Tag: Disco
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Artist a Day Challenge (24): Mark Bradford’s Homage to the Roxy

I have this mythologized view of New York that I have created entirely from the city’s nightclub scene between 1973 and 1987. The Loft, the Gallery, the Paradise Garage and the Roxy sit at the center of this utopia, with the music in these venues acting as the heartbeat of the city. Notice I didn’t mention Studio 54, because in my…
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In Memoriam: The Legacy of David Mancuso

In San Francisco in the 1990’s, the club scene fell into one of two camps: the heavily promoted, large scale parties at Club Townsend and the Sound Factory or the smaller word-of-mouth underground parties like Informal Nation, the Beer Cellar and Sophies, (Raves rested somewhere between the two). My world revolved around the underground. You wouldn’t hear about…
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Stand on the Word: TGIF Edition
….and Disco begat breaks… While Larry Levan didn’t make this track, he made it known. TGIF! Go get your life.
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The Let Down: Netflix’s Ambitious Take on the Birth of Hip Hop Falls Flat
The 2015 Netflix trailer for the Get Down gave us a glimpse of 1970’s New York and the birth of hip hop with the fire and drama you would expect from a Baz Luhrmann production. When the show launched August 12, they managed to deliver on lush cinematography, stunning style and familiar hip hop samples, but well after an…
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What I’m Listening To: the Proto Disco Edition
Here’s some music for your Saturday. Love this mix of amazing songs from the early days of disco, Proto Disco. If this doesn’t get your day off on the right foot I don’t know what will. 🙂 Enjoy!
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The Fire and the Lotus: Proto Disco in New York
When I think about disco in New York in the 1970’s I think of the lotus flower. You can get so lost in the complexitiy of its beauty that it’s easy to overlook the murky waters the flower emerged from. We are entranced by a mythoized notion of disco marked by flashing neon lights and ribald…
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SUPERNOVA: The Rebirth of Disco

I have a slight obsession with disco. I honestly don’t know where it began but I’ve loved it since I was a little girl. Because of my love for disco, I get very defensive when it is routinely dragged as a vapid musical art form. WHY DO PEOPLE HATE DISCO? My quest to answer this…
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Artist a Day Challenge No. 16: Nile Rodgers
Of the hundreds of songs that are in regular rotation on my iPod, I am willing to bet that Nile Rodgers had something to do with over half of them. There was a period of time as a child when every record or tape I owned carried a Nile Rodgers producer credit. The man is a…
