Disco Sucks and Disco Demolition
Episode 227 of Sunshine After Dark is a documentary feature examining the Disco Sucks phenomenon and the Disco Demolition promotional event, which took place at a White Sox baseball game at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois on July 12, 1979.
I trace the emergence of anti-disco sentiment through comic parody songs:
Homemade Theatre - Disco Tech (1976)
Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck (1976)
polemic punk songs:
Jimi Lalumia & Pyschotic Frogs - Death to Disco (Disco Sucks) (1977)
D.O.A. - Disco Sucks (1978)
and Steve Dahl's parody of Rod Stewart:
Steve Dahl & Teenage Radiation - Do You Think I'm Disco? (1979)
I close with the best musical rebuttal I can think of:
Shirley and Company - Shame, Shame, Shame (1974)
which includes the line: "Shame on you, if you can't dance too."
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The show features clips from news broadcasts and other YouTube videos, which I believe I am using under fair dealing copyright provisions. Here are my sources:
1. Channel 5 NewsCenter5 (Chicago) news coverage, with report from Mike Pumo, July 12, 1979
Source: "1979 Disco Demolition Night, Local News Coverage" YouTube video, beginning at 0:03
Uploader: stellamasters YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpQfCcsqQ0E
Original broadcaster: WMAQ-TV (Channel 5) Chicago
2. Greg Gumbel interview with Steve Dahl recorded prior to and broadcast on July 12, 1979
Source: "1979 Disco Demolition Night, Local News Coverage" YouTube video, beginning at 3:29
Uploader: stellamasters YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpQfCcsqQ0E
Original broadcaster: WMAQ-TV (Channel 5) Chicago
3. Channel 2 News at Six (Chicago), July 13, 1979
Source: "WBBM Channel 2 - Channel 2 News At Six - 'Disco Demolition - The Day After' (1979)" YouTube video, beginning at 00:00
Uploader: The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (www.FuzzyMemories.TV) YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkeld9g3U6E
Original broadcaster: WBBM-TV (Channel 2) Chicago
4. Steve Dahl and Gary Meier on the air on WLUP-FM (Chicago), July 13, 1979
Source: "Steve Dahl on WLUP" YouTube video, beginning at 24:45
Uploader: Rock Radio Archives YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbEgUZ8rP30
Original broadcaster: WLUP-FM (Chicago)
5. Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder and guests Steve Dahl and Meatleaf, August 13, 1979
Source: "Steve Dahl, Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder" YouTube video, beginning at 3:37
Uploader: stellamasters YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aU3WIUxLj4
Original broadcaster: NBC network
6. "Live broadcast" of on-field activity at Comiskey Park, July 12, 1979
Source: "Steve Dahl and his Disco Demolition" YouTube video, beginning at 1:22
Uploader: stellamasters YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xsrz-6U_hc
Original broadcaster: Unknown
7. Bruce Roberts interview with White Sox shortstop Alan Bannister, July 13, 1979
Source: "WBBM Channel 2 - Channel 2 News At Six - 'Disco Demolition - The Day After' (1979)" YouTube video, beginning at 6:54
Uploader: The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (www.FuzzyMemories.TV) YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkeld9g3U6E
Original broadcaster: WBBM-TV (Channel 2) Chicago
8. Patrick Adams on Disco Demolition and Disco Sucks, 2013
Source: "Patrick Adams talks Black Ivory, Disco and Eric B & Rakim | Red Bull Music Academy" YouTube video, beginning at: 1:02:49
Uploader: Red Bull Music Academy YouTube account
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSTlSlR4GR0
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Other Sources
Disco Demolition Night: 30 Years Later. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97lgR41qZC8
Dahl
says he lost his job (0:55). 98 cents was the ticket price because it
was the frequency of the station. Ed Farmer pitched the last innings. A
beach boys LP Fun fun fun. Because it came sailing by my face (4:17).
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Drake, David. (2016). ""An Introduction to Disco Demolition: Riot to Rebirth." https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/09/disco-demolition-introduction
Says he blew up a Van McCoy record on air when the singer passed away July 6, 1979.
