The annual Dana's Funky Soul Pit is always one of our most popular shows, and deservedly so. Dana does an outstanding job selecting and assembling a fascinating program of soul, R & B, funk, blues, disco, and rock 'n' roll nuggets, mixing the familiar and the obscure to compelling effect. I'm a fan!
Dana divided this year's Soul Pit into three distinct parts: Disco Night, King Records Tribute, and Artist Spotlights. Each section is great, though my 1970s teen pop-punk self would be disgusted with me for digging Disco Night. But as I wrote in my book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1):
"...In the late '70s, disco and punk were supposed to be at war with each other. As a self-professed punk rocker in that era, I can attest that, yeah, punks didn't like disco, and the bumpin'-n-hustlin' set was appalled by the loud and fast noise my people favored. Hatfields and Capulets, meet McCoys and Montagues. Never mind the fact that the mainstream rock crowd held both punk and disco in nearly equal disdain; this was war!
"Except that it wasn't. I'm skeptical of the notion that many of the Saturday Night Fevered ever took much interest in the Damned or the Dead Boys, but some among the new wave brigade did eventually allow their ears and minds to be a bit more open to non-pogo dance music, to the beat of dat ole debbil disco. Maybe it was just me, but I was a pop fan anyway; my intense dislike of disco music evolved into occasional tolerance, and tolerance evolved into a sporadic realization that some of the records weren't bad...
"...Later on, as the know-nothing Disco Sucks movement built its flammable foundation upon a bedrock of racism and homophobia, I began to wonder if I'd chosen the wrong side. The loudest parties chortling at the notion of smashing mirrored disco balls and stoking a bonfire of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack LPs were often just meatheads, the advance guard of reactionaries commencing the implementation of mourning in America. Me? I was a power-poppin' punk, and the Disco Sucks fascists hated me, too. Fuck them. I'd rather hear "Disco Inferno" than 'Hotel California' or 'Cat Scratch Fever' any freakin' day of the week. Burn those records instead. I heard somebody say, 'Burn baby burn!' Yeah, I'd rather hear the Trammps...."
And that is still true. Burn, baby, burn. Wail, baby, wail. Dance and sing, sweat and proclaim. This is what's going on. Welcome back to Dana's Funky Soul Pit.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream, and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO.
You can read all about this show's long and weird history here: Boppin' The Whole Friggin' Planet (The History Of THIS IS ROCK 'N' ROLL RADIO). You can follow Carl's daily blog at Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do).
TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS are always welcome.
Carl's new book Guitars Vs. Rayguns!! Short Stories And Other White Lies is available! Read about it here. Autographed copies of Carl's previous book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) are available here, and you can still get Carl's previous previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
PART 1: Disco Night
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