A new Bee Gees documentary highlights the time thousands of white people gathered in a stadium to blow up records by Black and gay artists -- and then rioted.
That thing in Chicago was an excessively big (and destructive) deal in my life. I was in high school in suburban Detroit, so Chicago was the nearest other big city. I was a scared, effeminate kid who had been bullied all through elementary and jr high school. I identified as gay (because I didn't have the luxury of hiding my effeminacy) but was still hiding my transness. Disco made me deliriously happy. It was magic I could count on in a scary world. I attended teen dances, created a private dance club in my parent’s basement, and roped in as many others as I could. For the first time, I felt like I had "a thing".
When the Disco Sucks movement started getting louder the haters became more and more vicious. I was already keeping so much in the closet. Disco was another thing of which I was supposed to be deeply ashamed. That event in Chicago was proof that disco was yet one more thing about me that made me "other", an outcast. It was hard enough liking disco in the Metro Detroit area. It was seen as an embarrassment among most of my idiotic peers. And the Chicago thing was all the proof they needed.
Watching it play out again in the Bee Gees doc was uncomfortable. But feeling fully realized at 57 years old seems like good revenge for the meek person I was back then.
It's nice that history remembers THOSE people as the assholes!
Daya, you have precisely crystalized what the experience was for so many. How the music connected with people, and the liberation it reflected, the freedom and the diversity -- and the hope for the future from a world in which many felt trapped. Someone earlier on Twitter said rock was about revolution or rebellion and this was not. But that is a myopic view of it practically proves the point: For many if not most disco it was in fact about rebellion because it was about liberation and freedom and connecting with people like you, and escaping something oppressive.
Whether it was Black people, Latino, trans, gay, women -- people felt oppressed. The documentary points to the lyrics of Stayin Alive -- just the title tells it all. It was about people struggling, in the city, amid crime and powerful and yeah, racism, homophobia, whatever, and a declaration that, no I'm not going to let this get me down. I will liberate myself --"I Will Survive" as Gloria Gaynor sang.
So yes, you've crystalized what it was about for many and why then that the "Disco Sucks" movement represented a pushback against us. And then we had to think about why and it's because, yes, we were liberating ourselves, we were coming to the surface, we weren't staying hidden, we were growing -- and we were changing the world. And this threatened a lot of people, and hence the white straight cis grievance.
I loved the disco era - although I did quite a few stupid things during my clubbing days. I was a teenager growing up in middle-class suburbia when Saturday Night Fever came out and the only Black girl in my highschool. Being young and naive I thought it was so cool that my “friends” were into some of the same music I was, including a few who liked 70’s R&B.
When I reached the legal drinking age and went clubbing with my “friends”, I didn’t understand why no guys would ask me to dance. There they were dancing, with their Jersey shore tans, macho polyester clothing and permed hair to resemble afros to music born in the Black and/or LGBTQ community, sung by artists from those same communities looking at ME as if I didn’t belong.
I still can’t unsee Trump “dancing” to YMCA at that rally. Racist white persons didn’t start the theft of music from the Black community with disco. They did it with the blues, jazz and still do currently with rap and hip-hop.
White grievance, bigotry, exploitation and misappropriation will not end until the white community itself makes a concerted effort to recognize and change. Standing back and only saying/thinking how horrible racism and bigotry is does nothing.
"White grievance, bigotry, exploitation and misappropriation will not end until the white community itself makes a concerted effort to recognize and change." This is so true, tristate. Thank you.
Hate to say it, but the Bee Gees were never considered to be "cool" back then. Cool was Patty Smith, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, that kind of thing.
Is there a problem with preferring them to most commercialized disco? Or, preferring the Stones? Because that's what the anti-disco sentiment revolved around. Disco was considered to be shallow and slight. Certainly not a cultural replacement for the *heavier* music of the 70s.
I was in my early teens at the time in a small mountain town in Colorado, and I remember a school dance where the DJ's offered the teens the choice of "Disco or Rock?", the teens pretty much shouted in unison, "Rock, Disco Sucks!" They then played rock, and Disco was never heard there again. It's also around that time that 'Disco Sucks' started appearing on bumper stickers and radio stations stopped playing disco.
You dared not play Donna Summer or Village People. Much safer to be fans of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen, even though the latter had a hit called "Running With The Devil." I had no idea what was driving all that at the time. Good to finally have answers 40+ years on.
Great article Mike. As I watched the documentary this week, I couldn't help but compare the crowd of at Cominskey Park to MAGA rallies. You just confirmed my observation. Bigotry and fear by white males who perceive their "way of life " slipping away.
Thank you Paula. Yes, the documentary captured a moment in history that immediately connected with everything happening today. The documentary is about so much more, and obviously focused on the Bee Gees, but that moment hit me jus as it hit you and so many and I thought it was important emphasize and again revisit.
i also feel like these moments get missed in history -- or at the time were lie, sloughed off, or acceptable to many. Only looking back to you think, wow, this was bad.
