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Thursday, July 09, 2009
NBC Sports/Calcaterra: Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night
Sunday is the 30th anniversary of the infamous “Disco Demolition Night.” For those unfamiliar, it went down like this: Doubleheader between the White Sox and Tigers. Disco backlash reaching its apex. Local DJ convinces the Sox to stage a promotion for which people bring unwanted disco records to the game in exchange for a 98 cent ticket, the records get collected, placed in center field, and blown up by the DJ during the intermission between the two games. Totally foreseeable, but seemingly unforeseen side effect: the cheap tickets and disco demagoguery draws lots of people who usually don’t go to baseball games, and those people proceed to use their tickets savings to buy lots of beer. Well, at least the people who weren’t baked out of their gourds did (I’m guessing nacho sales were pretty brisk). There’s no dispute, however, that it was a crazy scene that evening.
Then came the explosion, which tore a big chunk out of the outfield grass. Then thousands of fans rushed the field, lighting fires, throwing firecrackers, and making general asses of themselves. The batting cage was pulled down and wrecked, bases were ripped off the infield, and the place was generally torn to shreds.
Coot Veal and Cot Deal
Posted: July 09, 2009 at 03:12 PM | 185 comment(s)
Related News: General, History, Chi White Sox
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I love the failed attempt by Harry Caray to distract the vandals by singing 'Take Me Out..' It didn't work.
Seconded. Some disco was undeniably really good music. I think the backlash had a lot more to do with class economics than with the music itself (your standard outer borough tough wasn't getting into Studio 54).
Chic did some good stuff!
As I mention in the post, there's almost something quaint about a riot over disco. Today everything is so fragmented -- a given act's perceived musical worth seems to be directly related to how obscure it is -- that it would be impossible for such an uprising, however misguided, to take place.
That bassline was in more raps than George Clinton's entire catalog put together. And when it wasn't "Good Times", it was "Another One Bites the Dust", which is the same damn thing. Chic were the secret godfathers of the early years of hip hop.
For sure, not just class economics regarding who could afford to get into upscale discos, but also deeper cultural antagonisms that included more than a little homophobia, sexism and racism. The musical styles preferred by the anti-disco cheerleaders were invariably some variation on white male macho rock and roll.
Johnny: The two final pair of tickets are yours for that big concert tonight, if you can complete this sentence correctly. Are you ready? Caller #1! Disco is...
Caller #1: Fun!
Johnny: Wrong! Caller #2, disco is...
Caller #2: Uh, heaven?
Johnny: You people are way off! Caller #3, you're on!
Caller #3: Disco is hell?
Johnny: You've got it, my man!
I don't see that. But I'm thinking punk preceded disco, and I'm not sure that's true. They may be exact contemporaries.
When disco started, I was living in a blue-collar Detroit neighbourhood, and we hated it. Then I moved to England, and almost immediately went to university, where my crowd were mostly heavy-metal enthusiasts (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Hawkwind) and we hated disco. There was some question over whether Abba, ELO and Genesis were acceptable. (No, not really and yes were my answers. Yes was a maybe.) Of course, I didn't care for any of this stuff all that much, and spent my time listening to BBC Radio 3, expanding my horizon from Mozart and Bach to Lassus and Palestrina. I still like a bit of Hawkwind now and then, though.
There's all this nonsense put about nowadays about disco 'threatening our sexuality', but we didn't see it that way. We just didn't like the music. We didn't care much for punk, either, and nowadays I detest punk with a rare passion, but that IS a more cultural thing. Trot music that bred the idea you can fight fascism by attending a concert. I ask you!
thanks, GGC... it's a fun piece.
Even Chic couldn't get into Studio 54. Niles Rogers getting turned away at the door inspired Freak Out. The original version was F*** Off!
Who?
Now THAT's funny.
It didn't seem to take much to precipitate people rushing the field back in the 70s. I've mentioned this before, but the frequency with which baseball games descended into chaos due to fan activity in the 70s is pretty shocking from a modern perspective.