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Feder, Robert. (2018). "‘Happy ending’ to stellar career as Steve Dahl leaves WLS today." https://robertfeder.dailyherald.com/2018/12/21/happy-ending-stellar-career-steve-dahl-leaves-wls-today/
Dahl retired December, 2018 from WLS 890-AM (joined 2014). CBS radio cut him in 2008, so he started a podcast in 2009.
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Hawley, Larry. (2022). "Disco Demolition Night: How an anti-disco baseball night led to a riot in Comiskey Park." https://wgntv.com/news/wgn-news-now/disco-demolition-night-how-an-anti-disco-baseball-night-led-to-a-riot-in-comiskey-park/
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Insane Coho Lips membership card. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/steve-dahls-disco-army-insane-coho-429582577
"The
Loop. Where Chicago Rocks FM98. Steve Dahl's disco army [membership
card]. [blank] is a member in good standing in the Insane Coho Lips, the
Steve Dahl Disco Army dedicated to the eradication and elimination of
the dreaded musical disease known as DISCO. The bearer of this card
devoutly pledges allegiance to THE LOOP/FM98 and Steve Dahl, the leaders
in Chicago Rock 'n Roll."
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New York Times, July 13, 1979, Section A, p.16. "Anti-Disco Rally Halts White Sox" short article. It says "Dahl professes to hate disco music."
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Punk Magazine
Punk, March 1977, issue 8 http://punkmagazine.com/vault/back_issues/08/carrie.html
Cartoon about going to a disco and getting pig's blood spilled on and the comic strip burning up.
Punk, March-April 1979, issue 16 - Disco Maniac issue. http://punkmagazine.com/vault/back_issues/16/toc-vol1no16.html
Front cover shows a Travolta-like figure with three legs in a white, 3-piece suit striking Travolta's famous pose while his brains are blown out. Inside, there's an anti-disco comic strip, where a maniacal, evil DJ is controlling people's minds with his records and ultimately commands the crowd on a dance floor to kill each other. Quite a shocking cartoon, possibly homophobic.
Holstrom, John, and Bridget Hurd, eds. (2011). Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine. ISBN-10: 0061958352
The book is a compilation of selected Punk magazine content, not complete
issues, with commentary. The cartoons on the website are not in the
book. Commentary on the Disco Maniac issue:
"7-page anti disco
comic strip for the interior. WTF, Disco had taken over the world, so
we went the MAD Magazine of rock n' roll route full-on. If the magazine
was going to be out of business soon anyhow, we figured we'd just put
together the weirdest issue we could, not caring anything about whether
it would sell or not." At the time, the magazine had 2,500 subscribers and a printing of
20,000 copies for newsstands.
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Record World - Online issues: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Record_World.htm
Record World 1978-12-23 - Article on Record format change/triumph at WKTURecord World 1978-12-30 - Announcement that Steve Dahl leaves Detroit for WDAI-FM in Chicago.
Record World 1979-02-03, p.86 - Allentown, PA. AOR station WSAN-AM Music Director Kevin Graff said: "Disco sucks. It's the worst thing that ever happened to radio. Maybe in the early stages, somebody thought it had possibilities, but we're not buying any of it. It has the same beat for every song. It's a very cheap cop."
Record World 1979-02-24 - Brian Chin "Disco File will never claim that "Rock sucks". Discussing how rock and disco were influencing each other.
Record World 1979-05-19 - 24 yr old Steve Dahl now at WLUP-FM. ("The Loop") A Burkhart-Abrams AOR station. Dahl "blows up disco records on the air. First you'd hear a needle scratching across the record, then the sound of the record exploding.