In the mid 70s because I owned and purchased so many records, I became the junior high school DJ. The only trouble I got was from 6-7 boys in the grade above who wanted KISS songs (and only KISS songs - it killed them that I Was Made For Loving You was their biggest hit). Disco Sucks was their gig but no one else would say it for fear of being associated with pot, day drinking and body odor so small victories. They would walk by in leather jacketed groups of two or three and bump the record player table "by accident"; their mental growth was shifting from whispering "Faggot" to saying it out loud in the hallways or shouting it anonymously at school pep rallies. Then they realized they could shout 'Disco Sucks' but as loud and hard as they wanted to scream 'Faggot' at people in public. They weren't above snapping a record "by accident". Luckily, I had a few 12" singles by rock acts like the Rolling Stones and I was able to point to the long version of Miss You and explain why the grooves were farther apart for more bass (as I was shoving my expensive Disconet/Hot Tracks dance singles below the table).
Growing up, the hatred for different or gay was its own subculture. I was tree'd a few times, spat on and body slammed in gym class, made to feel like I shouldn't stand out or be noticed because that meant beatings or damage to my car. They didn't need Disco Sucks because they were immersed in their 'Stupid Faggot' culture. The adults heard them and my resentment was they did nothing, not even school counselors. Adults only minded if someone was shouting. I only realize how damaging it all was now, in therapy and in my 50s, looking back. WAS Nebraska such a good place to grow up in? Maybe not that little town, and I wanted so much to like it and be liked.
Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story. Truth is, when it came to being gay in those years, Nebraska was no different from Brooklyn and Staten Island, where I lived. And I experienced the same bullying in school. I became a DJ too in the late 70s in high school (probably a little bit older than you) and it was my liberation, my freedom. And then college took me away, thankfully. We didn't have as much of the "Disco Sucks" thing because straight people in New York were into it -- but we definitely had the full on homophobia.
It all began with the Columbia Record & Tape Club for me. Their promotional deal of getting 12 albums for a penny (plus shipping and handling) was too good to resist for me as a 12-year-old fixated on FM radio. It was actually through progressive rock/new wave college radio—Brown University’s WBRU 95.5 FM—that I became a lifelong fan of all kinds of black music. Everything from the indomitable Patti Smith to the digitally experimental Kraftwerk and Gary Numan played every day on my boom box and AM/FM click radio. And then all day into the night every Sunday, WBRU broadcast an amazingly diverse program of R&B, funk, soul, disco and old school tunes called the "360 Degree Black Experience in Sound." It was my heaven every week. There was also Boston’s own Kiss 108 FM, which blasted the best funk and R&B music—evuh. When I first discovered and fan-boyed over early, snarling Madonna such as “Lucky Star” and “Borderline,” I thought she was black.
I was never one of those either/or types of music fans. I was more multiple-personality in my tastes. I liked my Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company as well as my Parliament-Funkadelic, Afrika Bambaataa, and The Whispers. But I did go through certain stages of music-inspired dressing—curated according to which school I was attending or what year it was. I had my “guido” stage around 1979, when I blow-dried out—and slightly feathered as best I could—my hair every morning before school. I was definitely more adventurous with my clothes than most suburban white boys I went to school with; deep inside I wanted to be one of—and subconsciously wanted—the hot guidos, too. There were a few pairs of much-loved SWEATS Bi Ebe elastic-waist-banded athletic cotton pants with drawstring and thin piping running down the sides, in all kinds of two-color combos. I felt like gold when I wore my blue Members Only jacket with a black T-shirt with Kiss 108 lips logo scrawled in hot pink silkscreen. I also literally wore 14 karat gold in the form of a thin serpentine chain necklace. There were always my snug Jordache, Sergio Valente, and much-coveted Calvin Klein jeans to pry myself into. Daily dousings of men’s fragrances became a habit hard to break. I epitomized suburban-chic guido realness but also had my many years of Levi’s cords paired with a 3/4-sleeve-baseball-jersey-shirt, with my rock band du jour silkscreened on it. Jean jackets were huge, and later on in the 80s distressed leather bomber jackets were also a “rock” or “burnout” thing to which I connected. I remember the “disco sucks” phenomenon and I might have goofily played into it a bit by getting the trendy phrase custom-printed on a T-shirt in holographic iron-on vinyl lettering in an even goofier typeface. But I was probably just trying to avoid being made fun of or called a “fag” or having my ass kicked for liking it. An ironic defense mechanism at best. I remember standing up for solid and serious “funk” as opposed to the more superficial “disco” music—as if they hadn’t sprung from the same well. I don’t recall any explicitly racist sentiment from anyone espousing the disco-sucks mentality, though.
