Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for January 16, 2019

And not a day too soon, because disco sucked.

T’was the day the sun came out again.

Hail the Armed Forces of Rock N Roll!

(Alright, you had to live in Boston in the late 70s to get it)

…and the era of Steve Martin and Howie Mandel lived.

There were some good acts in the genre; Donna Summer and Heatwave immediately come to mind, although I’m sure you out there can think of others. Disco’s problem was that for every good act, there were at least two or three “schlock” acts that were merely trying to cash in quick. Add to that the pressure on artists by their labels to record a disco tune (for the money), and you can see why so many disdained the style.

Don’t worry, Binkley was taken to a re-education facility in Cleveland. 24/7 conditioning with Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Springsteen and Rush fixed him right up.

“WZAZ in Chicago, where disco lives forever!” (Airplane smashes the transmitter.)

Chicago DJ Steve Dahl was a leader in the anti disco movement. I remember “Disco Demolition Night” at Comisky Park, when a crate of disco records was blown up.

I’ll note that the best selling Rolling Stones album was Some Girls — their disco album.

Perhaps, but it wasn’t all disco tunes, and the Stones still sounded like the Stones.

Gloria Gaynor and Thelma Houston were also great singers of the era. While I wasn’t crazy about the synthetic drum machine beat in most disco, the reality is that the same sort of beat survived the disco era to characterize dance music in clubs for years afterwards. One reason there was such an ugly reaction to disco at the time (without a similar response to schlock hits in other ’70’s genre music) is that disco had a fan base that included groups usually ignored by rock music – gay people and minorities, and there was a large number of female performers. Essentially, it was a musical movement that wasn’t generated by and directed to young straight white males.

Thru the mid-late 70s, WNAP (The Wrath of the Buzzard) was THE Rock Station in Indianapolis (Nap Town). We also had WFBQ (Q95) playing Pop/Rock, but is was automated (3 songs and a commercial break). Then overnight WNAP went disco. Q95 responded by going live and brought in Bob & Tom. The result was Radio Legend. The total irreverence of the Bob & Tom Show drove the Indy establishment bat-crap crazy while providing the lone voice for Rock & Rollers in the Mid-State area.

The day… the Disco… died.

I remember everybody going out onto the dance floor in the clubs I hopped when “The Hustle” played. I might even still remember the steps. Of course, those were gay clubs.

Milo always was a wild and crazy guy….

Now it has been nearly 40 years since disco officially died.