has anyone found a meaningful common ground between prog and disco?

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lewis taylor and phoenix may be oblique answers to this question, but is there a record that hits this on straight-on?

ok, one could answer with the names of certain proponents of arty electro and other electronic genres, but if that's prog it's more in spirit than letter. i'm thinking more of the "surface" qualities of both genres--the rhythm patterns, the instrumentation, the song structures....

i imagine the real answer to this question would be something deeply felt and deeply unholy, but i've yet to hear it.

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:19 (twenty years ago)

David Bowie's "Station to Station" to thread.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:20 (twenty years ago)

(the name of giorgio moroder suddenly haunts this thread, though i'm not sure exactly why.)

xpost

bowie... that's a good answer. though it seems, like lewis taylor, to relate a bit more to slow-burn r&b (which of course overlaps with disco plenty) than the sort of hard disco/prog combination i'm imagining.

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:22 (twenty years ago)

The Rockets (a french band)

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago)

Manuel Gottsching's E2-E4
(Ash Ra Tempel guitarist makes proto-techno/house)

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago)

gottsching and station to station OTM

― peter smith (plsmith), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:29 (twenty years ago)

I think Sparks's #1 in Heaven, produced by Moroder, would definitely qualify. It's their only consistently great album, too.

― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:29 (twenty years ago)

Patrick Cowley's sci-fi concept albums!

Also the urge to EXTEND!

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:30 (twenty years ago)

Supernature by Cerrone. It's a sci-fi concept LP that rips off Kraftwerk and Moroder by way of Donna Summer.
Or maybe you're looking for something along the lines of Robert Wyatt's cover of "At Last I Am Free" by Chic.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:30 (twenty years ago)

daft punk

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:32 (twenty years ago)

http://www.geocities.com/lesrockets/E_s.htm

(daft punk=rockets rip-off. but i like daft punk.)

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:33 (twenty years ago)

oh my i forgot about e2e4, which i own. though somehow i think finding a common ground been prog and disco vocals would be a big part of the challenge/fun.

(i will be gathering up the albums namechecked on this thread and buying them at some later date.)

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:38 (twenty years ago)

"Another Brick in the Wall" has got quite a disco-sounding bassline.

― Wooden (Wooden), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:38 (twenty years ago)

"urge to EXTEND": o you know it honey. Urge to fuck with something that seemingly desn't need or anyway want to be fucked with (not the way the Proggs are doing it, not anymore. O alright then get it over with. H'mm! Thatt tickles [z-z-z-z])Whu!? Yes Giorgio! Shock The MonkeyPeterTalkingHeadArtofNoiseHEY

― BigFatDrunkChickWithABoombox, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:39 (twenty years ago)

roxy music, i would think. i'm too tired and brain-dead to come up with examples, though.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:41 (twenty years ago)

System 7: the first album

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:41 (twenty years ago)

The Grid - 456

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago)

90125?
Standing on the Verge of Getting It On?

― art f, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:45 (twenty years ago)

Damn, someone beat me to 90125.

― mike a, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:47 (twenty years ago)

This is the record you're looking for:

Side-long discofied treatment of "Nights in White Satin"

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:51 (twenty years ago)

(img didn't work)

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:52 (twenty years ago)

What the hell? Anyway, talking about Giorgio: Knights in White Satin.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:53 (twenty years ago)

kompakt's only a step away from disco and prog

― nick.K (nick.K), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 15:59 (twenty years ago)

i think talking heads (mentioned upthread) and King Crimson's 80s period totally fit the bill

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:04 (twenty years ago)

but that's basically new wave. you could say Japan as well I guess.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:13 (twenty years ago)

well then what about Bohannon, who sounds like talking heads & 80s KC, but is definitely in the disco

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:15 (twenty years ago)

i haven't heard it! maybe I need to

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:18 (twenty years ago)

Bohannon is like the disco Neu!
Check out the first side of the Hamilton Bohannon lp--sounds like Stereolab. (maybe too simple to qualify as prog, tho)

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:20 (twenty years ago)

bohannon's not so prog, but he's got those stomping, stripped-down, repetitive rhythms that are almost like something on a Magma record

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Much as I like Robert Wyatt and Nile Rodgers, and the way they suit each other on RW's cover of "At Last I Am Free," it's not really prog (too uncomplicated, though remaining lyrically complex, as well as lyrical). And, if it were a *disco* ballad, rather than a ballad on and from a disco album, then the beat would come in at some point, and prob take over. Donna Summer did it all the time, might could do this one. Madonna! Gotta do something now, girl.(Course that's what her buddy Rupert Everett said about "American Pie.")Some of Wyatt's comp-mates on post-punk WANNA BUY A BRIDGE? might qualify (Cabert Voltaire, after BRIDGE, anyway? Ditto Essential Logic?)

― Don, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:21 (twenty years ago)

"Harder Better Faster Stronger" is just what I was thinking of. I wanna hear these Rockets. The link didn't work tho.

