May 2, 2024 • 31 mins
Explore the seismic waves that rocked the fabric of our society as we dissect the anthemic '60s and '70s rock scene, and how it ventured beyond mere entertainment to become a beacon for change. Feel the heartbeat of a generation in our latest episode, where we reflect on the political and social narratives woven into the music of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. We'll discuss how these artists straddled the line between amplifying social issues and living in the wealth they sung against. With the help of a music mogul who witnessed this transformation firsthand, we examine the complexity and philosophical turns in rock music, pondering if its revolutionary edge got buried under its own depth.
As the era of rock began to wane, a new rhythm emerged to fill the void—disco. This episode captures that transition, shedding light on the 'Disco Sucks' movement and the polarizing effect it had on music lovers. Yet, amid the backlash, we acknowledge disco's undeniable groove and discuss its surprising inclusivity and lasting cultural impact. Prepare to reevaluate the misunderstood legacy of disco through the eyes of our insider, as nostalgia meets a fresh perspective for a dance-worthy trip down memory lane. Join us for a lively discussion that will rock your nostalgia and set your feet tapping to the memories on "Baby Boomers: The Strangest Generation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You know, I always felt that the music that I
listened to in the 60s and 70swas way more important than
anybody else's music.
It felt like it was more thanjust something to dance to, more
(00:22):
than something just to whileaway the time.
It was music that was trying tochange a generation.
The lyrics meant stuff, thesound of the music, the whole
setup of a band with a bassplayer, drummer, lead guitarist,
(00:45):
piano player, bass guitarist asopposed to the big band sound
that preceded it, as opposed toSinatra, bing Crosby.
It was just a huge shift inmusic and a huge shift in
(01:10):
generations.
It was kind of a way of onegeneration dissing the previous
generation.
But you know what that allsounds like heavy-duty
psychobabble.
The fact is it was just music,but it seemed to be more than
(01:36):
that.
But I'm sure every generationfelt that their music was the
best, the most meaningful.
So maybe I'm just being alittle bit self-important, but
if you're a baby boomer and youlisten to music in the 70s and
60s and into the early 80s, Iknow you know what I'm talking
(02:00):
about.
It was important, the thingsthat we listened to.
The lyrics were trying tochange the world.
(02:21):
They were complaining aboutpoverty and racial discord and
inequalities and the Vietnam War.
But I always thought that youknow what, man, you're talking
about, all this stuff.
But you're really just gettingrich.
(02:42):
And I really just picture abunch of friggin' music
executives sitting around a bigtable on Madison Avenue telling
Keith Richards and Mick Jaggeryou know, you gotta get
revolutionary, you gotta saysomething that is controversial.
(03:06):
That's actually a bad example,because the Stones really never
did get controversial at all.
They just played kind of arock-blues kinds of thing and
they kept it real.
The Beatles, you know, they gota little controversial
(03:28):
Revolution, say you want arevolution, but they were kind
of like more preachy and thenthey just got silly.
I am the walrus.
I mean, come on, what the hellare you talking about?
I'm the walrus A day in thelife.
I mean I listen toconversations and interviews
(03:51):
with Paul McCarty now and I saywhat did that lyric mean when
you said I am the walrus?
And he's like I don't know, itdidn't mean anything.
She came in through thebathroom window, Nobody.
She came in through thebathroom window.
Nobody really ever came inthrough my bathroom window.
We were just making music andsounds and the entire teen
(04:16):
generation was just projectingwhatever they felt in their own
lives into these obscureRorschach-like lyrics and in the
end they didn't mean shit.
Pink Floyd you ever listen tosome of the stuff they sang?
What were they talking about?
No idea, they didn't knoweither.
(04:38):
They were selling records.
They were kind of selling out alittle bit.
Then there was the stuff thatjust got too serious.
They were kind of selling out alittle bit.
Then there was the stuff thatjust got too serious In the year
2424, if man is still alive,remember that one CSN, crosby,
(04:59):
sill, nash, young could just getdownright depressing.
They were great, don't get mewrong.
I really I still listen to themreally talented, but in the end
you're just a guy with a guitarsinging a song.
Can you change the world withit?
(05:22):
Maybe, but are you living in afreaking mansion or maybe a few
mansions?
Yeah, you are.
So don't tell me how to solvepoverty while you're getting
rich.
I got no problem with richpeople, not at all.
But don't get too preachy.
(05:49):
Rock music in the 70s and 60swas really good.
I loved it.
I identified with it.
But it started to becomeponderous.
It started to become reallyself-involved.