Very interesting observation of a time that I remember well, including when we ran into each other in a club in Syracuse with ML! <G> As a gay man, I couldn't really understand why people hated disco, but I can see the undertone of hatred which arose, even though if you listen to the Trammps song "That's where the happy people go" I don't see how someone couldn't smile. Great memories of youth for me! My favorite song was "There but for the grace of God go I" by Machine...fantastic lyrics! Thanks for the nostalgia sorry to think about the negative aspect of these cultural things for sure.
Yes, and omg, Ryan's in Syracuse, the place to go! Yes, a lot of this was going on in middle America. But I think Western NY was like the midwest I'm sure it was happening around Central New York.
I remember watching an ESPN documentary about this event, and the players were none too pleased about it. One of the Tigers players said they went to a disco club that same night, and Sparky Anderson snatched a bottle of whiskey from a bunch of teenagers who broke into the visiting team locker room and told them to get the hell out. Of course the White Sox team was pissed because they had to forfeit the game.
Another documentary I recommend about this even is on the Red Bull Music Academy channel is "The Note Episode 4-Disco Demolitin: Riot to Rebirth" that shows the cultural and racial divide of Chicago during that time.
Of course the most strange part were the broadcasters reactions. Harry Carey tried to calm everyone down by getting everyone to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", the Detroit Tigers broadcasters on the other hand were acting like it was the apocalypse. Unfortunately I can't find a clip of the later. I only know of first-hand accounts be from people back home in Michigan.
I remember that event on the news, and rather than be a serious mob attempt to "demolish disco," it was obvious that it was more of a goof, a joke. It wasn't an anti-busing riot in the suburbs, and to liken it to that now is silly.
Somehow the humor and whimsy of the 60s and 70s gets left out in this new urge to re-evaluate everything. I suspect for instance that people brought all sorts of records there to goof upon and burn. Not just Black and disco.
Funny how some in the anti-disco homophobic crowd at Comiskey were probably die-hard fans of their hometown band Styx. I bet they feel like a bunch of assholes for acting like that when they found out bassist Chuck Panozzo came out as gay 19 years ago.
I watched the first half hour with my mom . It was great . I loved The Bee Gees and the disco movement. You raise great points Michael . My cousin took my nana to see Saturday night fever in the movie house in queens called the elm wood . She loved John from tv and she walked out on the film because of.the dirty parts . I was about 8 years old but I fondly remember her coming home that night
What are you? 20 something? 30 something? You don’t know what you are talking about. Obviously you are opining some mindless dribble you consumed thanks to some psychopathic spawn of psycho social losers. The disco sucks phenomenon was quite simple. Rock and rollers didn’t like it. That’s it. You should continue your meds and try to avoid committing your delusions to paper.
Excellent piece Michaelangelo. This Mark Jeffrey person is a myopic troll who refuses to connect dots. The Mark Jeffreys of the world are why we are where we are.
A bunch of crap. Most people rebelling against disco was because of the music. It had no musicianship. It was incredibly boring. It had no dynamics. The lyrics were awful. It was repetitive. The 70’s generation believed music was a whole meal, and not something ala carte. Music is not something you dance to, or exercise to, or make love to. It’s not an accessory. Music for that purpose is just a prop. Don’t take one promotion from a rock station and try to make it something else. The music was crap. That’s the whole story.
It’s ok that you are attracted to the junk food of music. You’re really missing out on the magic that music is capable. It’s objectively true that disco is simpler, less complex and therefore not capable of the same emotional pay off as other forms. Different strokes. Disco is to music what Reality TV is to drama. It’s just a base form for the masses. That’s what most people were rebelling against. Sure, perhaps some were rebelling for racist issues, but certainly not most. Rock and roll was spawned from black music. It’s an homage to it. Disco was primarily for white people who had trouble finding the beat. If anything was a bastardization of black music, it’s disco.
Why do you assume I don't like a lot of other music? This is not an either/or situation, at least not for me. I am deeply devoted to some of the great rock legends of the era, and many lesser know, to jazz, very deeply, and funk and and much else. And what you say about disco simply is not true -- it deeply connects in a different way, emotionally and physically. If you can't or won't experience it that's your choice. But it connects for me and I'd say millions of others in as deeply as we have connected to other genres. It was derived from r&b, black music, latino music, some rock, and much it stayed that way, whether it was Donna Summer, or Gloria Gaynor, or The Tramps -- wow -- or even the Village People or The Bee Gees. Enormous talent, just like many other genres. You're the one missing out -- but I'm not going to judge your for it. Have a good day.
Then why weren’t they rebelling against the godawful soft rock or corporate rock of the 70s? There was plenty of bad music in the 70s to riot against. Let’s not pretend it was all that great back then. And you’re giving those rioters way too much credit. Like those fools would know anything about musicianship.
