The Days of Lore

Sucking the ‘Sucks’ out of disco

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | musiX

Chicago deejay Steve Dahl just wanted to blow up a few Bee Gees records. It was a riot. Literally.

July 12 marked the 30-year anniversary of the infamous Disco Demolition Night, the flaming bookend to the “Disco Sucks!” movement started by Dahl back in the summer of 1979. Dahl would hold anti-disco events where boxes of records were blown to bits—it should be noted that Dahl was fired from Chicago’s WDAI in 1978 after the station went to an all-disco format. He finally had his largest audience when he was allowed to blow up a box of vinyl in front of 60,000 fans at Comiskey Park. It was all fun and games until the crowd rushed the field, lit bonfires and trashed the joint … while smoking joints. Needless to say game two of the double-header was canceled. Perhaps it should also be noted that the White Sox lost to the Detroit Tigers in the first game by a score of 4-1.

Of course, by 1977 disco had gone from black and Hispanic communities and gay dance clubs straight into the homes of white, middle America. The Bee Gees—three brothers from the Isle of Man who got their start in the late-’60s playing music that was as gentle and harmless as an infant’s sneeze—became the leading purveyors of the genre, which was being bumped in discotheques everywhere. Soon rockers like the Stones and Rod Stewart, KISS and even the Grateful Dead were recording disco songs. Now that’s a powerful movement. Geez, no wonder Steve Dahl was pissed.

The Guardian’s Ben Meyers recently wrote that the “Disco Sucks!” event was also fueled by homophobia and racism. Maybe there’s a little truth to that. But by 1979 disco was so watered-down and white-bread that it would have made more sense if blacks, Hispanics and gays were the ones burning the records. Besides, even the most rough-and-tumble, white, midwestern male probably thought dancing, doing copious amounts of blow, and having sex inside a bathroom stall with a complete stranger at a club sounded like good fun.

So, what have we learned from all of this? We learned that disco does not suck. Steve Dahl doesn’t even suck. The Bee Gees don’t suck. Neither does Saturday Night Fever. John Tavolta … OK, Travolta kinda sucks. And The Trammps‘ “Disco Inferno”—all 10 and a half minutes of it—definitely does not suck. Maybe Dahl’s movement should have been called “Some, Not All, Disco Sucks!” I think more people would have gotten behind that one.

“Disco Inferno” - The Trammps

News coverage featuring my man Bill Kurtis and a young Greg Gumbel

Tags: "Disco Inferno", "Disco Sucks!", Bee Gees, Disco Demolition Night, Saturday Night Fever, Steve Dahl, The Trammps

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