just goes to show that musical ability and character are unrelated.

I was not a punk enthusiast either, until Talking Heads, who I loved. Joe Jackson was great as well. Then of course came the next Crimson. Once ELP and UK broke up, Bozzio formed Missing Persons John Glascock died, it was all over. lol I loved Joe's Garage. I never disliked many of the punk musicians who showed some sort of mental activity. Talking Heads really took the whole disco thing to a new level with Remain in Light, which like The Velvets debut inspired a lot of musicians to form bands.

I'm hearing you! Those artists - Crimson, Heads, Joe Jackson - were my staples. I love artists who, when they produce new albums, you have almost no idea of what the music will be like. It makes me feel like I'm opening a Christmas present. The only thing you can be sure of is it won't be stodgy underwear :)

Uncle Frank lost me around the time of Joe's Garage. I'm a fan of his inbetween periods - from Uncle Meat to Sheik Yerbouti.

Thing is, you see these arguments about technique yadda yadda but I split drummers into two camps - those who inspire kids to go to music school and master the instrument and those whose playing is approachable enough to inspire kids to go out and form bands. Arguing about who is better is not only stating the bleeding obvious (ie. can Terry Bozzio play more stuff than Ringo? Ummm, give me a minute .... that' a tough one ...) but it misses the point that art has classical, modernist and post-modernist elements and there are people who gain great pleasure from it all, which renders it all valid. The only question to ask is, "Is the pleasure gained from the art healthy or unhealthy?" - is it nourishing or fatty and sugary?

Is the Velvet's fresh, raw carrot worse than Return for Forever's Lukewarm Carrots Salad with Orange Flower Vinaigrette? Who cares? lol. Sometimes I just like to crunch on a raw carrot. It's easy, healthy and refreshing and the sweet ones are very tasty (I just finished one now :) Having said that, I expect something more when I go to a restaurant.

Some people don't relate to minimalism at all and consider it to be nothing more than an excuse for laziness because they cannot imagine any valid musical aim other than achieving mastery in a hurry. But it's as simple as the fact that some people simply get off most on the design and lyrical aspects of art.

Getting back to the topic *grin*, in a way disco Suzi Quatro'd soul and funk - simplified it, muscled it up, flattened it out.

A lot of listeners enjoy musical pavement because you don't have to devote the time to listen to a song as a story - you can tune in and out, and at any time you tune in it's really happening. There's very little "downtime" (ie. dynamic sections that build tension). That seems to me to be at the core of the friction between musicians and their audiences.
 
Here's a beat...that became almost villified after the 70's and hasn't been heard much since....Lately I have been using just the hi hat pattern from the disco beat to great effectiveness (behind soloists usually). It really moves certain things along very nicely. It's a very danceable pattern. I think it's time this banished beat be accepted back into the fray.

I'm assuming that everyone knows the hi hat pattern from the disco beat, but in case you don't, in 4/4 time, the hi hat (with the cymbals open or partially open) is struck with the stick on ALL the eighth note "ands" and closed with the foot on ALL the quarter note downbeats.

Larry, it's definitely one of my favorite things to throw into a relatively funky song every now and then ... but was it really a "banished" pattern? Maybe it's just youthful ignorance, but it would be a shame if I'd unknowingly been playing with a stigma all these years!

A few examples of somewhat recent and effective use of the "disco hi-hat" (or a close derivative), all from very mainstream sources, off the top of my head:
-Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson (sorry for the stupidity of the video, though I think it's an excellent cover)
-"Long Day" and "Disease" by Matchbox 20.
-"Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand
 
Its still used a pretty good bit. My generation just doesn't have a whole genre devoted to it.
Unless you caount techno/electronica, but that has been around for awhile. If you think about it Disco just evolved into house some time in the 80's. More Examples, (I don't fell like posting links if you really care you can look it up.)
Korn "Got the Life"
Korn "Here to Stay"
Chromeo "Fancy Footwork"
Most Daft Punk Songs
 
I may be a little bit older than a lot of you guys, but I must say that I'm none too enamored to hear the slicing, non-stop hi-hat/bass drum dribble grinding a resurgence into techo pop, ala the Lady Gaga scene.

Growing up and playing in the seventies, weaned on the Drum Gods of the era, I was disgusted when disco first reared it's ugly head. The fever first hit the chicks and then of course the guys just followed suit. So, if you can, try to imagine doing four sets a night of that crap. I played for years honing my skills...for that!

I'm sure it's a novelty to you yungins, but to me; I was glad to see it go and I hope it NEVER comes back.

Wow! Am I bitter? Sorry I just had to say that...
 
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