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Hmm, "Let's Go Swimming"?

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:23 (twenty years ago)

thank you art f for saying standing on the verge, also add all parliament albums after 1976 (at least tracks over six minutes), all other post-standing funkadelic albums, and a couple of george clinton solo tracks like "you shud-nuf bit fish"

― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:29 (twenty years ago)

the thing that immediately occurs to me, though it's I dunno, club dog crusty house, or ambient tecno-something or other, not disco, is Ultramarine's "United Kingdoms", featuring Robert Wyatt & Jimmy Hastings, among others IIRC. I guess you could lump Eat Static in w/that because of the Ozric link.

as far as Disco proper goes, I can't think of anything. Caravan's "9 feet underground" is pretty on-the-one in places? I suspect that there is no meaningful common ground.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:33 (twenty years ago)

Let's Go Swimming ON THE MONEY.

Camberwell Now have a song with a disco/techno beat. Forget what it's called, though.

But really, as far as BAD prog, there are countless disco records that may as well have been produced by Rick Wakeman. the disco Wuthering Heights, for instance, a side-long track worty only for a brief break(sampled by Morgan Geist and on some Porkchop mixes)

But there's lots of euro-disco in a kraftwerk meets Morricone mode that could qualify, Black Devil Disco Club, Quartz, 1000 Finger Man, Seven Deadly Sins etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:45 (twenty years ago)

amateur!!st mentions Phoenix in the question, and "Funky Squaredance" really fits the bill - especially as it's overblown and bombastic. I guess it might be too ironic, but then it's ironically fun in that disco way...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:54 (twenty years ago)

"kompakt's only a step away from disco and prog"

more like "TROHNCE"

― duke oakey, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago)

Late-era Ultravox treaded a line between prog and disco, I think.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:27 (twenty years ago)

jean-michel jarre 'oxygene', came out only a month or so after 'i feel love'

earth wind and fire also used to be a kind of progressive soul-funk-rock band

was (not was) and material (who basically WERE Gong when david aellen moved to new york)

steve miller band 'macho city'

there's loads of them

― simon r, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:49 (twenty years ago)

Goblin

― jjj, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago)

kyle, check the gmail.

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:53 (twenty years ago)

holger czukay - perfume

― firstworldman (firstworldman), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:56 (twenty years ago)

halfway through listening to rockets-galaxy and loving it. though DP really only ripped off rockets' image, not the music so much.

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 17:58 (twenty years ago)

it's been years since i listened to Can's "Flow Motion" (and i only listened to it once), but wasn't that a sorta disco record?

― JaXoN (JasonD), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:07 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, as many people above have pointed out, lots of stuff fell on the Europrog/Eurodisco cusp -- a couple more are "For Amusement Only" by Alec Costandinos and *Beauty by Santa Esmeralda. (I talk about a lot of these in the "Roman Catholic Pagan Ritual Rock" chapter of my second book.) The fantastic band Babe Ruth come to mind, too -- they actually got lots of play in mid '70s gay discos, as, allegedly, did a European Uriah Heep-style band called Titanic who I've never heard and really want to. Golden Earring did stuff with disco-style rhythms, too. And just last week I bought a 1978 Patrick Moraz album for 60 cents in an Ohio thrift store, and it mixes Brazilian percussion, robot vocals, and Eurodisco synths into its bombast...

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:12 (twenty years ago)

And oh yeah, the liner notes to one of Silver Convention's early albums imply that they considered themselves part of Kraut rock.

And obviously Queen were stealing riffs from Chic by the early '80s!

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:13 (twenty years ago)

Patrick Cowley's sci-fi concept albums!

Also the urge to EXTEND!
Yes, the first thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title was the 16-minute Cowley remix of "I Feel Love".

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:14 (twenty years ago)

Also, "Strawberry Letter 23" by Brothers Johnson has a break in it that sounds a LOT like Yes. And there's a track on Donna Summer's *The Wanderer* that sounds like Rush. Honestly, this list could go on forever...

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Where would Cloud One fit into this? Those synth solos sure were noodly, though I don't know whether that qualifies in and of itself...

― Sean Thomas (sgthomas), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:29 (twenty years ago)

I'd say no.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:37 (twenty years ago)

i think a lot of these bands straddle the rock (as opposed to prog rock)/disco divide, which is not exactly what i had in mind. i was thinking sort of a yes/kc and the sunshine band mashup.

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:46 (twenty years ago)

define your terms; which elements of each genre are you looking for?

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:49 (twenty years ago)

Not all prog sounded like Yes, and not all disco sounded like KC.....

― mastodon, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:49 (twenty years ago)

i guess a certain trait of much prog (multiple discrete parts with v. different textures and shifting time signatures etc.) is kind of antithetical to a certain trait of most disco (the obvious).

i think most of the stuff mentioned on this thread makes sense, but some of it (queen?) is a little remote....

