I just took up bass again after 15 years. I bought one of those Bass for Dummies books that comes with a CD. The guy plays three or four bass grooves from about 20 kinds of music. I listened to it and when I heard the kind of music I wanted to play went to look it up in the book. I expected it to be Jazz Funk Fusion or something. Imagine my surprise when it said Disco! White polyester suits aside, I have now been listening to "The Strobe" on satellite radio and it's pretty damn good music to play. The bass is always out in front. Any music that makes you want do dance is good music. But is anyone in America still playing disco? (PS: I'm not gay.)
it has to do with the "scene." and, yeah, disco basslines tend to be pretty front and center. it is rump-shakin' music, after all.
Well, there is a connection, believe it or not. Part of the cultural backlash against the emergence of disco in the 70s in the United States had to do with the inclusion of the gay community in both the production and consumption of the musical style. That said, disco can be a wonderful style to study. Lots of root-octave endurance routines to work with.
Disco is making a come back the way Country did 5-10 years ago. Country hasn't gone away, but it's not as popular as it was 5-10 years ago. Just ask zac2944. He's part of a 14 peice disco band in Boston and plays out regularly. They even dress up. I'm trying to ge tmy band to play a few disco tunes, and shake some of those booties.
I had to read this twice. But then I looked at your location...then at mine...and it all made sense after that.
Oh country is still pretty popular here too, but it's just not as popular. I'm not in Miami or Fort Lauderdale. I'm about a two hour drive north of Miami in a combination between suburbs and rural. We have plenty of NY Yankee vanity plates and Southern flag vanity plates on cars. It's a real clash of cultures here. The local country bar closed down about a year ago. My band plays Motown, R&B and classic rock, but we are getting requests for disco more and more in the past 6- 12 months.
Yes, Paul Shaffer wrote the music to "It's Raining Men" and Paul Jabara, who wrote a lot of disco tunes for the Casablanca stable of disco artists (hard to believe Casablanca was almost all disco except for KISS and Angel), wrote the lyrics. And yes, Paul Jabara was gay (died of AIDS too). Anyway, disco is still very much alive. They call it "dance music" now. Cher's "Believe?" Pure disco. Almost all of Madonna's music? Disco. And disco is still absolutely a major part of most bass players' bag o' tricks.
Before knowing KISS I already knew the Casablanca label because I got the "Thank God It's Friday" soundtrack which is a great disco album that features artists like Love And Kisses, Paul Jabara, The Commodores, Santa Esmeralda, Cameo, Diana Ross, Natural Juices and Donna Summer, among others. I bought that record one day before my 12th birthday and exactly 365 days later I bought Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" (another Casablanca release) and Dynasty (my first KISS album). Disco brings so many memories to me. I enjoyed it when it was at its peak. When I saw the theatrical trailer of "Saturday Night Fever" for the first time I was shocked. Of course, I got the soundtrack as soon as it arrived here. Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was another disco-flavored tune that I enjoyed a lot. And of course Donna Summer, who replaced Gloria Gaynor as the Disco Queen. I'm not a fan of Cher's music but I bought her Greatest Hits compilation because "Strong Enough" has a strong disco flavor.
Glad to hear Disco is not dead. BTW, nothing against gays. Some of my best friends' friends are gay. But from what I gathered watching the Simpsons, the only places still playing disco today are gay nightclubs. My first bass teacher used to say "When you play, people dance." That is the function of the bass. It's a pity disco had such a tacky image. It's very skillful music. I'll have to try and find some people playing this new "dance music."
Other than the occasional hit song, that's totally true. New disco is pretty much now all gay. I only hear the occasional disco hit in clubs. However, old school disco like KC and Donna Summer still rocks the house at oldies clubs.
Hmm..well, as far as disco being "gay"...I have to say, a local band in town does festivals with afro wigs, white suits, etc...playing KC and the Sunshine Band covers mostly, and it is without a doubt a strongly sexual scene, no more "gay" than straight...lotsa females shakin their booty...its total party music, I just think most str8 guys just can't admit to liking it, therefore its branded as... anyway, I play in an alt.country band, and make ample use of disco-isms in my playing...sliding octave jumps around as transitions, etc. There's plenty there to learn as a bass player when you need to get some groove going...and the simplest way to get a non-blues groove going that's a crowd pleaser is to start playing some quick jumping octaves...call it disco, call it what you will, it's just another tool out of the bag'o'tricks to spice things up.
Isn't most "new disco"/dance music using sequenced bass lines, anyway? I only hear this stuff at the gym, etc., and to my ears I don't hear much bass guitar, but it's definately bassy. My usual thought is...replace the sequenced line with a human being playing a real instrument, get some human feeling, push-and-pull of a real drummer/bassist interaction, and THEN it'd be groove-kicken, not this canned stuff that never varies in intensity like a real player would. Not that it's not good and has it's purpose, but to me a groove is a very human thing of push-and-pull, and most sequence programmers just don't the real-life experience of a live rhythm section to pull that off electronically....though some have done it, impressively enough. But it doesn't stand up when you hear it in a non-club setting, and that's the proof in the pudding for me...can you dig it listening to it on the bus with your headphones? I honestly can't say my own music does. It suffers from the same sort of mood-specific requirement I dislike in most modern music. I guess I should start composing video game music, LOL.