I mean Jethro Tull.
I loved Jethro Tull.
They were great.
They did an album called Thickas a Brick.
That was one song that took uptwo sides.
(06:10):
You had to change the albumover, flip it over to hear the
second side of the same song andit was brilliant.
It really was.
Yes, I loved.
Yes, I saw them in concert afew times.
They were great.
But, my God, is this still rockand roll?
I mean, where's the revolution?
(06:34):
What are you talking about?
It was like it's just too easyto make up some shitty lyrics
and sell a record, to make upsome shitty lyrics and sell a
record after you hit a certainpoint of notoriety in the rock
(06:54):
world.
But then there were the purists.
There were the guys that justbelted it out ZZ Top, take Me
Downtown.
I'm looking for some tush Kiss,who I didn't really like.
I just want to party all night.
(07:16):
I just want to rock and rolland party every day.
I mean, come on, that's rockright there.
I loved Genesis, but they werethe epitome of progressive rack
and I really liked it.
The Land Lies Down on Broadwaywas great.
(07:37):
What in the F were they talkingabout?
I don't know, but they weregood.
No idea what the frigging guyswere talking about, I don't know
, but they were good, no ideawhat the frigging guys were
talking about and they didn'treally rock.
Then Phil Collins goes out onhis own and he does some pop
tunes and makes a big thing, asdid David Gabriel, the lead
(07:57):
singer.
But rock was becoming like somekind of weird philosophy where
you didn't really get themessage in a straightforward
fashion.
Everything was in code, nothingwas just straight up.
(08:23):
Hey, let's smoke pot and gethigh.
And, by the way, what the frighappened in Vietnam?
By the way, what's the shitwith Nixon?
By the way, let's have anotherdrink?
No, it got to be tooself-important and there was a
(08:46):
time where it needed to tooself-important.
And there was a time where itneeded to be self-important.
There was a war going on thatwas, I believe, unjustified, had
nothing to do with America.
Guys were dying, american boyswere dying over in Vietnam.
For what?
The domino theory?
(09:07):
They thought that if thislittle tiny South Asian country,
when communists that it wasgoing to be a threat to us, and
rockers complained about it.
I used to dislike when guys fromBritain, rock bands from
(09:31):
Britain or Canada would complainabout the war and I would say,
man, you're not from, like NeilYoung and the who would just do
these angry rants about Stop theWar and all this stuff.
And I'm thinking, geez, you'renot really from here, you know,
(09:57):
not mind your own business, butjust give me a good song.
The Guess who?
They were great.
The Guess who released a songcalled American Woman.
They're from Canada, burtonCummings.
I mean the guy great, one ofthe best singers of all time.
American Woman was just acomplete, utter put-down of
(10:24):
America.
American Woman, stay Away FromMe.
I Don't Need your War Machines,I Don't Need your Ghetto Scenes
.
And I'm in a bar listening tothis song and it's really a
poppin' song, hoppin' greatrhythm, great solos, great
singing and everybody's dancingand jumping up American Woman.
(10:47):
And I'm listening to the lyricsand I'm saying this Canadian
dude's kind of saying that hedon't like America, he doesn't
like us.
And here we all are drinkingand dancing to it.
Are we even listening to thisstuff?
Still listen to it?
Are we even listening to thisstuff?
(11:07):
Still listen to it.
Great song.
But the whining and thecomplaining and the preachiness
of rock began to becomelaborious.
It began to become so overlyproduced.
(11:53):
You know, give me three chords,give me Jumpin' Jack Flash and
I'm in.
But I just can't go out to abar at night and listen to some
23-year-old rock star tell meabout how it's so terrible that
there's poor people and richpeople.
(12:15):
I'm out to have some beers withmy friends.
Music was important for a time,lyrically, until it took itself
(12:35):
too serious.
And I'm going to tell you rightnow the day that rock music
took itself too serious.
My name's John Ward.
This is Baby Boomers theStrangest Generation.
Thank you all for listening.
This episode is called DiscoSucks and it's a prelude to my
(12:59):
next episode where I'm gonnainterview a music mogul from
that era who had his foot, hisfeet one foot in the rec world
and his other foot in the discoworld, and I just wanted to do
(13:20):
this one to set the stage.
So it's 1978, 77, somewhere inthere.
You're in your bar.
You're with your buddies there.
You're in your bar favoritewith your buddies.
You're wearing your dungarees.
You got your uh stones t-shirton with the lips and the tongue.
(13:43):
You got your converse, yourlong hair.