― amateur!!st, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:52 (twenty years ago)

In that case "Let's Go Swimming" and other Arthur Russell numbers is your answer. Some of Larry Levan's more outre productions might count as well, esp. "The Greatest Performance of My Life" or "Got My Mind Made Up"

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:07 (twenty years ago)

jjj stole my answer: goblin fer sure

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:07 (twenty years ago)

speaking of Goblin-

Fear by Easy Going, produced by Claudio Simonetti.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago)

LOTS of disco changes textures and modes throughout the course of its 10 or 12 or 15 prog-like minutes (in fact, the beat underneath is what allows it do so -- you can put all different kinds of music, everything from classical to folk to rock to ethnic stuff on top, just like prog did); in fact, Chicago House producers (like Marshall Jefferson, I think) in the mid '80s explicitly cited prog-rock in interviews as an inspiration for HOW the music progressed through time. And of course, even when individual records don't changes modes, DJs do in their sets. They try to tell a story; try to get from point A to point Z. Actually, the two genres have a lot in COMMON that way.

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:15 (twenty years ago)

And a lot of those Eurodisco guys like Cerrone and Costandinos and Santa Esmeralda were totally making concept albums, completely pretentious ones, with opera parts and everything. They were about as prog as you can get.

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:18 (twenty years ago)

yeah cerrone and santa esmeralda seem especially otm here

― cinniblount (James Blount), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:22 (twenty years ago)

The entire Malligator family...Cerrone, Don Ray, Max Berlin, Kongas etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:25 (twenty years ago)

Hawkwind, from first album, 'Be Yourself' - tribal disco.
George Duke LPs for MPS such as 'I love the blues . . . ' and 'The aura will prevail'.

― Edgard, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:44 (twenty years ago)

Also maybe Public Image Ltd., *Metal Box*/*Second Edition* (at least as much as any of the Wanna Buy a Bridge stuff, I think)

― chuck, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 20:25 (twenty years ago)

A lot of those mid-90s Sasha remixes sounded fairly proggy to me...

― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 20:26 (twenty years ago)

Most prog bands from the 70s had at least one disco moment.

I've always kind of thought of disco as being the prog of dance music. Escapist, often elaborate productions, self-empowering and the music is supposed to mean more than the people behind it.

― dleone (dleone), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 20:36 (twenty years ago)

What about Earth, Wind & Fire? Crypto cosmic eco egypto disco prog, surely?

― JoB (JoB), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago)

Dexter Wansel 'Life on Mars' LP (Philadelphia Int'l)

― Edmundo, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 21:33 (twenty years ago)

that track is dope

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 21:45 (twenty years ago)

The new Emperor Machine full-length on DC Recordings might fit in there somewhere - Chicken Lipsy (not lispy!) post-disco with a whole lotta Gottschung in there.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 21:54 (twenty years ago)

today i intended to start a "bohannon vs. bo hansson" taking sides.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 22:41 (twenty years ago)

also:

disco circus "in-a-gadda-da-vida"

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 22:49 (twenty years ago)

i'd say verdis quo by daft punk is the closest it gets. a lot of microhouse could be counted too.

― dog latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago)

Edmundo, feel free to add your two cents to this thread if you want (it died an undignified death):

Taking Sides: Spaceball By Larry Young's Fuel -vs- Life On Mars By Dexter Wansel

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 22:54 (twenty years ago)

oh god disco circus! jbr this thread is made for you

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 26 August 2004 00:38 (twenty years ago)

Tbe two songs which immediately came to mind for me were "Your Love" and The Blue Nile's "Tinseltown in the Rain" (which needs a Mayer or Superpitcher mix stat)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 26 August 2004 01:48 (twenty years ago)

hmm, that "Your Love" intro is kinda "Tubular Bells"-ish, isn't it?

― Monetizing Eyeballs (diamond), Thursday, 26 August 2004 03:10 (twenty years ago)

I think of prog, or too much of it, as being like too mich fusion, in that they value a show of complications, not even for the thrill fo "looka what *I* can do!" which would be a great if they could thrill me with it (hey, a thril's a thrill, I'll take it.) But too ofetn, it's more labored than that:"This vill be GUT for me. Und for you." And complication" mistaken for complexity. The latter can be much more elegant than that, which is why I tend to think "prog" vs. "artrock" even though prog is a kind of artrock. PiL (and the Pistols, and Led Zep sometimes) are artrock, and I guess so is WANNA BUY A BRIDGE? So I don't think of that as prog-disco, though obviuosly all concerend have listened to both quite a bit along the 70sway. Ditto for several other things yall have mentioned.

― Don Allred, Thursday, 26 August 2004 03:11 (twenty years ago)

If prog=let's get complicated, artrock=let's stay complex, then August Darnell's lesser stuff (lesser Dr. Buzzard, Kid Creole, etc.) would be prog disco, the better stuff would be artrock disco (by my biaed standard).

