Episodes
Saturday Sep 07, 2019
Take What You Find
Saturday Sep 07, 2019
Saturday Sep 07, 2019
And what we find for this ipod-sode is an all-over-the-map mix. “Real” disco doesn’t kick in until track 5; up until then we have a womyn’s music funk act (on Olivia Records, no less), some truly oddball Aussies (in a track that just sends me, off-kilter vocals and all) and some stompin’ funk from tiny L.A.–based Greedy Records. And who knew British juggernaut Fleetwood Mac dropped a tasty disco track on us on the eve of signing on Lindsey and Stevie, thereby blowing up the band forever after? Saint & Stephanie kick off our first disco proper with “Last Train to the Boogie,” a track that punches both my train-song button and my hard-swing button; transportation (planes, trains, UFOs) becomes a theme with Germany’s Harry Tumann and Spain’s Zoom, the Philip Bailey–produced Splendor and the less-than-subtle Hot Bush. But they aren’t half as unsubtle as Badazz whose b-side (“Hot Box”) to their only a-side (“Honk, Honk, Beep, Beep,” look for it soon) is not afraid to go there. The cover to that 12-inch provides the episode’s art: For 1978, it’s way ahead of its game, foretelling the arrival of Prince-like punk/funk tag typography and even St. Vincent’s recent Masseduction. Shâdee (Hasan)’s lone album I Just Need More Money came out on Tamla and featured Stevie Wonder. It’s a great lost record, in the vein of the country/funk/disco sound Stevie mined— and, in my opinion, abandoned too quickly—on “I Ain’t Gonna Stand for It.” We close with the opposite of the opening, a bit of what I like to call “male-gaze” feminism, in which Michele White stands secure enough in her femininity to give her man permission to screw around as much as he’d like. It comes from the folks at Miami’s Sunshine Sound factory.
I Gotta Make Something of My Life—Be Be K’Roche ’76 ɸ Aural Risk—Asphixiation ’80 ɸ Crazy Dancin’—The Bottom Line ’76 ɸ Keep On Going—Fleetwood Mac ’73 ɸ Last Train to the Boogie—Saint & Stephanie ’79 ɸ Take Me to Your Disco—Splendor ’79 ɸ Time of the Seasons (sic)—Neil Cloud Orchestra ’79 ɸ American Express—Harry Thumann ’79 ɸ Take What You Find—Helen Reddy ’80 ɸ The Letter—Zoom ’78 ɸ Because the Night—Mighty Pope ’79 ɸ I Just Need More Money—Shâdee ’79 ɸ Flight 69—Hot Bush ’80 ɸ Hot Stuff—Novella Edmonds ’79 ɸ Hot Box—Badazz ’78 ɸ As Long as You Come Home—Michele White ’78
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