You probably got a mustache,like everybody did skinner's on
the uh radio.
A couple people are dancing.
You're doing a shot of beer.
There's a pool table in thecorner and you get up, you gotta
(14:05):
pee, you go to the bathroom andwhen you, it's like the whole
world changed.
Everything is different.
All of a sudden, everybody's onthe dance floor.
(14:26):
There's a spinning ball withmirrors glued to it, little
chips of mirrors and a laserbeam on it and it's shooting
laser lights all over.
People are dressed in whiteacrylic clothing.
Women have got their hair done.
Men, it's not just long hairanymore.
You don't look like aworking-class guy.
(14:49):
People are dressed up incostumes almost.
People are dressed up incostumes almost.
And the music has got violins,it's got heavy bass, it's got
heavy horns and it's reallydanceable and everybody's
(15:12):
dancing.
And it's kind of how disco hit.
It hit overnight.
It was like a comet, like itjust appeared in the sky one
night, just changed the musicworld and then, like a comet, it
(15:33):
just fizzled out and faded awayand we hated it.
The guy in the barstool withthe long hair, with his quarters
on the pool table, ready toshoot the next game I got
(15:58):
winners.
The guy listening to Skinneredon the jukebox, heard disco and
just hated it.
Bob Seger said don't ever takeme to a disco.
You'll never get me out on thefloor.
Give me a minute and I'll belate for the door, kind of like
(16:26):
that.
I like that old fashioned rockand roll.
There was a hatred of disco thatI kind of you know, went along
with, but it was kind of good.
I could never admit that.
But I hear a disco song now.
I'm like, yeah, man, that'sfrigging good, I like it.
My foot's tapping, I'm bobbingmy head in the car listening to
(16:50):
disco and it's all right.
But it kind of killed what wenow call classic rock and roll.
There's classic rock radiostations everywhere.
How many more times, guys,honestly, how many more times
can you listen to Stairway toHeaven?
(17:10):
It's a great song, but please,I can't do it one more time.
Something had to change anddisco was the drop hammer that
fell down, rang the bell andjust said All right, enough with
this ponderous stuff.
The war is over, people gotjobs.
(17:33):
We don't know who killedKennedy.
Probably never will.
Let's friggin' party.
It's kind of like when my dad'sgeneration first heard Elvis,
you know, it was just like ohGod, this is sinful, this is
(17:57):
horrible, this is the devil'swork.
What is this stuff?
It's not even music.
Rockers, stoners, half hippies,bikers, anybody that liked rock
music, bluesy rock music justwent friggin' crazy In a way
(18:22):
that I never saw a reaction to aform of art.
That's all.
It really was, just a differenttype of music.
But when you dig a littledeeper you begin to realize that
it wasn't just another form ofmusic, it was a game changer.
(18:45):
So I'm going to tell you why Ithink Disco sucked and why I
think that there was An all outrevolution against it.
They had a in Chicago when Discofirst hit.
(19:08):
They hit a double header Withthe two Chicago.
The Chicago baseball team hit adouble header and a local DJ
decided to throw a disco sucksparty in between the double
headers, where you could getinto the stadium for like two
(19:33):
dollars to watch thedoubleheader if you brought a
disco record, which they wouldproceed to put all the records
in and blow them up in betweenthe games.
And it got so rowdy and socrazy and so filled with people
that were outraged with discothat it turned into an
(19:54):
out-and-out riot that requiredthe police to come, the fire
department, the half thebuilding was, or the infield was
, on fire.
There were fights, all aboutdisco.
I mean, come on, man, justabout disco.
Why, why, why was it so bad?
(20:16):
Why did it suck?
Rock and roll was neverexclusive.
It never disallowed differenttypes of people.
Obviously it appealed to areally young white audience that
(20:42):
saw themselves asanti-establishment.
But it didn't say, hey, blacks,you can't come.
I don't really know of a lot ofblack people that are my age,
that can recite a lot of Beatlessongs or that even know who Led
(21:06):
Zeppelin was or anything.
But it's not like that.
You weren't invited, it justwas like you didn't like it.
You know, I was listening toMarvin Gaye and a lot of great
R&B from the 60s and 70s thatcould get played along with rock
and roll on the same stationand it was really good.
But I'm just not sure a15-minute guitar solo by Carlos
(21:31):
Santana was going gonna turn ona black audience.
So whereas it didn't excludepeople, it really didn't appeal
to them.
And when disco came out, whenyou saw it on TV, when you
(22:02):
listened to the music, there wasa lot of black influence on it.
