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What did you listen to during disco's peak years ('74-'78)

I had a bumper sticker on my new 1977 F-250 that read " DISCO SUCKS ". I don't remember where I picked it up at. Looking back all these years later it's kind of funny that someone would actually make a bumper sticker that said that.
 
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d-ray657 said:
I guess my point is that music digs a little deeper into the subconscious than other parts of our history, and hearing music from a different era of our life will stir memories of that era.
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I agree completely. My memory is very much music associated or triggered. Even stuff I hated will take me back to that time. For instance the disco formula hi hat and bass riff does that everytime.

I'd like to ammend my earlier post and add lots and lots of Humble Pie and Jethro Tull to what I listened too back then.
 
The Preps at my college were VERY big into "Shag", or Beach Music, which in its way, was almost as stultifying & formulatic as Pisco was. Of course, to them, it was still 1966, Ford coulda made a mint going back into production w/the '65-'66 Mustangs... The "uniform" was khaki pants, oxford cloth shirt over a couple Izod shirts, Topsiders, no socks, & a Fair Isle sweater for the girls. (This was for when it was 75 outside....) They listened to Bill Deal & the Rhondells, Chairmen of the Board, The Tams, Fat Ammons Band, The Showmen...all the Virginia Beach faves.
 
I listened to anything BUT disco .... Really, anything from Bach to Zappa, and during that time there was early punk and rock that, as far as I knew, didn't have a label.

I grew up in New York City so I was fortunate to stumble upon shows by bands like the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, et al. as well as jazz by artists like Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers, Dizzy Gillepsie, etc. during that era. There were also a few radio stations (like WNEW and WPLJ and one on Long Island, whose call letters escape me now), that played plenty of good music.

We also used to hang out at an "Anti-Disco" called "Studio 10" (a nod and a finger to Studio 54) run by a bunch of yippies, and a place called the Mud Club. My mother would have cried even more if she had known all that I was up to ...
 
I was born in 77, so I lucked out I guess and lucked out even more that during my formative first 3 years of my life my father was and still is a die hard Beatles fan and really detested disco, so no disco playing in the house. So I am glad I wasn't subjected to The Hustle but instead more fascinating things like Yellow Submarines and Octopuses Gardens.

But yeah, looking back at that era as I am now 33 years old, and have broadened by tastes and as a collector, music historian, I find it fascinating that while this disco thing was going on there was much more going on elsewhere in music, so much better, like the New York scene, Zeppelin was still producing great music, and things like the Clash's first album as well as London Calling was released during this.

But yeah, the closest my generation had to the disco craze was the techno rave craze. Just people hopped up out of their minds dancing the night away to pulsating annoying music. :)
 
reneborg said:
I listened to anything BUT disco .... Really, anything from Bach to Zappa, and during that time there was early punk and rock that, as far as I knew, didn't have a label.

I grew up in New York City so I was fortunate to stumble upon shows by bands like the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, et al. as well as jazz by artists like Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers, Dizzy Gillepsie, etc. during that era. There were also a few radio stations (like WNEW and WPLJ and one on Long Island, whose call letters escape me now), that played plenty of good music.

We also used to hang out at an "Anti-Disco" called "Studio 10" (a nod and a finger to Studio 54) run by a bunch of yippies, and a place called the Mud Club. My mother would have cried even more if she had known all that I was up to ...
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Bringin' back some memories there! The Mud Club! Haven't thought about that place in years!

The Long Island station was probably WLIR. Great station, like WNEW but a little more low-key - smaller market and all that. Very engaging personalities throughout. WBAB was another similar LI station, but they were farther out and hard to get even in western Nassau, much less NYC. Also WPLR out of somewhere in CT was a cool station in the day.

It was probably right at the tail end of the disco daze - '77 or '78 or so, when I saw The Pretenders play at a large club out on the Island - Hammerheads it was called. It was in a converted supermarket. I ran up right by the stage and stayed there all night. Another nail in the coffin of tinnitus I suffer with today, but a great experience nonetheless.
 
Sandy G said:
The Preps at my college were VERY big into "Shag", or Beach Music, which in its way, was almost as stultifying & formulatic as Pisco was.
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Wow! You must have watched some awful dancers. Shagging done right is anything but formulaic.

As for what I listened to during this period, besides Skynard:

Blondie
Abba
Eagles
The Who
Boston - all two albums :D
Bonnie Tyler
 
Celtic Music, Richard Thompson, J.S. Bach, R. Vaughan Williams, Ry Cooder, W.A. Mozart and all the stuff I listened to in the 1960s and early 1970s.
 
time trip

Wow, thanks for the time trip...

Although we didn't really like DISCO, it was the thing. We built a DISCO show and worked schools. Nice way to show off my big stereo and check out chicks.

We would play all the "in" DISCO. I had a deal with the local head shop/record shop to buy albums cheap and the owner would turn me on to new stuff that was good (found some great tunes that way).
But, we were hard rockers through and through so we'd slip in some kick ass rock when we could. As long as they were "dance-able". You know, the trunk-down-the-stairs beat.