Mark Jeffrey's apology for anti-disco reminds me of neo-Confederates who claim that southern secession was not about defending slavery. It was, and the link between anti-disco and racism and homophobia is similarly quite clear. Thank you, Michelangelo for reminding us of that sad episode and its foreshadowing of Trumpism.
A bunch of crap. Most people rebelling against disco was because of the music. It had no musicianship."
Lol, you have a lot to learn about music then. If you can't hear the most iconic baselines being played, the richness in the bands, that's your fault. Go study, do something about your narrow mind, idk, but don't hate speech on ppl who can understand and enjoy interesting music.
This is fascinating, I knew about a "disco sucks" thing but it was completely different than this.
At the time, I lived in downtown NYC, in Little Italy, and from the perspective downtown the whole "disco sucks" thing was a funny war between gay men. On the West Side the men loved disco, danced with poppers at The Saint, went to Fire Island, wore colored bandanas in the back pockets of their tight blue jeans, were pumped up and bearded, mustachioed, etc. Sort of the precursors to the ubiquitous gay man now, who "takes care of himself." On the Lower East Side and Soho were those who were into punk and new age music, were proud to be skinny and anemic, bleached their hair, had shaved faces, played with pale make up, wore tight black jeans, hung out at the Mudd Club, The Pyramid, or The Bar. There was even a short lived moment where someone put up posters for a group called "Fags Against Facial Hair" on the East Side. Everyone was very serious about the avant garde.
Anyhow the two groups mutually agreed to think the other side had preposterous taste even though we certainly sometimes slept with the enemy.
Like lots of New Yorkers, for me life was exciting and all consuming enough on Manhattan Island, I didn't have a TV, and only read NYC papers, and had little idea of things that went on in Middle America, like this very creepy phenomena. Of course now, pretty much everyone from that time appreciates both the Talking Heads and Donna Summers.
Thanks Ed, very interesting. --- yes I lived through the same scene. And yes there was that tension of like, this is old, and now we're the new. But it was more a rebel thing, generational. not about racism. A very inside NY queer thing --- and as you say, there was so much crossover. Worlds occupying the same space, or one moving into the other. I too was immersed in the East Village scene and did and didn't follow what was going, even the early years of the AIDS epidemic and not until AIDS jarred the next generation of us.
Does anyone remember The Garage? I went there once in 1979 with a male friend from high school in who knew one of the DJs. I remember being so overwhelmed with how different it was to any Jersey or Philly club. People dancing freely to great music. I didn’t have to wait to be asked to dance by a guy, like I was the least-likely-to-win contestant in a beauty pageant. I loved it and had so much fun.
I think, maybe, you are reading a little too much into this.
I am 62 and also knew this period well. From my memory, those of my straight white male friends who thought "Disco sucked," thought so, NOT due to racism or homophobia (which, I admit, was there in them, regardless--but not the motivating factor), but because they just did not know how to dance (or were afraid to dance).
This has now changed with today's young men.
Maybe, give these guys a break on this one. Otherwise, you are almost always on target.
Thanks Thomas -- that's totally fine and I acknowledge that there there were many who didn't connect with it just as many don't connect with other genres. There was also a lot of bad stuff put out because it was a trend corporate America jumped on, as happens with many things. But as I say, it's one thing not to like it -- it's another thing to go a stadium to blow up records, many of which weren't "disco" but were long-time Black artists. No issue with your friends not liking or even hating the music, not connecting with it. But if they went to events like that, well, something more to think about ....
I'm totally with you Thomas. My dislike of disco was partly related the lack of the ability to dance and the fact that rock music had stalled a lot by that time. People forget that the pop music of the day were some awful things like "Having My Baby", "Feelings", 'Billy Don't be Hero" etc. It seemed like music was going off a cliff just when I had discovered rock and its roots in blues and R&B. So this move to dance music from guitar centered music left me cold. Even the Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street was known as disco dead by fans like myself. So I don't like being lumped into it being a white thing. It was more of a Mods vs Rockers thing as The Who brought to life. I even hated punk when it arrived which had a lot more white grievance overtones in it because it was not music to me. Just my .02 and having just watched the Bee Gees doc on HBO I have to say I learned a lot about them and really enjoyed it.
Oh gosh, so many feels....
That thing in Chicago was an excessively big (and destructive) deal in my life. I was in high school in suburban Detroit, so Chicago was the nearest other big city. I was a scared, effeminate kid who had been bullied all through elementary and jr high school. I identified as gay (because I didn't have the luxury of hiding my effeminacy) but was still hiding my transness. Disco made me deliriously happy. It was magic I could count on in a scary world. I attended teen dances, created a private dance club in my parent’s basement, and roped in as many others as I could. For the first time, I felt like I had "a thing".