But a lot of people didn't like Deep Purple or Black Sabbath but they didn't have riots about it.
Because the people who liked Deep Purple or Black Sabbath were much more likely to be capable of kicking the average Disco fans ass.
"Sweet Home Alabama"
"Play That Funky Music White Boy"
"For What It's Worth" (Buffalo Springfield... There's somethin' happenin' here...)
Yeah, it was a different era, that's for sure.
There have been only three MLB games forfeited due to fans storming the field in modern history. All three were in the 1970s: 1971 in Washington (the Senators' final game), 1974 in Cleveland (10-cent beer night), and 1979 in Comiskey (Disco Demolition night).
He was huge in his time.
Watch a 1977 or 1978 World Series game sometime. Man, those Yankee Stadium crowds were riotous. The Bronx is Burning indeed.
Bullsh*t. Great song. Maybe overexposed, but a great little song. Skynyrd was misunderstood, even by its own fans.
/DBT told me so
Whenever I hear that beginning I think of RIP TIDE hosting "Gotta Dance" on WKRP in Cincinnati. One of the funnier episodes in a great sitcom.
The only other sitcom situation which equaled this is when Alex Reiger visits the gay bar in Taxi. The music is played "Do the Boogaloo" by Quango and Sparky. (Also ironic in that Don Cherry used "Do the Boogaloo" when showing hockey hits on what of his hockey highlight tapes. Glenn Anderson is in those clips BTW)
And that doesn't count all the times the fans charged the field after the game was over, or during a big event (Hank Aaron's 715th).
It's like nobody cared about security.
After the massive saturation campaign of the last week, everything that Michael Jackson ever recorded.
In terms of non-recent-events induced hatred, I'll have to go with anything by Jewel.
Really? There were plenty of blue collar toughs in my neighborhood that liked disco. I wouldn't be so sure of this.
It's not in the excerpt, but the whole point of my post was to link to a Steve Dahl interview in today's Chicago Tribune, conducted by . . . Steve Dahl.
Actually a two-parter. Rememeber: he lost his job on "Gotta Dance" and then came back to WKRP as the overnight DJ known as "Heavy Early" until the replacement morning guy was caught with cocaine and taking payola.
Wait, I may be conflating episodes here, but all of those things happened at some point.
The Who was a bit mod, and we were more akin to rockers. But we used to enjoy The Who on the sly.
I'm going completely by the stereotyped portrayals in most popular media - for Black Sabbath, it's the somewhat burly guy, and for disco, it's the twig.
Reality is undoubtedly somewhat different.
Carlson is no fool. He's going to put it on his feet...
Aha! You sly dog.
Maybe overexposed, Craig? Maybe?
That's like saying maybe I am a little bit handsome. (You can't see me right now, but rest assured, I am incredible looking.)
....a shame what useless stuff is taking up space in my brain.
BTW...
The six songs in the WKRP Music Contest (another episode)
Straight On by Heart
Danke Schoen by Wayne Newton
To Wild to Tame by The Boyzz
YMCA - Village People
Tumbling Dice - Stones
Star Spangled Banner - Francis Scott Key.
They work hard, they play hard.
They did in the music press. The NME hated our music. But I can't remember if they liked disco.
If there was a cultural bias, it was London vs the Provinces. Disco found acceptance in 'London' (which in England is not entirely a geographical location in the cultural sense). More Metropolitan Media Class snobbery dumped on the rest of us. Of course, they won the culture war in the end.
Yes. I mean there was no stadium security, effectively. It was nothing at all like it is today.
And count me as one old fart who prefers the modern-day family-friendly stadium environment to the way it was back then. Night games at Candlestick Park in the '70s/early '80s, especially games against the Dodgers, were remarkable exhibitions of drunkenness, vulgarity, and violence. It wasn't a good thing.
Ha! Love that episode!
I think it was more the Disco clubs were where you could score drugs and get laid.