Now, I'm not saying that's whypeople rockers dislike disco.
Let me keep talking, keeplistening.
There was another thing Whereasrock and roll didn't address
(22:28):
gays, in fact rock and rolldidn't even know about gays, I
swear, when I was a kid born in1960, I didn't know about gays.
I mean I heard that they wereout there and stuff and there
were some gay dudes around, butit was nothing.
(22:50):
But certainly rock and rollwasn't a musical forum that was
trying to appeal to gay people,but it kind of was in a weird
way.
I mean, elton John, queen,david Bowie, I mean what were
(23:18):
they doing?
They were wearing makeup andshit.
You know, it was like they hadbig hair.
That glam rock, that big hairrock, was coming in and some of
it was good.
I mean who can deny Bowie wascoming in and some of it was
good.
I mean who can deny Bowie wasreally good, elton John's
(23:41):
unbelievable, but his gaynesshad nothing to do with it.
But now disco comes out and itis openly courting gay people.
I watched a YouTube video aboutClub 54, I think it is in New
York and it is just like gaydudes dancing everywhere, black
(24:03):
dudes dancing everywhere and youknow half-naked beautiful
people, and so disco.
I guess, sucked In that sameYouTube video the guy that owned
(24:31):
the club Studio 54, the guythat owned the club Studio 54,
before he opened the club thecrowds would assemble outside
and he would pick who could comein and he picked it based on
celebrity and beauty.
(24:52):
Beautiful people got in, celebrpeople got in.
Celebrities got in.
But a guy dressed like mewasn't gonna get in and didn't
(25:15):
wanna get in.
But disco sucked because itexcluded people that didn't fit
the mold.
Rack really never did that.
Anybody could go to Woodstock,but disco was elitist.
(25:46):
And the biggest reason thatdisco sucked was because it was
about money.
I couldn't afford those kind ofclothes.
I couldn't afford those shoes.
I couldn't afford a haircutlike that.
I didn't want any of that shitanyway.
(26:07):
I know to God I couldn't affordcocaine.
We used to call it the richman's drug.
We just heard about it.
We didn't do it.
We couldn't afford it.
It was like $100 for like anight of fun.
Forget that.
You know we're not even messingwith that stuff.
(26:28):
We're not even messing withthat stuff.
Disco loved rich, celebrity andbeauty and that's why disco
sucked to the baby boomergeneration.
Not because the music sucked,because the music was all right,
(26:50):
it was superficial.
But we needed superficial.
Enough with this heavy-ass shit, enough with this complaining
southern man.
You know, fort Denton, ohio,enough, enough.
Just let me have some fun andparty.
But we really weren't invited tothe party.
(27:11):
God, I hope I don't sound likeI'm complaining that somehow I
was discriminated against,because that's not what it was
at all.
It was a party that I wasn'tinvited to, that I didn't want
to go to.
However, I did go to two discoswhen I was a kid.
(27:38):
We would meet up me and mybuddies at a corner bar and
shoot pool and we'd try anddecide you know where we're
going to go from here, and 90%of the time we would just never
leave there.
But I can remember once ortwice we said we're going to go
downtown and hit a disco becausethat's where the girls are.
And we went in.
(28:04):
And we went in dressed like wedress and looking like we looked
, and the girls were all thereand the place was hopping,
everybody was partying.
There was these strange longlines to the bathroom that we
couldn't figure out, you know,and we just came out of it with
(28:29):
the idea that we don't reallybelong here.
Let's just go back and rackthem up, shoot a game of pool,
have a shot and a beer.
(29:00):
So the the reason that I thinkthat our generation hated disco
so much was more about theracial aspect, the gay aspect
and the elitist aspect.
We were serious dudes, you know.
We knew people that didn't comehome from Vietnam.
We had friends whose dadsdidn't have a leg because of
(29:28):
Vietnam.
Because of Vietnam, we wantedto string Nixon up.
We wanted to know who killedKennedy, who killed Martin
Luther King.
We had some serious issues thatour music was addressing and
(29:58):
disco was just like, fuck it,let's dance.
And we had a little problemwith that.
We were still like, hey, man,we got some shit.
We didn't figure out.
But maybe if we would have justsettled down, dressed a little
different, cut our hair and wentin there, we might have met a
(30:21):
lot more girls and maybe wewould have liked disco.
Really, disco didn't suck, itwas all right, it was just good
time party, fun stuff.
It just scared us, it justintimidated us and it just was
(30:46):
too fast of a pivot.
But it wasn't that bad.
