rendezvous_drummer
Pioneer Member
The disco beat is a staple in Indie rock music. My favorite beat to play.
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.
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.
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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. 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.
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 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.
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.
I supported Suzi at the Lido at the Isle of Man TT races in 1979. Nice girl, lots of booze, big husband!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!
I supported Suzi at the Lido at the Isle of Man TT races in 1979. Nice girl, lots of booze, big husband!
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.
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.
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.