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Waleik, Gary. (2019). "Forty Years Later, Disagreement About Disco Demolition Night." https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2019/07/12/disco-demolition-dahl-veeck-chicago-white-sox
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Young, Christopher J. (2009). ‘When Fans Wanted to Rock, the Baseball Stopped’: Sports, Promotions, and the Demolition of Disco on Chicago’s South Side. In Summer 2009 Baseball Research Journal. https://sabr.org/journal/article/when-fans-wanted-to-rock-the-baseball-stopped-sports-promotions-and-the-demolition-of-disco-on-chicagos-south-side/
Before the promotion, Mike Veeck opined about disco to Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Bill Gleason. He said: “It’s awful music that had to be forced upon us by the so-called tastemakers. I say ‘had to’ because of the extreme lack of taste in disco. It couldn’t have happened by itself” (Bill Gleason, “The Disco Is Here to Stay Despite Efforts of the Sox,” Chicago Sun-Times, 11 July 1979).
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Sources About the Songs
Homemade Theatre - Disco Tech
https://www.discogs.com/master/209320-Homemade-Theatre-Disco-Tech
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/every-rpm-canadian-content-1-single-discussion-thread-1964-2000.987585/page-158
RPM 1976-05-22 "Homemade Theatre Target on Disco Craze" They got started with Santa Jaws. That led to the DBC series in Feb/March 1976.
RPM issues online: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/RPM.htm
Actually it has Wayne St. John on lead vocals, who also played with Troiano band and later made disco records with THP productions. 8,000 copies shipped in canada. 25,000 shipped in US.
Homemade theatre was producer Fred Mollin, brother Larry Mollin, Phil Savath and Barry Flatman. "Barry Flatman summed up the homemade theatre entertainment conception via their slogan 'cogito ergo ham'."
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Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck
https://www.discogs.com/master/141650-Rick-Dees-His-Cast-Of-Idiots-Disco-Duck
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Jimi Lalumia & The Psychotic Frogs – Death To Disco (Disco Sucks)
https://www.discogs.com/master/556840-Jimi-Lalumia-The-Psychotic-Frogs-Death-To-Disco-Disco-Sucks
From the liner notes: "We are sure that Barry White, Silver Convention, Donna Summer and KC and the Sunshine Band will appreciate this single in the humor with which it was intended. We do not care if Anita Bryant does."
And: "We humbly acknowledge the influence of Rick Dee's Disco Duck, which provided the inspiration for the chorus."
Record World, 1977-09-10, p.22 - "Lalumia calls himself 'the father of the death to disco movement" From Long Island (Lake Grove, NY).
Record World, 1977-12-17, p.93 - "it's chorus repeats the t-shirted phrase "disco sucks". Again, not really a punk rocker, but it holds the distinction of being banned by a major east coast retail chain. For better or worse, last year everything had a disco version, this year it's punk. Next year "Death to punk"?"
https://psychoticfrogs.com/about.php
https://www.suitsandtheplatformboots.com/Mr-New-York's-A-Go-Go-with-Jimi-LaLumia.php
Jim Lalumia hosted on WBAB-FM in Long Island
"During this period I also became a player in the glam rock radio wars. As a fan of Bowie/MainMan, T.rex, Slade and all the rest of the stars dominating the UK singles charts. I noticed the less than welcoming welcome they received at U.S radio." "I found out that radio in America thought then, glam rock was an attempt to turn the youth of America gay, as if someone who was attracted to the opposite sex would "change" due to a song or a visual, if only!!" As a kid he was into glamour and dressing as Mae West. Bullied in school for being different.
Jimi was apparently inspired by an anti-disco article in Punk Magazine. I haven't been able to verify what that article said. But there's a cartoon in the March 1977 issue that shows a disco dancer being doused in pig's blood.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170730231535/http://www.classicrockhistory.com/jimi-lalumia-the-psychotic-frogs-impact-on-the-70s-punk-scene/
He started out writing about music in high school. Dabbled a bit in radio. He worked in a record store. He was inspired by Punk magazine article. He created death to disco buttons and handed them out at Max's Kansas City, a music venue in New York City.
Record World 1978-06-17 - Jimi to appear on Don Imus' TV show discussing their "death to disco" campaign. It was July 20th 1978, according to LaLumia in a Facebook post. "No footage exists of our showdown. But I won!!!," he said (https://www.facebook.com/jimi.lalumia).