I challenge you, put on YMCAand tell me you don't start
tapping your toe and do the Yand the M and the CA Macho,
macho man.
(31:06):
I.
I mean that was some good shit.
Yet we hated it.
It's all right, we're justboomers and we're the strangest
generation.
Check up with me next week.
I got a great guest, a musicmogul, who's going to talk all
(31:39):
about rock and roll in the 60sand 70s and the transformation
to disco and also his personaljourney, and I think you'll love
it.
Thank you, my name is John Ward.
This is baby boomers thestrangest generation.
Y'all have a good night now.
Bye.
You know, I always felt that the music that I
listened to in the 60s and 70swas way more important than
anybody else's music.
It felt like it was more thanjust something to dance to, more
(00:22):
than something just to whileaway the time.
It was music that was trying tochange a generation.
The lyrics meant stuff, thesound of the music, the whole
setup of a band with a bassplayer, drummer, lead guitarist,
(00:45):
piano player, bass guitarist asopposed to the big band sound
that preceded it, as opposed toSinatra, bing Crosby.
It was just a huge shift inmusic and a huge shift in
(01:10):
generations.
It was kind of a way of onegeneration dissing the previous
generation.
But you know what that allsounds like heavy-duty
psychobabble.
The fact is it was just music,but it seemed to be more than
(01:36):
that.
But I'm sure every generationfelt that their music was the
best, the most meaningful.
So maybe I'm just being alittle bit self-important, but
if you're a baby boomer and youlisten to music in the 70s and
60s and into the early 80s, Iknow you know what I'm talking
(02:00):
about.
It was important, the thingsthat we listened to.
The lyrics were trying tochange the world.
(02:21):
They were complaining aboutpoverty and racial discord and
inequalities and the Vietnam War.
But I always thought that youknow what, man, you're talking
about, all this stuff.
But you're really just gettingrich.
(02:42):
And I really just picture abunch of friggin' music
executives sitting around a bigtable on Madison Avenue telling
Keith Richards and Mick Jaggeryou know, you gotta get
revolutionary, you gotta saysomething that is controversial.
(03:06):
That's actually a bad example,because the Stones really never
did get controversial at all.
They just played kind of arock-blues kinds of thing and
they kept it real.
The Beatles, you know, they gota little controversial
(03:28):
Revolution, say you want arevolution, but they were kind
of like more preachy and thenthey just got silly.
I am the walrus.
I mean, come on, what the hellare you talking about?
I'm the walrus A day in thelife.
I mean I listen toconversations and interviews
(03:51):
with Paul McCarty now and I saywhat did that lyric mean when
you said I am the walrus?
And he's like I don't know, itdidn't mean anything.
She came in through thebathroom window, Nobody.
She came in through thebathroom window.
Nobody really ever came inthrough my bathroom window.
We were just making music andsounds and the entire teen
(04:16):
generation was just projectingwhatever they felt in their own
lives into these obscureRorschach-like lyrics and in the
end they didn't mean shit.
Pink Floyd you ever listen tosome of the stuff they sang?
What were they talking about?
No idea, they didn't knoweither.
(04:38):
They were selling records.
They were kind of selling out alittle bit.
Then there was the stuff thatjust got too serious.
They were kind of selling out alittle bit.
Then there was the stuff thatjust got too serious In the year
2424, if man is still alive,remember that one CSN, crosby,
(04:59):
sill, nash, young could just getdownright depressing.
They were great, don't get mewrong.
I really I still listen to themreally talented, but in the end
you're just a guy with a guitarsinging a song.
Can you change the world withit?
(05:22):
Maybe, but are you living in afreaking mansion or maybe a few
mansions?
Yeah, you are.
So don't tell me how to solvepoverty while you're getting
rich.
I got no problem with richpeople, not at all.
But don't get too preachy.
(05:49):
Rock music in the 70s and 60swas really good.
I loved it.
I identified with it.
But it started to becomeponderous.
It started to become reallyself-involved.
I mean Jethro Tull.
I loved Jethro Tull.
They were great.
They did an album called Thickas a Brick.
That was one song that took uptwo sides.
(06:10):
You had to change the albumover, flip it over to hear the
second side of the same song andit was brilliant.
It really was.
Yes, I loved.
Yes, I saw them in concert afew times.
They were great.
But, my God, is this still rockand roll?
I mean, where's the revolution?
(06:34):
What are you talking about?
It was like it's just too easyto make up some shitty lyrics
and sell a record, to make upsome shitty lyrics and sell a
record after you hit a certainpoint of notoriety in the rock
(06:54):
world.