― Don, Thursday, 26 August 2004 03:50 (twenty years ago)

i wonder: has no one heard lewis taylor?

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Thursday, 26 August 2004 03:54 (twenty years ago)

Underworld's pretty prog and disco aren't they?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 26 August 2004 03:57 (twenty years ago)

Again, Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder. To me, prog was epitomized by Yes and the like - those 20-minute suites that filled an entire vinyl side, broken down to segments, each with a (way-pretentious!) sub-title of its own. And Donna's "MacArthur Park Suite" and a few others did that very thing.

Another standard aspect of prog = Side-long tracks NOT split into segments. "Love To Love You Baby" and "J'Taime" are over 16 minutes. And also within the realm of the unified-side category are things like Bad Girls, in which not only do all four sides have their own distinct flavour (rockers, more rockers, ballads, electronics), but sides 1, 2 and 4 all present their songs with no silences between 'em(just like Pink Floyd always did) and without relinquishing the beat. In other words, they all share the same beat and tempo throughout, even as the songs themselves sound very little alike.
More prog/disco similarities:
Prog = "Concept" LPs. Donna's "Four Seasons Of Love" and "Once Upon A Time
Prog = Technologically adept. Just like Giorgio's synth-based stuff

As for the other, non-Summer/Moroder disco proggers, I've only heard Santa Esmeralda; but I'm sure Chuck can tell you all you need to know about Cerrone and Silver Connection and whoever.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 26 August 2004 05:16 (twenty years ago)

Probaby some mash-ups qualify. They can seem complicated *and* complex, and hot as hell too. Also, on the artrock-disco thing, I think of mash-ups as the post-punk of *this* time, retro-nuevo post-puknettes aside. (Not that I don't love *some* of the latter, in this timette time of pop culture, they defintely fit). Post-punk saw past social distinctions of punk and disco, also saw *in* to the social distinctions, cos a fair number of people swung both ways. Saw the possibilities and limitations of both, and how to let them and how to *make* them fit together (by checking pre-punk, like progtronica, and the use of technology and 'rithmatic). Mash-ups compress or stretch or speed up or slow down or all of the above,make something new out of old bits, to make shit fit. It works! Disco dis way, disco dat way

― Don, Thursday, 26 August 2004 06:05 (twenty years ago)

Def Donna Summer's 4 seasons album - also her best, in my opinion

― Robin Goad (rgoad), Thursday, 26 August 2004 07:09 (twenty years ago)

Actually the proto-disco stuff is pretty proggy.

Thinking especially War's "City Country City" here.

It has multiple overlapping themes, is split into sections, changes pace and key and has a concept.

― Jacob (Jacob), Thursday, 26 August 2004 07:46 (twenty years ago)

We've talked about this album on ILM before

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:31 (twenty years ago)

don't mean to be glib but long instrumental solos would seem to be a fairly meaningful bit of common ground - they were used for different purposes.
in prog yer classic virtuoso guitar solo designed to show off just how good the musicians were had a kinda psychedelic, hash-hazed, trippy, hippy zone-out effect whereas disco's extended drum breaks, 15-minute mixes and had similar transcendent intentions, just geared to dancing, rather than head-nodding.
the drugs were different, the people were different and the music was different, but there was a lot of crossover in terms of the utopian idealism behind these scenes and a lot of mutual summer-of-love heritage.
mancuso is/was essentially a prog dj anyway - a huge audiophile, very into musicianship, mood-creation, slow, long builds, not into destoying the integrity of the recording by mixing ... HE EVEN HAS A BEARD!!!
they're really not so far removed at all.

― stelfox, Thursday, 26 August 2004 09:53 (twenty years ago)

ABBA

― jjj, Thursday, 26 August 2004 10:37 (twenty years ago)

Salsoul Orchestra's "Magic Bird Of Fire" springs to mind immediately!

HEAVY HEAVY disco reworking of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite!

― ashley MCR (Ashley), Thursday, 26 August 2004 12:18 (twenty years ago)

one thing that's surprising about a lot of the more underground disco (and it continues with a certain vein of house, the Joe Clausell end of things and MAW and that lot -- = the last bastion of pure muso-dom it often seems) is the sheer level of musicianship involved. real flash playing. a lot of those disco singles have guitar solos on.

