Funkin' Around: The House That Disco Built

Okay, funk a little of this through your speak's and 'phones.


This is one of the deftly selected tracks from the last mix (grab a fistful of music, including the song below, here). Now, these fellows may not appear so very cool, but I think they spent all their money recording all those instruments in the studio. And so they spent very little designing, shooting, and dressing for the record cover.

You know, it's expensive to record this many guys.
A story made super short- the expense of putting full large bands in the studio (for disco, funk, etc) was an annoyance for bands and labels alike. So, when synthesizers made it possible to sub out a few guys, and lay down an additional sound without paying an additional dude- well, synths were understandably popular.
And that is how house music is born (I told you this was the short version). Broke people (so more blacks and Latinos- less ABBA Northern European) could make disco without having to have/pay a full band (no drummer, no strings, no piano player, etc) because one person could use synths instead.

-But!- using different materials (the instruments), even if one were trying to exactly replicate an existing form (disco), will inevitably shift the form too. Disco -->(shifty synthy changey)--> House.
(dropping eggs of knowledge in the discothèque)

Now, this song is not proto-house or anything; that is not what I'm trying to claim. But the "Wedded To The Discothèque" mix I made does eventually shift from disco to more recent house. So I thought I'd throw out a condensed version of how that happened historically. How it happens on the mix is different.
Pretend you are at a wedding reception that you actually really really want to be at- I'm DJing (ahem!). After a while, though our parents have drifted away from the dancefloor, we are really just starting to get wound up.
Gotta let it loose.
So your (inimitable! inestimable! incorrigible!) DJ eases out of the Disco classics, and slips into our classics- Blur, Daft Punk, and a few dance gems that you will crown classics, once you have heard them. Check the Jesper Dahlback RMX of Fox 'n' Wolf, for instance. In fact, check out the whole track listing on the last post.

Wedded To The Discothèque

New mix, and it's essential that you download this before the 4th of July weekend is through.


"Wedded To The Discothèque"- the upbeat dancin'-pants summer mix
Track Listing:
--No Nos Pararan [Spanish-Language cover of "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"] *** Charanga 76

Got To Give It Up (Pt 1) *** Marvin Gaye

--Funkin' Around *** Bloodstone

Tequila [cover of The Champs] *** Duane Eddy

--I Got a Woman [cover of Ray Charles, the same song Kanye West used for "Gold Digger"] *** Bobby Darin

Everybody's Trying to be my Baby *** Carl Perkins

--Sweet Caroline [cover of you-know-who, done pon Steel Drum style, seen?] *** Esso Steel Band

Hang On Sloopy *** The McCoys

--Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood [cover of The Animals- BUT!- a mad DISCO version!] Santa Esmeralda

Bad Girls *** Donna Summer

--Girls & Boys *** Blur
The Girls *** Calvin Harris

--One More Time *** Daft Punk

In Yr Underwear (Jesper Dahlback Mix) *** Fox 'n' Wolf

--Your Bmore Singing Study Mix [an unlikely Balitmore Club edit of "Your Love" by the Outfield, as in "I just want to use your love, toniiiight"] *** Roctakon

(download "Wedded To The Discothèque.zip")

You should use the joy of this mix to place a cherry on top of what ought to be an ice-cream-sundae of a weekend.
This is basically a mix in the Shower-Jamz mold. Actually, there were a few more specific considerations at the origin of this mix.
1) My b-day
2) Girls (either as ‘what girls like’, or as girl-watching during the summer), and
3) Disco.
I thought (correctly) that these three exciting elements would all call forth a very upbeat version of the summer mix.
Now, the first summer mix was a perfect example of a particular side of summer- that wistful, utterly relaxed summer feeling.

But there is another side of summer…
staying out all night,
going to parties after you’ve gone to a BBQ after you've gone swimming,
drinking “summer drinks” (rum and tequila, citrusy, light beer in 10 oz cans and 8 oz bottles- drinks you don’t normally drink, but which go down “champion style” in the summer),
running in flip-flops (including these flip-flasks),

and so forth.
That is this mix. And you gon’ luv it.
Ah, but I digress like a mamma-jamma. Girls, Birthdays, and Disco morphed together, constituting a new theme….

Wedding Madness! This is actually a mix-theme matheme I pondered before. What would be the formula necessary to craft make a mix with
1) all the fun of good wedding receptions;
2) While cutting the cheese out (sorry, no jokey-pants modern country songs, like “Save a Horse- Ride a Cowboy”; no thanks); very difficult, but oh-so-essential, to making disco excellent
3) And still maintaining the songs that “old people wanna dance to, too”. Which would be largely, not exclusively, the disco classics- “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now”, Yeah!.
And I stumbled upon the solution. Take two girls, add one cup (heh) of disco, and shake it all together, on MY BIRTHDAY!
Do you now believe my frequent claim, that I am one divinely inspired, as was Socrates? Except his daimon only told him not to do certain things, whereas my daimon positively brings that hot fire in mix form. My guiding divine daimon likes to party down.
So, yes, I am what Nietzsche called for, waited for, hoped for: that Musical Socrates. Pleased to meet me, aren’t you?

Download that there mix