Tag: Disco

  • Earworm Wednesday: What the hell is a “Disco Round?”

    I mean, I know it’s referring to a disco floor, but “disco round” is still a weird term.

    Though the song came out in 1978, when I hear it, it makes me think of getting ready for elementray school in the early 80’s. My mom would play the “top 40” radio in the kitchen as she got all of us ready for school. And for whatever reason this song played one morning as I ate Frankenberry cereal, and became lodged in my memory.

  • Earworm Thursday: Disco Duck

    This is a fun one to try to explain to my kid. And EVERYONE was doing drugs in the 70’s.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Rain, Puddles, Tottenham v Arsenal, and Disco Playlist

    (SWITCH… Jimmy Smits)

    It’s flooding in NYC, y’all! Take a look:

    I found this on Twitter/X this morning showing a bus in Brooklyn. I was out doing the Alt Parking at 8:30am and the water was coming up over the curb. This is a lot of rain. Like Texas flood kind’a rain. And last weekend we had the remnants of that tropical storm sit on top of the City for three days and dump loads of rain. Up where we live in Harlem, I don’t think about it flooding as compared to Lower Manhattan, which doesn’t take much submerge that part of the City. But it just won’t stop.

    Taking the kid to school this morning meant that we had to trudge out in the rain. We had on rain boots, and rain coats, with umbrellas over the top of us. Not that any of this gear stop us from getting wet, but it wasn’t that bad. And what made it a fun walk to school was the numerous amount of puddles along the way. Which, when you are wet already, what’s the harm of slashing in a puddle or two. And there is something deeply innocent and extremely satisfying in stomping through a puddle. It never is not fun. It is an act that serves no purpose other than making you happy, and identifying people who are sticks-in-the-mud.

    The North London Derby ended in a draw. From my totally biased Tottenham Hotspur point of view – it was just as good as a win.

    And, I started making a playlist for when I am at the gym. It’s nothing but disco music, but specifically, the disco music I remember hearing as a kid. And as I am compiling this list, I can’t shake the feeling that this music is sweaty. Like it conjures up the feeling of being hot and sweaty on a dance floor – in the Summer. And it’s not an image I get in my mind, but a feeling, a sensation of being on polyester and dancing.

  • My Parents’ Music

    My parents were pretty middle of the road Midwestern Americans. They were in the vanguard of Baby Boomers released on this country, and what that means is that they were more Beatnik and Folk Music, rather than Hippie and Rock and Roll, which is what most people associate with Boomers. They built a very normal and respectable middle-class life for themselves and me and my brothers. No complaints on my end. The older I get, the more appreciate that my folks were stable, dependable, and loving parents. No flying off the handle, or strange flights of fancy or obsession came out of them.

    But they really loved disco music. They never went to a disco to dance to that music; just played the albums all the time. On the weekends, my folks like to put music on after lunch and throughout the afternoon until dinner. The one album they went back to often for their disco fix was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I heard “Night on Disco Mountain” more times than I would like to remember.

    As I am putting my Summer Playlist together, Disco is taking a big lead. And each time I go looking for a Barry White song, or for Alicia Bridges, I started getting the feeling for being seven or eight years old, laying in front of my parents stereo turntable and listening to these songs, and albums. That same driving drum beat, and funky bass jumping all over the place. I mean, everyone made a disco album; from the Stones to KISS. And I think my parents had quite a few of them… Except the KISS album. My mother hated KISS.

    It’s been fun discovering all of these songs that have stuck with me, buried deep in the back of my head, after they were planted there close to forty years ago.