Side 2 of Once Upon A Time by Donna Summer = a veritable song-suite

more proggers gone disco -- Chic were in some kind of progressive band beforehand -- weren't the Blockheads some kind of fusiony/prog called something like or Loving Essence or summat? -- Stevie Wonder and his link up with Tonto's Expanding Head Band, synth boffins --
and although not that disco-y itself, Donna Summer's cover of 'State of Independence' the Jon Anderson song

we're just scratching the surface here people

― simon r, Thursday, 26 August 2004 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Some Blockheads were in either East of Eden or Glencoe or maybe both

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 12:59 (twenty years ago)

simon's right here, but you can take it even further than that. ignore the fretwanking on the actual records and look at the way mancuso, siano and now especially claussell actually play them. there's a real parallel between the absorbing, spacey prog guitar solo and the way these guys work the eqs when djing. it's a total virtuoso performance and one of the reasons why although i don't find the disco continuum as exciting as certain others, i'll always have tremendous respect for people like danny krivit et al. funnily enough, one of the guys from the now sadly defunct strut records sent me a photograph a while ago. it was of the dj booth at body and soul one night after claussell had finished playing one of his sets. the turntable and the rotary mixer were absolutely *covered* in blood, where he'd been working the dials so much he'd torn his hands to shreds - i'm sure i've heard apocryphal stories about this in rock.

― stelfox, Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:19 (twenty years ago)

I've always kind of thought of disco as being the prog of dance music. Escapist, often elaborate productions, self-empowering and the music is supposed to mean more than the people behind it.

ie, prog and disco are not only lacking common ground, they share some very important basic characteristics. Stylistic things like flashy solos in prog or four-on-the-floor beats in disco are diversions in this debate.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:22 (twenty years ago)

ugh, imagine the first sentence to start, "ie, not only is there meaningful common ground between prog and disco..."

new mantra: think things through, think things through

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:24 (twenty years ago)

that's the whole point behind my earlier metion of transcendence etc. it's vastly important. tim lawrence has some very interesting things to say on this in his book, or at least the people he interviews.

― stelfox, Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:31 (twenty years ago)

"Here Comes the Night", Beach Boys were prog

― dave q, Thursday, 26 August 2004 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Apparently everything was prog

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago)

Meaningful or not, here goes:

Bubba Sparxxx: 'Warrant'
St. Thomas: 'Dance to the Disco'
Daft Punk: Some parts of the 'Discovery' album, I don't remember which

And especially:

Jimi Tenor: The 'Out Of Nowhere' album

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:40 (twenty years ago)

well, the disco remix of "here comes the night" is definitely disco, but i dunno about prog.

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:44 (twenty years ago)

actually, the bubba and st. thomas songs are more like faux pseudo-disco. and none of these are really prog. daft punk and jimi tenor aren't, of course, from the disco age, but they do indeed flirt with prog, both of 'em. and disco. meaningful? probably not tenor. daft punk: maybe. i've always had a hard time figuring that record out.

― Jay Kid (Jay K), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:47 (twenty years ago)

I'd say the most meaningful common ground between the two is the virtuoso playing on all those early disco records. ace veterans of funk/soul/r&b bands playing extended solos, tricky big band arrangements. i mean, the dudes in fatback were as talented as the dudes in gentle giant. if not more so.
But bandwise, the meeting of the minds would have to be ELO, no?

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 26 August 2004 14:56 (twenty years ago)

Fusion has to be the way forward on this one, hasn't it? George Duke's indulgent but phat synth explorations; James Mason's shotgun fusion of disco and spindly synth solos...

― Derek Walmsley, Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:43 (twenty years ago)

Two words: ARP Odyssey

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:44 (twenty years ago)

ELO, of course!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:45 (twenty years ago)

Were ELO prog at all?

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:45 (twenty years ago)

I think as much so as some of the other stuff being classed as "prog" on this thread.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:47 (twenty years ago)

or more so even.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:47 (twenty years ago)

ELO were definitely a "prog" band at first. Signed to Harvest, etc.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:51 (twenty years ago)

Some Herbie Hancock stuff too, maybe??

― chuck, Thursday, 26 August 2004 16:58 (twenty years ago)

I was listening to Dirty Mind about a month ago after reading Mr. Eddy's take on "Head" in his chapter on prog-disco in The Accidental Evolution of Rock & Roll and thinking, "Damn, the keyboard solo on this song really *does* sound like ELP!!"

― Mike Ouderkirk (Mike Ouderkirk), Friday, 27 August 2004 00:42 (twenty years ago)

What about Frankie Goes to Hollywood? Trevor Horn production (a la 80s Yes), a huge, bombastic dance/pop sound, and even Steve Howe played on Welcome to the Pleasure Dome, if I recall.

― David A. (Davant), Friday, 27 August 2004 02:50 (twenty years ago)

What about Yes' "Don't Kill The Whale"?

Dig it!

Did Steve Howe really play on Welcome To The Pleasure Dome?

― wetmink (wetmink), Friday, 27 August 2004 04:22 (twenty years ago)

Jason Forrest has made a career out of using prog samples to make disco records and vice versa. The more adventurous disco producers were always making progressive music.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 27 August 2004 07:20 (twenty years ago)

Thinking back to the full-length version of "Love to Love You Baby" I realized the song "progresses" through several semi-discrete movements. Long proto-disco tracks (album cuts on Philly Soul hits, James Brown's Pt1&Pt2s) and early dance mixes (Tom Moulton et al) extend by stretching out the rhythmic breaks, teasing the beats. So the common ground between prog and disco really begins with Moroder and the Euro-producers. Or maybe with Can and their connection to Miles Davis' elongated (and heavily edited)psychedelic funk pieces.