When the Disco Sucks movement started getting louder the haters became more and more vicious. I was already keeping so much in the closet. Disco was another thing of which I was supposed to be deeply ashamed. That event in Chicago was proof that disco was yet one more thing about me that made me "other", an outcast. It was hard enough liking disco in the Metro Detroit area. It was seen as an embarrassment among most of my idiotic peers. And the Chicago thing was all the proof they needed.
Watching it play out again in the Bee Gees doc was uncomfortable. But feeling fully realized at 57 years old seems like good revenge for the meek person I was back then.
It's nice that history remembers THOSE people as the assholes!
Daya, you have precisely crystalized what the experience was for so many. How the music connected with people, and the liberation it reflected, the freedom and the diversity -- and the hope for the future from a world in which many felt trapped. Someone earlier on Twitter said rock was about revolution or rebellion and this was not. But that is a myopic view of it practically proves the point: For many if not most disco it was in fact about rebellion because it was about liberation and freedom and connecting with people like you, and escaping something oppressive.
Whether it was Black people, Latino, trans, gay, women -- people felt oppressed. The documentary points to the lyrics of Stayin Alive -- just the title tells it all. It was about people struggling, in the city, amid crime and powerful and yeah, racism, homophobia, whatever, and a declaration that, no I'm not going to let this get me down. I will liberate myself --"I Will Survive" as Gloria Gaynor sang.
So yes, you've crystalized what it was about for many and why then that the "Disco Sucks" movement represented a pushback against us. And then we had to think about why and it's because, yes, we were liberating ourselves, we were coming to the surface, we weren't staying hidden, we were growing -- and we were changing the world. And this threatened a lot of people, and hence the white straight cis grievance.
Your reply makes me feel very seen.
XO
(P.S. I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING!!!)
Aww -- after I saw the documentary I just felt that and to write it. Glad it connected!
I loved the disco era - although I did quite a few stupid things during my clubbing days. I was a teenager growing up in middle-class suburbia when Saturday Night Fever came out and the only Black girl in my highschool. Being young and naive I thought it was so cool that my “friends” were into some of the same music I was, including a few who liked 70’s R&B.
When I reached the legal drinking age and went clubbing with my “friends”, I didn’t understand why no guys would ask me to dance. There they were dancing, with their Jersey shore tans, macho polyester clothing and permed hair to resemble afros to music born in the Black and/or LGBTQ community, sung by artists from those same communities looking at ME as if I didn’t belong.
I still can’t unsee Trump “dancing” to YMCA at that rally. Racist white persons didn’t start the theft of music from the Black community with disco. They did it with the blues, jazz and still do currently with rap and hip-hop.
White grievance, bigotry, exploitation and misappropriation will not end until the white community itself makes a concerted effort to recognize and change. Standing back and only saying/thinking how horrible racism and bigotry is does nothing.
"White grievance, bigotry, exploitation and misappropriation will not end until the white community itself makes a concerted effort to recognize and change." This is so true, tristate. Thank you.
Theft of Black music?
Hate to say it, but the Bee Gees were never considered to be "cool" back then. Cool was Patty Smith, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, that kind of thing.
Is there a problem with preferring them to most commercialized disco? Or, preferring the Stones? Because that's what the anti-disco sentiment revolved around. Disco was considered to be shallow and slight. Certainly not a cultural replacement for the *heavier* music of the 70s.
I was in my early teens at the time in a small mountain town in Colorado, and I remember a school dance where the DJ's offered the teens the choice of "Disco or Rock?", the teens pretty much shouted in unison, "Rock, Disco Sucks!" They then played rock, and Disco was never heard there again. It's also around that time that 'Disco Sucks' started appearing on bumper stickers and radio stations stopped playing disco.
You dared not play Donna Summer or Village People. Much safer to be fans of AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen, even though the latter had a hit called "Running With The Devil." I had no idea what was driving all that at the time. Good to finally have answers 40+ years on.
Great article Mike. As I watched the documentary this week, I couldn't help but compare the crowd of at Cominskey Park to MAGA rallies. You just confirmed my observation. Bigotry and fear by white males who perceive their "way of life " slipping away.
What a sad sight.
Long live the BeeGees!
Thank you Paula. Yes, the documentary captured a moment in history that immediately connected with everything happening today. The documentary is about so much more, and obviously focused on the Bee Gees, but that moment hit me jus as it hit you and so many and I thought it was important emphasize and again revisit.
i also feel like these moments get missed in history -- or at the time were lie, sloughed off, or acceptable to many. Only looking back to you think, wow, this was bad.