From my recollection, and I was fairly young at the time, disco left the white, blue-collar American male types on the outside culturally, perhaps for the first time. The reaction against it, I would guess, stemmed from that.
I wasn't a disco fan. And while I'll take Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive over Cake's cover, 30 years hasn't really altered my perspective of most of the music.
Bullsh*t. Great song. Maybe overexposed, but a great little song. Skynyrd was misunderstood, even by its own fans.
it was well before my time, but what was the deal with that "Watergate does not bother me/ does your conscience bother you?" lyric?
I bow in reverence to your clearly superior KRP-fu.
Not to mention that ENTIRE VERSE about Neil Young. Criminy.
AND STAY OFF MY LAWN!
it was well before my time, but what was the deal with that "Watergate does not bother me/ does your conscience bother you?" lyric?
Not to mention that ENTIRE VERSE about Neil Young. Criminy.
The Neil Young verse is in response to "Southern Man". But contrary to popular belief, Young and Ronnie Van Zant were actually friends and it was not meant to be antagonistic. I'm not sure what they meant by the Watergate line although I had read that Van Sant supported Jimmy Carter.
I think that was kind of an in-joke, since Neil discovered the band and helped them get signed (really)
The Small Faces were the true mod band. The Action and The Creation were also worthy.
He wrote some anti-redneck song.
Oh god, yes. I'll cop to liking Rage Against the Machine back in my younger, more vulnerable days, but that #### was awful.
I get no love for quoting the best line of the episode? I didn't even google that!
Southern Man. Not surprisingly, southern men didn't appreciate it.
Southern Man
edit: Ryan. Coke. Etc.
Not to mention that ENTIRE VERSE about Neil Young. Criminy.
The song combines staggeringly inane lyrics with a numbingly stupid, childlike melody. It's pretty special.
But a lot of the people who hated Disco loved Kiss. Kiss!
But a lot of the people who hated Disco loved Kiss. Kiss!
two words:
Ted
Nugent
Speaking of records I'd like to burn....
How were the mid-80s? It seems like the mid-80s had enough unrestrained atmosphere without bordering on the criminal. It'd be cool if when a team won something you could run on the field to celebrate. I honestly don't feel like that's such a bad thing, as long as it's not destructive. Heck, the fans pay for the field in all parks, even San Francisco.
I feel like we're at a point where we can pull back from the tight security a little bit without letting it turn into Animal House.
Steve's comments, and memories of how soccer fans were regarded in England during the late 1970s, do make me wonder what would have happened if it was possible for American fans to travel to almost any away game and back home in a single day. We probably need some East Coast reminiscences to weigh in here, although it is certainly the case that some English teams were more notorious than others. philistine used to tell me about when he used to frequent The Shed in the 1970s. Wow!
I'm all nostalgic for pre-Thatcher Blighty, now - British Rail, Routemaster buses, newspaper strikes. Sigh.
Shooty: I give you a bow as well, and props for literally making me laugh out loud when I read it.
Time to listen to "The Redskins" Fra?
The entire song seems pretty misunderstood with some people misinterpreting "Montgomery's got the answer" as supporting Jim Crow laws, when in fact they are referencing sit-ins and boycotts in support of integration, and their line about Governor George Wallace as an endorsement of segregation when they are in fact, denouncing him "In Birmingham they love the Governor/boo, boo, boo" and "we all did what we could do" meaning "we tried our best to vote him out."
There were some disco hooks in "I was made for loving you," and maybe some other stuff. The Rolling Stones even did a little disco on "Some Girls."
Edit: I owe tribefan a Tab. The old school cola kind since this is a 70s thread.
And now you know... the rest of the story.
Most of the kids at Disco Demolition were stoned, so that wasn't so violent in terms of fistfights, but night games in general at Comiskey Park in the 1970s were pretty scary.