But then there were the purists.
There were the guys that justbelted it out ZZ Top, take Me
Downtown.
I'm looking for some tush Kiss,who I didn't really like.
I just want to party all night.
(07:16):
I just want to rock and rolland party every day.
I mean, come on, that's rockright there.
I loved Genesis, but they werethe epitome of progressive rack
and I really liked it.
The Land Lies Down on Broadwaywas great.
(07:37):
What in the F were they talkingabout?
I don't know, but they weregood.
No idea what the frigging guyswere talking about, I don't know
, but they were good, no ideawhat the frigging guys were
talking about and they didn'treally rock.
Then Phil Collins goes out onhis own and he does some pop
tunes and makes a big thing, asdid David Gabriel, the lead
(07:57):
singer.
But rock was becoming like somekind of weird philosophy where
you didn't really get themessage in a straightforward
fashion.
Everything was in code, nothingwas just straight up.
(08:23):
Hey, let's smoke pot and gethigh.
And, by the way, what the frighappened in Vietnam?
By the way, what's the shitwith Nixon?
By the way, let's have anotherdrink?
No, it got to be tooself-important and there was a
(08:46):
time where it needed to tooself-important.
And there was a time where itneeded to be self-important.
There was a war going on thatwas, I believe, unjustified, had
nothing to do with America.
Guys were dying, american boyswere dying over in Vietnam.
For what?
The domino theory?
(09:07):
They thought that if thislittle tiny South Asian country,
when communists that it wasgoing to be a threat to us, and
rockers complained about it.
I used to dislike when guys fromBritain, rock bands from
(09:31):
Britain or Canada would complainabout the war and I would say,
man, you're not from, like NeilYoung and the who would just do
these angry rants about Stop theWar and all this stuff.
And I'm thinking, geez, you'renot really from here, you know,
(09:57):
not mind your own business, butjust give me a good song.
The Guess who?
They were great.
The Guess who released a songcalled American Woman.
They're from Canada, burtonCummings.
I mean the guy great, one ofthe best singers of all time.
American Woman was just acomplete, utter put-down of
(10:24):
America.
American Woman, stay Away FromMe.
I Don't Need your War Machines,I Don't Need your Ghetto Scenes
.
And I'm in a bar listening tothis song and it's really a
poppin' song, hoppin' greatrhythm, great solos, great
singing and everybody's dancingand jumping up American Woman.
(10:47):
And I'm listening to the lyricsand I'm saying this Canadian
dude's kind of saying that hedon't like America, he doesn't
like us.
And here we all are drinkingand dancing to it.
Are we even listening to thisstuff?
Still listen to it?
Are we even listening to thisstuff?
(11:07):
Still listen to it.
Great song.
But the whining and thecomplaining and the preachiness
of rock began to becomelaborious.
It began to become so overlyproduced.
(11:53):
You know, give me three chords,give me Jumpin' Jack Flash and
I'm in.
But I just can't go out to abar at night and listen to some
23-year-old rock star tell meabout how it's so terrible that
there's poor people and richpeople.
(12:15):
I'm out to have some beers withmy friends.
Music was important for a time,lyrically, until it took itself
(12:35):
too serious.
And I'm going to tell you rightnow the day that rock music
took itself too serious.
My name's John Ward.
This is Baby Boomers theStrangest Generation.
Thank you all for listening.
This episode is called DiscoSucks and it's a prelude to my
(12:59):
next episode where I'm gonnainterview a music mogul from
that era who had his foot, hisfeet one foot in the rec world
and his other foot in the discoworld, and I just wanted to do
(13:20):
this one to set the stage.
So it's 1978, 77, somewhere inthere.
You're in your bar.
You're with your buddies there.
You're in your bar favoritewith your buddies.
You're wearing your dungarees.
You got your uh stones t-shirton with the lips and the tongue.
(13:43):
You got your converse, yourlong hair.
You probably got a mustache,like everybody did skinner's on
the uh radio.
A couple people are dancing.
You're doing a shot of beer.
There's a pool table in thecorner and you get up, you gotta
(14:05):
pee, you go to the bathroom andwhen you, it's like the whole
world changed.
Everything is different.
All of a sudden, everybody's onthe dance floor.
(14:26):
There's a spinning ball withmirrors glued to it, little
chips of mirrors and a laserbeam on it and it's shooting
laser lights all over.
People are dressed in whiteacrylic clothing.
Women have got their hair done.
Men, it's not just long hairanymore.