Paula, well said 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
In the mid 70s because I owned and purchased so many records, I became the junior high school DJ. The only trouble I got was from 6-7 boys in the grade above who wanted KISS songs (and only KISS songs - it killed them that I Was Made For Loving You was their biggest hit). Disco Sucks was their gig but no one else would say it for fear of being associated with pot, day drinking and body odor so small victories. They would walk by in leather jacketed groups of two or three and bump the record player table "by accident"; their mental growth was shifting from whispering "Faggot" to saying it out loud in the hallways or shouting it anonymously at school pep rallies. Then they realized they could shout 'Disco Sucks' but as loud and hard as they wanted to scream 'Faggot' at people in public. They weren't above snapping a record "by accident". Luckily, I had a few 12" singles by rock acts like the Rolling Stones and I was able to point to the long version of Miss You and explain why the grooves were farther apart for more bass (as I was shoving my expensive Disconet/Hot Tracks dance singles below the table).
Growing up, the hatred for different or gay was its own subculture. I was tree'd a few times, spat on and body slammed in gym class, made to feel like I shouldn't stand out or be noticed because that meant beatings or damage to my car. They didn't need Disco Sucks because they were immersed in their 'Stupid Faggot' culture. The adults heard them and my resentment was they did nothing, not even school counselors. Adults only minded if someone was shouting. I only realize how damaging it all was now, in therapy and in my 50s, looking back. WAS Nebraska such a good place to grow up in? Maybe not that little town, and I wanted so much to like it and be liked.
Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story. Truth is, when it came to being gay in those years, Nebraska was no different from Brooklyn and Staten Island, where I lived. And I experienced the same bullying in school. I became a DJ too in the late 70s in high school (probably a little bit older than you) and it was my liberation, my freedom. And then college took me away, thankfully. We didn't have as much of the "Disco Sucks" thing because straight people in New York were into it -- but we definitely had the full on homophobia.
It all began with the Columbia Record & Tape Club for me. Their promotional deal of getting 12 albums for a penny (plus shipping and handling) was too good to resist for me as a 12-year-old fixated on FM radio. It was actually through progressive rock/new wave college radio—Brown University’s WBRU 95.5 FM—that I became a lifelong fan of all kinds of black music. Everything from the indomitable Patti Smith to the digitally experimental Kraftwerk and Gary Numan played every day on my boom box and AM/FM click radio. And then all day into the night every Sunday, WBRU broadcast an amazingly diverse program of R&B, funk, soul, disco and old school tunes called the "360 Degree Black Experience in Sound." It was my heaven every week. There was also Boston’s own Kiss 108 FM, which blasted the best funk and R&B music—evuh. When I first discovered and fan-boyed over early, snarling Madonna such as “Lucky Star” and “Borderline,” I thought she was black.
I was never one of those either/or types of music fans. I was more multiple-personality in my tastes. I liked my Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company as well as my Parliament-Funkadelic, Afrika Bambaataa, and The Whispers. But I did go through certain stages of music-inspired dressing—curated according to which school I was attending or what year it was. I had my “guido” stage around 1979, when I blow-dried out—and slightly feathered as best I could—my hair every morning before school. I was definitely more adventurous with my clothes than most suburban white boys I went to school with; deep inside I wanted to be one of—and subconsciously wanted—the hot guidos, too. There were a few pairs of much-loved SWEATS Bi Ebe elastic-waist-banded athletic cotton pants with drawstring and thin piping running down the sides, in all kinds of two-color combos. I felt like gold when I wore my blue Members Only jacket with a black T-shirt with Kiss 108 lips logo scrawled in hot pink silkscreen. I also literally wore 14 karat gold in the form of a thin serpentine chain necklace. There were always my snug Jordache, Sergio Valente, and much-coveted Calvin Klein jeans to pry myself into. Daily dousings of men’s fragrances became a habit hard to break. I epitomized suburban-chic guido realness but also had my many years of Levi’s cords paired with a 3/4-sleeve-baseball-jersey-shirt, with my rock band du jour silkscreened on it. Jean jackets were huge, and later on in the 80s distressed leather bomber jackets were also a “rock” or “burnout” thing to which I connected. I remember the “disco sucks” phenomenon and I might have goofily played into it a bit by getting the trendy phrase custom-printed on a T-shirt in holographic iron-on vinyl lettering in an even goofier typeface. But I was probably just trying to avoid being made fun of or called a “fag” or having my ass kicked for liking it. An ironic defense mechanism at best. I remember standing up for solid and serious “funk” as opposed to the more superficial “disco” music—as if they hadn’t sprung from the same well. I don’t recall any explicitly racist sentiment from anyone espousing the disco-sucks mentality, though.