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Friday, 27 August 2004 09:35 (twenty years ago)

Who's afraid of the Art of Noise is the one correct answer, and gets bonus points for also being the common ground between punk, hip hop and ambient.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Friday, 27 August 2004 16:17 (twenty years ago)

you could say the same about malcom mclaren. kinda. concept albums. punk. hip-hop. opera. ambient mixes.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 27 August 2004 16:25 (twenty years ago)

actually, The Flying Lizards is the correct answer! David Cunningham avant-disco, if you think of Prog more in the Henry Cow/Rock In Opposition sense then the Yes/ELP sense.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Friday, 27 August 2004 18:41 (twenty years ago)

I went and bought the new The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads yesterday, and, while listening to disk 2 (which features the extended 10-piece lineup [which features Adrian Belew]), I thought about this thread.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 27 August 2004 18:56 (twenty years ago)

This may be a little blatant.

http://www.floydian.de/dokument/doc945/thema3476.htm

― mzui, Friday, 27 August 2004 19:11 (twenty years ago)

>Long proto-disco tracks (album cuts on Philly Soul hits, James Brown's Pt1&Pt2s) and early dance mixes (Tom Moulton et al) extend by stretching out the rhythmic breaks, teasing the beats. So the common ground between prog and disco really begins with Moroder and the Euro-producers. Or maybe with Can and their connection to Miles Davis' elongated (and heavily edited)psychedelic funk pieces.<

Or maybe with *Hot Buttered Soul,* and the long version of "Inna Gadda Da Vida" (covered by a number of Eurodisco acts, not just Disco Circus).

― chuck, Friday, 27 August 2004 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Simon mentioned pre-Chic, which (at least when they were called Big Apple) I've seen descriptions of as "Led Zep-like funk rock," so mebbe "artrock," as I think of Zep's work, esp. mid-late 70s, as artick(the stuff I like, though actually at the time, as I recall, ELP, Genesis, a few others were commonly reffered to as artrock.[not Zep or Pistols yet, though common enough later)."Progressive" seemed more of a fannish/ad copy term, at least to those of us (many!) who loathed ELP, Genesis, etc. "Prog" to an extent is one of those revisionist stereotype labels, man , like all this "decade" shit, basically.As far as Can, see them and others fit very well on DISCO NOT DISCO and DND 2.

― Don A, Saturday, 28 August 2004 16:30 (twenty years ago)

all this "decade" shit
OTFM

― sexyDancer, Saturday, 28 August 2004 17:13 (twenty years ago)

Vangelis

― dave q, Saturday, 28 August 2004 17:21 (twenty years ago)

A lot of "prog" and "art-rock" sensiblity actually goes at least as far back as jazz, and "disco," in the hyper-effcient, dance-lab-factory sense, is like the big band swing I had to program for my Dad's exercise class.(Long before the movie "Swingers" started more recent outbreak/attempt.) If not to Beethoven and those cats using folk tunes,riffs,beats, so progressively yas.(Another re-revisionst cliche, but got that way mainly via percentage of truth, not popularity.) Check Francis Davis's essay on the real Third Stream, archived in the Jazz Supplement at villagevoice.com, for his rescue and re-revision of a stupidly ("Third Stream sucks!") kneejerked concept/label. Also check THE BIRTH OF THE THIRD STREAM (Columbia/Legacy), if you want something to sample, for inst(legally, of course). CITY OF GLASS (composed by Bob Graettinger, performed by Stan Kenton Orchestra) is only one such thing tripped to and on by headz of the 50s, and is still as psych as I want to get again(on the uh expanded, re-mastered CD version, of course). I revise too, with my current distinction betweem "prog" and "artrock" but at least I admit it *and am even conscious* of my revisonism/pigeonholing, unlike many other savants of The Mediapersuasion.

― Don, Saturday, 28 August 2004 17:43 (twenty years ago)

I'm tempted to say Ozric Tentacles. But maybe that's more like a prog and trance link?

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Saturday, 28 August 2004 17:47 (twenty years ago)

god there's more prog-trance links than you can reasonoably count and it's not the same thing at all. also further to whoever mentioned eartyh wind and fire, what about all the egyptological stuff in black music around that time...

― stelfox, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 09:46 (twenty years ago)

Prog-Disco- "Cool in The Pool" Holger Czuky
"Shuttlecock"- Ash Ra Temple, wasn't this a Loft classic ?

Disco-Prog- Definately Cloud One, if epic means prog, then that 10 minute plus vers of "Make It last Forever" by Jocelyn brown.