You don't look like aworking-class guy.
(14:49):
People are dressed up incostumes almost.
People are dressed up incostumes almost.
And the music has got violins,it's got heavy bass, it's got
heavy horns and it's reallydanceable and everybody's
(15:12):
dancing.
And it's kind of how disco hit.
It hit overnight.
It was like a comet, like itjust appeared in the sky one
night, just changed the musicworld and then, like a comet, it
(15:33):
just fizzled out and faded awayand we hated it.
The guy in the barstool withthe long hair, with his quarters
on the pool table, ready toshoot the next game I got
(15:58):
winners.
The guy listening to Skinneredon the jukebox, heard disco and
just hated it.
Bob Seger said don't ever takeme to a disco.
You'll never get me out on thefloor.
Give me a minute and I'll belate for the door, kind of like
(16:26):
that.
I like that old fashioned rockand roll.
There was a hatred of disco thatI kind of you know, went along
with, but it was kind of good.
I could never admit that.
But I hear a disco song now.
I'm like, yeah, man, that'sfrigging good, I like it.
My foot's tapping, I'm bobbingmy head in the car listening to
(16:50):
disco and it's all right.
But it kind of killed what wenow call classic rock and roll.
There's classic rock radiostations everywhere.
How many more times, guys,honestly, how many more times
can you listen to Stairway toHeaven?
(17:10):
It's a great song, but please,I can't do it one more time.
Something had to change anddisco was the drop hammer that
fell down, rang the bell andjust said All right, enough with
this ponderous stuff.
The war is over, people gotjobs.
(17:33):
We don't know who killedKennedy.
Probably never will.
Let's friggin' party.
It's kind of like when my dad'sgeneration first heard Elvis,
you know, it was just like ohGod, this is sinful, this is
(17:57):
horrible, this is the devil'swork.
What is this stuff?
It's not even music.
Rockers, stoners, half hippies,bikers, anybody that liked rock
music, bluesy rock music justwent friggin' crazy In a way
(18:22):
that I never saw a reaction to aform of art.
That's all.
It really was, just a differenttype of music.
But when you dig a littledeeper you begin to realize that
it wasn't just another form ofmusic, it was a game changer.
(18:45):
So I'm going to tell you why Ithink Disco sucked and why I
think that there was An all outrevolution against it.
They had a in Chicago when Discofirst hit.
(19:08):
They hit a double header Withthe two Chicago.
The Chicago baseball team hit adouble header and a local DJ
decided to throw a disco sucksparty in between the double
headers, where you could getinto the stadium for like two
(19:33):
dollars to watch thedoubleheader if you brought a
disco record, which they wouldproceed to put all the records
in and blow them up in betweenthe games.
And it got so rowdy and socrazy and so filled with people
that were outraged with discothat it turned into an
(19:54):
out-and-out riot that requiredthe police to come, the fire
department, the half thebuilding was, or the infield was
, on fire.
There were fights, all aboutdisco.
I mean, come on, man, justabout disco.
Why, why, why was it so bad?
(20:16):
Why did it suck?
Rock and roll was neverexclusive.
It never disallowed differenttypes of people.
Obviously it appealed to areally young white audience that
(20:42):
saw themselves asanti-establishment.
But it didn't say, hey, blacks,you can't come.
I don't really know of a lot ofblack people that are my age,
that can recite a lot of Beatlessongs or that even know who Led
(21:06):
Zeppelin was or anything.
But it's not like that.
You weren't invited, it justwas like you didn't like it.
You know, I was listening toMarvin Gaye and a lot of great
R&B from the 60s and 70s thatcould get played along with rock
and roll on the same stationand it was really good.
But I'm just not sure a15-minute guitar solo by Carlos
(21:31):
Santana was going gonna turn ona black audience.
So whereas it didn't excludepeople, it really didn't appeal
to them.
And when disco came out, whenyou saw it on TV, when you
(22:02):
listened to the music, there wasa lot of black influence on it.
Now, I'm not saying that's whypeople rockers dislike disco.
Let me keep talking, keeplistening.
There was another thing Whereasrock and roll didn't address
(22:28):
gays, in fact rock and rolldidn't even know about gays, I
swear, when I was a kid born in1960, I didn't know about gays.
I mean I heard that they wereout there and stuff and there
were some gay dudes around, butit was nothing.
(22:50):
But certainly rock and rollwasn't a musical forum that was
trying to appeal to gay people,but it kind of was in a weird
way.
I mean, elton John, queen,david Bowie, I mean what were
(23:18):
they doing?