Very interesting observation of a time that I remember well, including when we ran into each other in a club in Syracuse with ML! <G> As a gay man, I couldn't really understand why people hated disco, but I can see the undertone of hatred which arose, even though if you listen to the Trammps song "That's where the happy people go" I don't see how someone couldn't smile. Great memories of youth for me! My favorite song was "There but for the grace of God go I" by Machine...fantastic lyrics! Thanks for the nostalgia sorry to think about the negative aspect of these cultural things for sure.
Yes, and omg, Ryan's in Syracuse, the place to go! Yes, a lot of this was going on in middle America. But I think Western NY was like the midwest I'm sure it was happening around Central New York.
I remember watching an ESPN documentary about this event, and the players were none too pleased about it. One of the Tigers players said they went to a disco club that same night, and Sparky Anderson snatched a bottle of whiskey from a bunch of teenagers who broke into the visiting team locker room and told them to get the hell out. Of course the White Sox team was pissed because they had to forfeit the game.
Very interesting.
A local station WTTW-11 in Chicago made a documentary as well.
On YouTube the title is : ESPN story about Disco Demolition - July 12, 1979
Another documentary I recommend about this even is on the Red Bull Music Academy channel is "The Note Episode 4-Disco Demolitin: Riot to Rebirth" that shows the cultural and racial divide of Chicago during that time.
Of course the most strange part were the broadcasters reactions. Harry Carey tried to calm everyone down by getting everyone to sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", the Detroit Tigers broadcasters on the other hand were acting like it was the apocalypse. Unfortunately I can't find a clip of the later. I only know of first-hand accounts be from people back home in Michigan.
I remember that event on the news, and rather than be a serious mob attempt to "demolish disco," it was obvious that it was more of a goof, a joke. It wasn't an anti-busing riot in the suburbs, and to liken it to that now is silly.
Somehow the humor and whimsy of the 60s and 70s gets left out in this new urge to re-evaluate everything. I suspect for instance that people brought all sorts of records there to goof upon and burn. Not just Black and disco.
Funny how some in the anti-disco homophobic crowd at Comiskey were probably die-hard fans of their hometown band Styx. I bet they feel like a bunch of assholes for acting like that when they found out bassist Chuck Panozzo came out as gay 19 years ago.
that "disco sucks" riot in Chi-town was probably the saddest moment in that doc for me...
I watched the first half hour with my mom . It was great . I loved The Bee Gees and the disco movement. You raise great points Michael . My cousin took my nana to see Saturday night fever in the movie house in queens called the elm wood . She loved John from tv and she walked out on the film because of.the dirty parts . I was about 8 years old but I fondly remember her coming home that night
What are you? 20 something? 30 something? You don’t know what you are talking about. Obviously you are opining some mindless dribble you consumed thanks to some psychopathic spawn of psycho social losers. The disco sucks phenomenon was quite simple. Rock and rollers didn’t like it. That’s it. You should continue your meds and try to avoid committing your delusions to paper.
Excellent piece Michaelangelo. This Mark Jeffrey person is a myopic troll who refuses to connect dots. The Mark Jeffreys of the world are why we are where we are.
Thank you EJ. An Exactly!
A bunch of crap. Most people rebelling against disco was because of the music. It had no musicianship. It was incredibly boring. It had no dynamics. The lyrics were awful. It was repetitive. The 70’s generation believed music was a whole meal, and not something ala carte. Music is not something you dance to, or exercise to, or make love to. It’s not an accessory. Music for that purpose is just a prop. Don’t take one promotion from a rock station and try to make it something else. The music was crap. That’s the whole story.
Ha, the whole story according to you, who has now defined what music is for everyone. I think you've proved the point here.
It’s ok that you are attracted to the junk food of music. You’re really missing out on the magic that music is capable. It’s objectively true that disco is simpler, less complex and therefore not capable of the same emotional pay off as other forms. Different strokes. Disco is to music what Reality TV is to drama. It’s just a base form for the masses. That’s what most people were rebelling against. Sure, perhaps some were rebelling for racist issues, but certainly not most. Rock and roll was spawned from black music. It’s an homage to it. Disco was primarily for white people who had trouble finding the beat. If anything was a bastardization of black music, it’s disco.
Why do you assume I don't like a lot of other music? This is not an either/or situation, at least not for me. I am deeply devoted to some of the great rock legends of the era, and many lesser know, to jazz, very deeply, and funk and and much else. And what you say about disco simply is not true -- it deeply connects in a different way, emotionally and physically. If you can't or won't experience it that's your choice. But it connects for me and I'd say millions of others in as deeply as we have connected to other genres. It was derived from r&b, black music, latino music, some rock, and much it stayed that way, whether it was Donna Summer, or Gloria Gaynor, or The Tramps -- wow -- or even the Village People or The Bee Gees. Enormous talent, just like many other genres. You're the one missing out -- but I'm not going to judge your for it. Have a good day.