(I wasn't at the DD itself, but watched it at home. The best part was listening to Jimmy Piersall freak out.)
http://www.thrasherswheat.org/jammin/lynyrd.htm
Maybe, but everyone? I think a lot of people hated disco because they hated music disappearing into its own bunghole and wanted something more straightforward and hardworking. Blue-collar tones, but didn't roots-rock experience a surge in popularity at the same time?
I knew that part, and certainly Lynyrd Skynard were no knee-jerk redneck reactionaries (I seem to remember them having a pro-gun control song). The Watergate lyric is still a head-scratcher
Once it was in the past, I could appreciate that some of it was just good R&B;music with an exaggerated four-on-the-floor beat and heavy orchestral arrangements. Once the 1990s came along, it became fun to do the dancing, because the cultural aspects of disco were dead, and what replaced it (hip-hop) made disco look pretty good to me.
Oh, yuck...
Bunch of poseurs.
The Small Faces were the true mod band.
We didn't listen to them. I can't remember if that was bias against or just, y'know, carelessness.
Jethro Tull was another big favourite. Actually, I should get a hold of some of Jethro Tull and see if I still like it. Haven't heard any in years. That may tell one something.
I'm supposed to be working, not going on a nostalgia trip! Thanks, people.
I sure do! No, I knew it was a response to "Southern Man." I guess what I really wanted to know is, "can you believe how terrible the lyrics are?" Admittedly, it is the best song that name drops Neil Young three times. In a row.
It waned in the mid-80s, but some places could still get pretty rowdy.
I remember going to Angels and Cubs games in the 80s, and it was not at all unusual for people to blatantly pass a joint around.
Strikes me if you write and record a politcal/cultural song, and no one, not even your fans, can figure out what the hell you're trying to say, you've committed a rather blatant failure. It's one thing to be controversial, it's quite another to be incoherent.
Maybe worth noting that the song was written in 1973, and that at the time it wasn't yet clear that Watergate was as bad as it truly was, at least among members of rock bands. I always took that as a mild dismissal of impassioned political positions ("Look, you want me to be all defensive about my politics? Well, I'll admit that we did all we could about our dumb governor (boo, boo, boo to him) but Watergate simply doesn't bother me like it bothers you, and if you think it's something I should apologize for, sorry").
But I could be overthinking that.
Most of the standards - at least, most of the one hit wonders standards, I have zero use for (I've always had a soft spot for the BeeGee's Jive Talking).
As for the Nuge -- I give him a pass because of Stranglehold - which is just a kick ass riff. Not a lot of use for the rest of his catalog, but that's a worthy cut.
Agreed. The anecdotes we read about in recent years of fans being ejected for wearing the wrong t-shirt or failing to stand for the national anthem, or whatever, pretty much cross some sort of jack-booted thug line. But Animal House wasn't a good ballpark environment.
There was some disco influence to Some Girls - but the dreadful, Mick and Keith should have been flogged for it, god awful, even the Spice Girls would laugh at it, Emotional Rescue for true Stones disco.
Is there nothing I can say, nothing I can do...
Not on this album, Mick.
For me, country is where I'd find the least I like, but I fully agree that every genre has good stuff in it.
Smooth jazz?
It's funny - some friends and I were just discussing this...
Like all frat boys, we liked to consider ourselves the campus Animal House - and were forever complaining about the oppressive atmosphere of the heavy-handed administration that refused to see the logic in our "look, college kids are going to drink..." Some of us are still involved in the alumni association and frat housing corp -- and boy did we ever have it good... Campuses - at least ours - dry as a bone now. Not on paper dry, but literally hard to find a beer anywhere on campus.
Speaking of crap music... Don't Know You Got, Till It's Gone...
well, to be fair, they were doing a LOT of drugs at the time.
Not a good excuse. Keith was probably at the height of substance abusing during Exile, and that's a spectacular album.
Smooth jazz?
The pickings are thin, no argument, but there's something to be said for the right elevator-music ditty.
I think Keith's peak drug years were closer to 1974-79, but it hardly matters, since he's an inner-circle Drug HOFer for career value.
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