― evergreenjim, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 10:23 (twenty years ago)

they're not really prog in the classic sense i suppose, but the Doors did a whole bunch of funky-fuzak type stuff -- not just An American Prayer but as far back as 1968 on the title track of The Soft Parade, one sequence of which is disco well ahead of its time. And 'Peace Frog' has got this great uptempo funk groove that's quite like 'fool's gold' by stone roses

if you scoured chaz jankel's solo albums i bet you'd find some prog-disco. the first one has a 14 minute soul-searching track called "am i really being honest with myself" or something like that, and there's another long instrumental tune that full of abstract synth noises

supposedly there was a whole scene in Northern Italy in the Tyrol area, it was called Cosmik, people had parties outside beside lakes and took acid and danced to this sort of post-Krautrock/post-moroder/post-Cerrone type music. this is late 70s early 80s. or so some guy told me anyway. i really hope it's true.

― simon r, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:01 (twenty years ago)

Right now I'm listening to Romeo & Juliet by Alec R. Costandinos and the Syncophonic Orchestra. I highly recommend it.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:10 (twenty years ago)

That Itala-disco record I have where they do a mashup of Der Kommisar/Da Da Da/Another Brick In The Wall also has Jon Anderson and Alan Parsons Project covers on it. It is a wonder to behold.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:13 (twenty years ago)

There is also that great great Mystic Moods Orchestra record Awakenings that is a cross between the moody blues and dance/disco. that album should be in everyone's collection. one of the great breakbeats of all time is on that one too.

Right now though i'm listening to *Street Talk: A Suite* by The Bob Crewe Generation. Disco song-cycle from 76.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:19 (twenty years ago)

I bought a Santa Esmeralda record yesterday (the one with the marathon flamencoized "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"). Scott, I'd asked you before and you'd forgotten--do you know now offhand the name of that Italodisco group?

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:25 (twenty years ago)

Here ya go, Tim:

http://www.discogs.com/release/234313

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:44 (twenty years ago)

I'd really like to hear Jason Forrest/Donna Summer's(on Irritant records, Sonig, Cock Rock Disco, WFMU) take on this thread. His whole thing is about synthesizing disco and prog (with heavy doses of breakcore/glitch/technology)

― Geoffrey Mark Maddock (cutups), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 16:27 (twenty years ago)

(Scott, thx.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 16:59 (twenty years ago)

Re: what Simon was saying about the Doors - 'Roadhouse Blues' is cited as an early 70s NYC disco classic in that book by Tim Lawrence (although I know it's just about the least prog song ever). Anyway, that degreases its reputation somewhat. The long form of 'LA Woman' (the song) also makes me think of disco - early DJs weren't too obsessed about sudden changes of tempo/mood, were they? Wasn't that 1972 Rolling Stone article by Vince Aletti - underground disco's first real publicity - called something like 'Discotheque Rock'? Also, I remember reading that Larry Levan felt that rock groups explored a wider sound palette than the disco groups, and that they were the inspiration for his experiments.

Best prog/disco parallel to my mind would be the development of the Temptations from the mid sixties to mid seventies - particularly under the stewardship of Norman Whitfield. Their journey from two-minute R&B through more expansive stuff to - finally - the overwrought 'Masterpiece' LP is almost contemporaneous with the trajectory of many UK pop acts. 'Masterpiece' does include great track 'Law of the Land' though.

― Edmundo (Edmundo), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 21:34 (twenty years ago)

Peace Frog is a stone cold club classic still in heavy rotation. An American Prayer is particularly popular amongst what I call the bearded DJs, Harvey, Thomas Bulluck, Eric Duncan etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 21:38 (twenty years ago)

Begs2Differ was OTM with post-whatever P-Funk too. A lot of that could easily be classified as prog-disco.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 21:50 (twenty years ago)

"Eventually Francis became a virtuso. His tour de force was playing two records simultaneously for as long as two minutes at a stretch.He would super the drum break of Chicago's "I'm A Man" over the orgasmic moans of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" to make a powerfully erotic mix that anticipated by many years the formula of bass-drum beats and love cries that is now one of the cliches of disco mixes."
--Albert Goldman on DJ Francis Grasso ca 1970
from Disco (1978)

― lovebug starski (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 22:17 (twenty years ago)

Re the Flying Lizards, which Dan tags as "avant-disco": In Summer 2004 issue if Signal To Noise, Steve Beresford says that he and David Toop both played with Lizards (and Prince Far I, too). The "L.A. Woman" seems a natural too, now that you mention it.(Don't remember those other Doors songs very well; maybe "prog" was orig. abbrev. for "Peace Frog"!) Something which has always reminded me a lot of an "L.A. Woman"-type groove is (almost)the entire, newly re-issued JIMMY BELL'S STILL IN TOWN, by 15.60.75 (AKA The Numbers Band). Um, disco for *real* bikers, or at least real deniziens of a bikerstential collegetown bar(incl. hipsters and avansters). They might have later done something that was even more disco. They did at least one (AMONG THE WANDERING, I think) that *was* more dancey-pop ( Not sure of that title, but it's the one with "High Heels Are Dangerous," which Chuck E. and I preferred to JIMMY, but maybe we were unduly influenced by being in the 80s when we thought that) (signaltonoisemagazine.org, morphius.org for JIMMY)