Then why weren’t they rebelling against the godawful soft rock or corporate rock of the 70s? There was plenty of bad music in the 70s to riot against. Let’s not pretend it was all that great back then. And you’re giving those rioters way too much credit. Like those fools would know anything about musicianship.
Yeah, I'm sure that's why these goobers rioted: it was all about musicianship. /s
Mark Jeffrey's apology for anti-disco reminds me of neo-Confederates who claim that southern secession was not about defending slavery. It was, and the link between anti-disco and racism and homophobia is similarly quite clear. Thank you, Michelangelo for reminding us of that sad episode and its foreshadowing of Trumpism.
"Mark JeffreyDec 19, 2020
A bunch of crap. Most people rebelling against disco was because of the music. It had no musicianship."
Lol, you have a lot to learn about music then. If you can't hear the most iconic baselines being played, the richness in the bands, that's your fault. Go study, do something about your narrow mind, idk, but don't hate speech on ppl who can understand and enjoy interesting music.
This is fascinating, I knew about a "disco sucks" thing but it was completely different than this.
At the time, I lived in downtown NYC, in Little Italy, and from the perspective downtown the whole "disco sucks" thing was a funny war between gay men. On the West Side the men loved disco, danced with poppers at The Saint, went to Fire Island, wore colored bandanas in the back pockets of their tight blue jeans, were pumped up and bearded, mustachioed, etc. Sort of the precursors to the ubiquitous gay man now, who "takes care of himself." On the Lower East Side and Soho were those who were into punk and new age music, were proud to be skinny and anemic, bleached their hair, had shaved faces, played with pale make up, wore tight black jeans, hung out at the Mudd Club, The Pyramid, or The Bar. There was even a short lived moment where someone put up posters for a group called "Fags Against Facial Hair" on the East Side. Everyone was very serious about the avant garde.
Anyhow the two groups mutually agreed to think the other side had preposterous taste even though we certainly sometimes slept with the enemy.
Like lots of New Yorkers, for me life was exciting and all consuming enough on Manhattan Island, I didn't have a TV, and only read NYC papers, and had little idea of things that went on in Middle America, like this very creepy phenomena. Of course now, pretty much everyone from that time appreciates both the Talking Heads and Donna Summers.
Thanks Ed, very interesting. --- yes I lived through the same scene. And yes there was that tension of like, this is old, and now we're the new. But it was more a rebel thing, generational. not about racism. A very inside NY queer thing --- and as you say, there was so much crossover. Worlds occupying the same space, or one moving into the other. I too was immersed in the East Village scene and did and didn't follow what was going, even the early years of the AIDS epidemic and not until AIDS jarred the next generation of us.
Also, per what you were saying, I even wrote a cover story for OutWeek magazine: The Old Clone vs. The New Clone. haha.
Does anyone remember The Garage? I went there once in 1979 with a male friend from high school in who knew one of the DJs. I remember being so overwhelmed with how different it was to any Jersey or Philly club. People dancing freely to great music. I didn’t have to wait to be asked to dance by a guy, like I was the least-likely-to-win contestant in a beauty pageant. I loved it and had so much fun.
The Garage was the “it” club for Keith Haring. You were in great company!
I think, maybe, you are reading a little too much into this.
I am 62 and also knew this period well. From my memory, those of my straight white male friends who thought "Disco sucked," thought so, NOT due to racism or homophobia (which, I admit, was there in them, regardless--but not the motivating factor), but because they just did not know how to dance (or were afraid to dance).
This has now changed with today's young men.
Maybe, give these guys a break on this one. Otherwise, you are almost always on target.
Thanks Thomas -- that's totally fine and I acknowledge that there there were many who didn't connect with it just as many don't connect with other genres. There was also a lot of bad stuff put out because it was a trend corporate America jumped on, as happens with many things. But as I say, it's one thing not to like it -- it's another thing to go a stadium to blow up records, many of which weren't "disco" but were long-time Black artists. No issue with your friends not liking or even hating the music, not connecting with it. But if they went to events like that, well, something more to think about ....
Yes, I'll give you that one -- the blow up of the records was over the top.
I'm totally with you Thomas. My dislike of disco was partly related the lack of the ability to dance and the fact that rock music had stalled a lot by that time. People forget that the pop music of the day were some awful things like "Having My Baby", "Feelings", 'Billy Don't be Hero" etc. It seemed like music was going off a cliff just when I had discovered rock and its roots in blues and R&B. So this move to dance music from guitar centered music left me cold. Even the Grateful Dead's Shakedown Street was known as disco dead by fans like myself. So I don't like being lumped into it being a white thing. It was more of a Mods vs Rockers thing as The Who brought to life. I even hated punk when it arrived which had a lot more white grievance overtones in it because it was not music to me. Just my .02 and having just watched the Bee Gees doc on HBO I have to say I learned a lot about them and really enjoyed it.