They were wearing makeup andshit.
You know, it was like they hadbig hair.
That glam rock, that big hairrock, was coming in and some of
it was good.
I mean who can deny Bowie wascoming in and some of it was
good.
I mean who can deny Bowie wasreally good, elton John's
(23:41):
unbelievable, but his gaynesshad nothing to do with it.
But now disco comes out and itis openly courting gay people.
I watched a YouTube video aboutClub 54, I think it is in New
York and it is just like gaydudes dancing everywhere, black
(24:03):
dudes dancing everywhere and youknow half-naked beautiful
people, and so disco.
I guess, sucked In that sameYouTube video the guy that owned
(24:31):
the club Studio 54, the guythat owned the club Studio 54,
before he opened the club thecrowds would assemble outside
and he would pick who could comein and he picked it based on
celebrity and beauty.
(24:52):
Beautiful people got in, celebrpeople got in.
Celebrities got in.
But a guy dressed like mewasn't gonna get in and didn't
(25:15):
wanna get in.
But disco sucked because itexcluded people that didn't fit
the mold.
Rack really never did that.
Anybody could go to Woodstock,but disco was elitist.
(25:46):
And the biggest reason thatdisco sucked was because it was
about money.
I couldn't afford those kind ofclothes.
I couldn't afford those shoes.
I couldn't afford a haircutlike that.
I didn't want any of that shitanyway.
(26:07):
I know to God I couldn't affordcocaine.
We used to call it the richman's drug.
We just heard about it.
We didn't do it.
We couldn't afford it.
It was like $100 for like anight of fun.
Forget that.
You know we're not even messingwith that stuff.
(26:28):
We're not even messing withthat stuff.
Disco loved rich, celebrity andbeauty and that's why disco
sucked to the baby boomergeneration.
Not because the music sucked,because the music was all right,
(26:50):
it was superficial.
But we needed superficial.
Enough with this heavy-ass shit, enough with this complaining
southern man.
You know, fort Denton, ohio,enough, enough.
Just let me have some fun andparty.
But we really weren't invited tothe party.
(27:11):
God, I hope I don't sound likeI'm complaining that somehow I
was discriminated against,because that's not what it was
at all.
It was a party that I wasn'tinvited to, that I didn't want
to go to.
However, I did go to two discoswhen I was a kid.
(27:38):
We would meet up me and mybuddies at a corner bar and
shoot pool and we'd try anddecide you know where we're
going to go from here, and 90%of the time we would just never
leave there.
But I can remember once ortwice we said we're going to go
downtown and hit a disco becausethat's where the girls are.
And we went in.
(28:04):
And we went in dressed like wedress and looking like we looked
, and the girls were all thereand the place was hopping,
everybody was partying.
There was these strange longlines to the bathroom that we
couldn't figure out, you know,and we just came out of it with
(28:29):
the idea that we don't reallybelong here.
Let's just go back and rackthem up, shoot a game of pool,
have a shot and a beer.
(29:00):
So the the reason that I thinkthat our generation hated disco
so much was more about theracial aspect, the gay aspect
and the elitist aspect.
We were serious dudes, you know.
We knew people that didn't comehome from Vietnam.
We had friends whose dadsdidn't have a leg because of
(29:28):
Vietnam.
Because of Vietnam, we wantedto string Nixon up.
We wanted to know who killedKennedy, who killed Martin
Luther King.
We had some serious issues thatour music was addressing and
(29:58):
disco was just like, fuck it,let's dance.
And we had a little problemwith that.
We were still like, hey, man,we got some shit.
We didn't figure out.
But maybe if we would have justsettled down, dressed a little
different, cut our hair and wentin there, we might have met a
(30:21):
lot more girls and maybe wewould have liked disco.
Really, disco didn't suck, itwas all right, it was just good
time party, fun stuff.
It just scared us, it justintimidated us and it just was
(30:46):
too fast of a pivot.
But it wasn't that bad.
I challenge you, put on YMCAand tell me you don't start
tapping your toe and do the Yand the M and the CA Macho,
macho man.
(31:06):
I.
I mean that was some good shit.
Yet we hated it.
It's all right, we're justboomers and we're the strangest
generation.
Check up with me next week.
I got a great guest, a musicmogul, who's going to talk all
(31:39):
about rock and roll in the 60sand 70s and the transformation
to disco and also his personaljourney, and I think you'll love
it.
Thank you, my name is John Ward.
This is baby boomers thestrangest generation.
Y'all have a good night now.
Bye.
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