I did like Donna Summer quite a bit (I saw her do "Love To Love You Baby" on Midnight Special, changed MY life...:D, HEY KIDS, LOOK IT UP!)


What did we play on the tape in the car and on the phono at home?

AC/DC
Aerosmith
Queen
Molly Hatchet
Black Oak Arkansas
ELO
April Wine
Rush
REO Speedwagon
Deep Purple
Head East
Ted Nugent
Klaatu
Blue Oyster Cult
Alice Cooper
Lynard Skynard
Blondie
Joan Jet
Pat Benatar
Boston
Led Zepplin
Pink Floyd
Black Sabbath
Nazareth
Fog Hat
Journey
ZZ Top
Steppenwolf
Grand Funk Railroad

Those years were not real waste lands for music and there was a lot of good stuff done then. The Glam rock years (80s) got weird (maybe it was the drugs) but a lot of good stuff showed up then too.
 
[QUOTE
AC/DC
Aerosmith
Queen
Molly Hatchet
Black Oak Arkansas
ELO
April Wine
Rush
REO Speedwagon
Deep Purple
Head East
Ted Nugent
Klaatu
Blue Oyster Cult
Alice Cooper
Lynard Skynard
Blondie
Joan Jet
Pat Benatar
Boston
Led Zepplin
Pink Floyd
Black Sabbath
Nazareth
Fog Hat
Journey
ZZ Top
Steppenwolf
Grand Funk Railroad
[/QUOTE]

Nice list:thmbsp: Thats pretty much what I was listening to as well
 
All the typical rock fare.Not because I had anything against disco.I was just having too much fun discovering rock music.
 
What I listened to in Richmond was WXGI, a little country/bluegrass AM daytimer that had about the same power as yr closet light bulb...Lotsa bluegrass, which P!ssed the preps/shagsters off, & that was part of the point, too...Mbwahahahahahahaha...
 
I was born in '73 so I was listening to whatever my parents were and I can assure you it wasn't disco. Probably rock like The Beatles and blues.
 
My active DJ years were during the disco years, so that music formed an essential part of my music collection. As a young adult back then, that was the music of my time, but I also listened to R&B and rock.
 
I had disco and funk 45s. I still do. Great fun w/ the kids even today. For example,

Hot Chocolate's - "You Sexy Thing."

KC & the Sunshine Band's "Get Down Tonight."

Jimmy Castor Bunch - "Bertha Butt Boogie."

Chic - "Le Freak."

CW McCall - "Convoy." I know - NOT disco, but novelty country.

I watched "Dance Fever," The Dukes of Hazzard," "The Six Million Dollar Man," and "BJ and the Bear." Redneck, disco, or the classic rock lists above, I was on it, baby.
 
In '74 I was deep into the sound stylings of Bert & Ernie and Big Bird and the like. Who can forget such classics as Oscar's "I Love Trash" and Cookie Monster's "C is for Cookie". Very moving.


Disco? Missed it. Damn.

:pity:



:D
 
Arkay said:
So you admit to having developed a "real appreciation" for disco? It takes a brave man to do that, in today's world! :thmbsp:
:D


I'll raise one parting question: Will disco ever experience a revival of interest? Will it ever be considered (retro-)cool again? If so, NOW would be the right time to start amassing that collection of disco LPs, while (1) you can still find them easily enough, and (2) their prices haven't started to escalate. You could grab a bunch of them, set up a website to praise and talk about them, with hyping on Facebook, etc.... and perhaps help kick-start the revival. Of course, you could end up sitting on the world's largest pile of the world's least-wanted stuff, if no one else ever catches on to it and jumps on your bandwagon (pun intended :D)...
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it already did! a few (not exactly sure how many) years ago . . . Lindstrom and his ilk making what they call "NuDisco" or "Cosmic Disco". and a renewed interest in olde disco. at least five of my friends in SF went to friday's Linstrom show; at least two of them enjoyed it. I kind of wanted to go for fun, but his music sounds like the whitest, most funkless funk, cocaine, rich, lifestyle crap to me.

but yeah, i was told there were lots of hot girls. and two of the five are pretty hot girls.

so much disco is bad, but there some of the underground stuff was good. i don't think he was around in the heyday, but sometimes i can enjoy daniel baldelli. other times it sounds corny or dull or something - i don't remember, been a while.

I was born in 74. don't remember hearing disco. a lot of pink floyd, steely dan, country, classical on WCLV. i loved and was always trying to get adults to play juice newton's "playing with the queen of hearts", but i think that was 80 or 81.
as for stuff from that era that i listen to now: afro-beat and other african music, reggae, krautrock, punk. I think that I'd rather hear bad disco (once per bad song) than have to hear The Wall again. Not b/c The Wall is bad.


(sorry, I am trying to break my habit of typing in all lower case. Sometimes I slip up)
 
Jonesy09 said:
In '74 I was deep into the sound stylings of Bert & Ernie and Big Bird and the like. Who can forget such classics as Oscar's "I Love Trash" and Cookie Monster's "C is for Cookie". Very moving.


Disco? Missed it. Damn.

:pity:



:D
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Excellent! LOL.

Keep up the good work. :thmbsp:
 
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