The Birth Of Disco
Today is June 21st and it is the summer solstice which is an astronomical term referring to the position of the sun in relation to the equator. On this day in the northern hemisphere the earth's orbit is most tilted towards the sun which causes the longest daylight period and the shortest night of the year. In some countries (such as the US and Canada) the summer solstice is regarded as the beginning of summer. In others (like Ireland) it is considered to be the middle of summer.
June 21, 1969 is considered (by some) to be the day that Disco was born.
In Greenwich Village, Manhattan there was a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. It was actually a private club (or 'bottle bar') that was run by the mafia. There was no liquor license so you had to sign in to gain entry and be served. The place was fitted out with warning lights and although the police usually never went near it they were installed to warn of just such an occurrence. On this particular night, the police decided to enter.
The place was packed because earlier that day Judy Garland had been buried after overdosing. Everyone was there to mourn her but when the police entered a riot ensued. Although most of the men were dressed in drag, they fought back and poured into the streets in protest. They protested against the police force and against the oppression they had suffered for years and (since most were underclass and black) against the civil rights tensions. They decided it was time to leave the underground and go out into the open, which they did punching and kicking.
Down the street from the riot was another club called the Haven. On June 21 a new DJ was playing one of his first sets. His name was Francis Grasso and he turned the entire idea of what a DJ was upside down. He had started working in the club as a dancer but one night when the resident DJ decided to drop acid and not show up Francis was asked to fill in. He did so well that he was hired on the spot as the new resident DJ for Haven.
It wasn't that he played entirely different music to his predecessor, although he did play more funk. In addition to the usual music: The Beatles, Motown and Northern Soul, he also played The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Kool & The Gang, Santana, EWF and Chicago. He looked for slightly harder, funkier rock and as much latin music as he could find (since it was so much easier to dance to). The thing that was really different about Grasso was that he mixed the records he played - he created a performance. He matched beats and therefore never let his audience stop dancing. He never let the music stop or a pause to occur between records. He also invented the "slip cue" which is what he named the technique for cueing a record with a slip mat. The use of a slip mat (which lies between the record and the turntable) enabled the turntable to keep spinning while he could hold the record stationary with the needle. This allowed him to begin playing the record at the exact beat or second that he wanted to and continue mixing. Incredibly he did these things before anyone ever heard of them and without any of the necessary modern day equipment was even invented. According to him he was just a natural and could "catch a song at the right moment". All he used was two decks and a cross fader and it blew everyone away. One of his favourite techniques to extend a really good song was to get two copies of the single and then play them back to back. Often, singles contained instrumental versions on the B side and he would mix these in as well. He said that no one knew what was happening. They couldn't figure out where he was getting a record that was so long because of course the 12" single had not been invented yet and most releases were only about 3 minutes in length. He quickly became a legend. He dated playboy bunnies, Liza Minnelli and even lived with Jimi Hendrix's wife for a while after he died. He spent several years DJing around New York and was one of the very first "superstar DJs".
A summer night in Greenwich village with a riot going on at one end of the street and a superstar DJ playing in a club at the other end. Both events sparked the beginning of something very different in the New York club culture - it was to be called Disco. Before the Bee Gees, polyester suits and really bad dancing Disco was about dramatic social change. It represented freedom, togetherness, love and the underground. It allowed for escapism in the underclasses and offered fresh new attitudes towards sex, drugs and music. It took the sixties idealism and combined it with the hedonistic liberation of the black and gay communities in the 70s. It also paved the way for House, Techno and the entire modern dance culture that exists today.
June 21, 1969 - the day Disco was born.
June 21, 1969 is considered (by some) to be the day that Disco was born.
In Greenwich Village, Manhattan there was a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. It was actually a private club (or 'bottle bar') that was run by the mafia. There was no liquor license so you had to sign in to gain entry and be served. The place was fitted out with warning lights and although the police usually never went near it they were installed to warn of just such an occurrence. On this particular night, the police decided to enter.
The place was packed because earlier that day Judy Garland had been buried after overdosing. Everyone was there to mourn her but when the police entered a riot ensued. Although most of the men were dressed in drag, they fought back and poured into the streets in protest. They protested against the police force and against the oppression they had suffered for years and (since most were underclass and black) against the civil rights tensions. They decided it was time to leave the underground and go out into the open, which they did punching and kicking.
Down the street from the riot was another club called the Haven. On June 21 a new DJ was playing one of his first sets. His name was Francis Grasso and he turned the entire idea of what a DJ was upside down. He had started working in the club as a dancer but one night when the resident DJ decided to drop acid and not show up Francis was asked to fill in. He did so well that he was hired on the spot as the new resident DJ for Haven.
It wasn't that he played entirely different music to his predecessor, although he did play more funk. In addition to the usual music: The Beatles, Motown and Northern Soul, he also played The Stones, Led Zeppelin, Kool & The Gang, Santana, EWF and Chicago. He looked for slightly harder, funkier rock and as much latin music as he could find (since it was so much easier to dance to). The thing that was really different about Grasso was that he mixed the records he played - he created a performance. He matched beats and therefore never let his audience stop dancing. He never let the music stop or a pause to occur between records. He also invented the "slip cue" which is what he named the technique for cueing a record with a slip mat. The use of a slip mat (which lies between the record and the turntable) enabled the turntable to keep spinning while he could hold the record stationary with the needle. This allowed him to begin playing the record at the exact beat or second that he wanted to and continue mixing. Incredibly he did these things before anyone ever heard of them and without any of the necessary modern day equipment was even invented. According to him he was just a natural and could "catch a song at the right moment". All he used was two decks and a cross fader and it blew everyone away. One of his favourite techniques to extend a really good song was to get two copies of the single and then play them back to back. Often, singles contained instrumental versions on the B side and he would mix these in as well. He said that no one knew what was happening. They couldn't figure out where he was getting a record that was so long because of course the 12" single had not been invented yet and most releases were only about 3 minutes in length. He quickly became a legend. He dated playboy bunnies, Liza Minnelli and even lived with Jimi Hendrix's wife for a while after he died. He spent several years DJing around New York and was one of the very first "superstar DJs".
A summer night in Greenwich village with a riot going on at one end of the street and a superstar DJ playing in a club at the other end. Both events sparked the beginning of something very different in the New York club culture - it was to be called Disco. Before the Bee Gees, polyester suits and really bad dancing Disco was about dramatic social change. It represented freedom, togetherness, love and the underground. It allowed for escapism in the underclasses and offered fresh new attitudes towards sex, drugs and music. It took the sixties idealism and combined it with the hedonistic liberation of the black and gay communities in the 70s. It also paved the way for House, Techno and the entire modern dance culture that exists today.
June 21, 1969 - the day Disco was born.
posted by Kub at 12:19
2 Comments:
it's cool that you have such a strong sense of the history of your people
the Discovites?
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