― Don, Wednesday, 1 September 2004 00:53 (twenty years ago)

Flying Lizards was David Cunningham, of Cold Storage studios where he produced This Heat, and Piano records, he also had a record called Grey Scale on Eno's Obscure label that I've been looking for. Many people played on the various Flying Lizards records, including Beresford and Toop, as well as vocals and other input from the likes of Patti Palladin and Viv Goldman.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 02:09 (twenty years ago)

It's still incredibly rad that "Money" was a fairly big hit when I was twelve.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 02:41 (twenty years ago)

Goblin

search: goblin's disco-skronk squadra antigangsters soundtrack.

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 02:47 (twenty years ago)

I think Ash Ra (particularly the Correlations album) is probably the best example I could think of...

― Joe (Joe), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 19:50 (twenty years ago)

so... what of prince?

― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 20:02 (twenty years ago)

Some of the Prince bootlegs did sound disco-proggy, but the proggy was a maze he tended to get lost in (at least, the tracks I'm thinking of would just stopped; he never finished them, at least not on those boots.Maybe prog fogged his mastermind, career never came out of the maze? Until now, of course.) Conspicuous consumption, both automatic and blissful (not to mention automatic bliss, technical ecstacy) something prog and disco (and metal and) had in common. If you got it flaunt it: skills, spotlight, money. The sound of money. Simon Frith reported that when Genesis finally played,late on the last night of a festival, the light show was "expensive" and this was a big part (maybe the crucial part, means[test]-wise) of its impact, and he really seemed to enjoy it. As well he might.

― Don, Thursday, 2 September 2004 04:34 (twenty years ago)

DFA are firm believers in the prog disco connection....!

the UNKLE remix of In A State and new music being made w/ Delia & Gavin (their forthcoming LP) will help illustrate this.

The upcoming 12' single "Casual Friday" by Black Leotard Front on DFA Records is released October 24. It is a 15 minute Italo Disco prog epic....

― GALKIN (GALKIN), Thursday, 9 September 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago)

I bought a Santa Esmeralda record yesterday (the one with the marathon flamencoized "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood").

Just listened to that track on the radio yesterday. Liked it.

― B.A.R.M.S. (Barima), Friday, 10 September 2004 09:39 (twenty years ago)

I don't know about meaningful, but Estradasphere's Buck Fever has a rather proggish mini-bigband sort of track that goes all Love Boat-theme at the end. Good fun!

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Friday, 10 September 2004 10:21 (twenty years ago)

search: goblin's disco-skronk squadra antigangsters soundtrack.

Heard this the other day - it's crap

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 September 2004 12:17 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

I was just thinking, apropos of nothing, that it needs to be remembered that a significant component of rock's politics since the late 1960s was the attempt at a flight from any sense that one's significant background and tradition was that of pop/rock music itself. The two dominant trends in white rock music of the 1970s involved roads out of that tradition: either upward, into a realm of pure or "serious" music (the tradition of progressive rock), or downward, in the name of popular, pre-rock traditions (as in the revivals of blues, country, and other forms in the early 1970s). The sense of a specificity to youth culture, or of a tradition that ran through rock music and included its most commercially popular forms, virtually disappeared.

When these notions return, it is primarily as a part of the attempt to reconstruct a rock tradition following the withdrawal of the gesture of punk. In Britain, this involved, in its early stages, a quest for privileged images of rebellion and style in the history of youth culture, and a settling on a limited repertory of these (around mod, ska, and rockabilly musics). In North America, this project has had less coherence and urgency about it, but its most distintive component is the redefining of authenticity as, among other things, the connoisseurist consumption of "debases" forms of popular culture (hence, the initial fixation on those aspects of 1960s culture least associated with rebellion and artistic credibility, as in the music of The B-52s or Devo).

What I'm trying to say is, The B-52s and Devo--did anyone mention them yet?

― peter banks, Tuesday, 12 October 2004 02:31 (twenty years ago)

five months pass...

The punks hated both

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

Hmmm. Btw. Was that the ex-Yes-guitarist posting?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:37 (twenty years ago)

Disco-tinged tracks by acts who were prog or at least generally influenced by prog

ELO: "Shine a Little Love"
Queen: "Another One Bites The Dust", "Back Chat" and "Body Language". Possibly "Radio Ga Ga" and "The Invisible Man" too
Yes: "Don't Kill The Whale"

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 6 April 2005 20:40 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

I think it's a little reductionist to say the punks "hated" Devo and the '2's. Devo, in particular, were saying some things not too far removed from the Pistols. And Henry Rollins, of course, reissued one or two albums on Infinite Zero.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 20 May 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

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