1.BLUE LIGHT: a preamble to planning an album
When I was a kid in the 70s and early 80s other kids used to talk about going to Blue Light Discos.
These probably no longer exist but they were at the time discos run by the police for teenagers in
town halls, etc, presumably with a view to giving youth a safe place to 'hang out' (or whatever
they called it then) and also with building good teen-cop relations. I seem to recall at first Blue
Light Discos were taken at face value, as we got older they were treated with some derision.
At the same time as Blue Light Discos there was the well-known 'red light' and all that
went with it (a red light outside a house was, still is, supposed to be a tacit advertisement
that the house was a brothel). I can't remember who made the taunt, it wasn't directed at me,
but it was strangely hilariously stupid even then: 'Red light district person!'
Disco music itself was all lights and glitter. The videos we used to see on Countdown,
Sounds and so on were always full of what seemed then (and were) extremely hi-tech visual effects,
like in Aimee Stewart's 'Ring My Bell', in which she appeared to be standing in front of an infinite
number of wavering replicas, almost a comet Aimee Stewart. I wonder how disco music was seen at the time.
Was it seen as throwaway? It seems to me, but maybe this is because I just don't follow it so closely, that
in dance music there has always been a tendency away from cults of personality the way there are in rock.
Whether this was because no-one cared about what disco singers had to say, or whether it was a way for record
companies to control them (i.e. not letting the public become too interested in them as people) or some other
reason (maybe they just weren't very interesting) I don't know.
Disco balls picked up light and fragmented it into small squares which raced around an otherwise dimly-lit
room and created a feeling of excitement and movement. In some respects they were a little like a more modern
lava lamp. The disco square was an arrangement of lights in a pattern on the floor. I recall in my late teens
going to the disco Inflation (I would only go there to see rock acts like Plays with Marionettes) and seeing
the disco square lights, and the hologram of people fucking, and the huge screen onto which rock videos were projected.
2.FOURTH ALBUM
It is probably a mistake to try to make a disco record when you are basically a rock act. I know many have done
it before. I am reminded of the dichotomy of John Paul Young, and wonder if he came to Vanda and Young at certain times and
said 'Make it a disco record this time, guys' or 'Make it rocky'. JPY had two excellent disco hits, as I recall.'Standing in the Rain'
, and another one which sounded a lot like it. I remember now, 'Love is in the Air' - it was rejigged and became
a hit again as a part of Strictly Ballroom. There were also dance-rock numbers, like 'I Hate the Music', and 'The Love Game'.
Similar to disco but played by a rock band.
I think JPY might at one stage have been modelling himself on Rod Stewart, who was able to have dance rock hits like 'Do Ya
Think I'm Sexy' and so on, and yet was able to retain some veneer of rock credibility.
A few years ago it struck me how strange it was that a lot of seventies disco songs were actually 'about' rock 'n' roll. Disco
Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, for instance, sang about rock 'n' roll a lot. And lately the few words I can decipher from Patrick
Hernandez's 'Born to Be Alive' have been bugging me - something about 'a suitcase and an old guitar'. Then I start to wonder
what happened to Patrick Hernandez anyway. Does he still tour as Patrick 'Born to be Alive' Hernandez? Is he dead? What was he
like back then? Did he think he had it made when he had a number one hit around the world in 1979 with 'Born to be Alive'? Was
he right? What did he say when someone said 'You should record "Born to be Alive"?' I don't know if he wrote it or someone wrote
it for him or what, but I just wonder if he said 'Great, it's a great song and a noble sentiment,' or 'are you kidding me?' etc.
Was he ever bitter that Madonna, who was at one stage one of his dancers, went on to greater success?
In 1980, or perhaps '81, I went to a party at Jackie Rae's house and she had two records. One was Patrick Hernandez's
'Born to Be Alive', and the other was Billy Squier's 'The Stroke'. Two pretty raunchy singles, when you think about it. It was funny,
and I think Jackie Rae knew it was funny, that she only had two singles which she really loved and would play over and over again.
She had a great sense of humour, and was at the same time impossibly shy, a very alluring combination. 'Rae' is 'ear' backwards.
It is, as I said, probably a mistake to try to make a disco record when you are basically a rock act. Yet Huon are now doing just that.
Trying to make a disco record. Why? Why? You can't ask why.
Disco is a very vital and exciting form of music (I nearly typed 'form of movement'). When I was a boy I really loved Silver Convention's
two hit singles 'Fly Robin Fly' and 'Get Up and Boogie'. Peter Hogg, who was into the Stones, derided me greatly when I told him this
but I don't think I minded (actually, I don't think he derided me, just Silver Convention. Peter's never been harsh that way). Even then
I was fairly aware that they were idiotic lyrically, but I think also you have to give Silver Convention credit for understanding how much
you can make with almost nothing. But in Huon there's just no way I'm going to be able to write lyrics like those in 'Get Up and Boogie'.
Failure number one. Second failure: songs like 'This Night is the Night'; now, that's an attempt to write a song as silly as a disco song.
I was listening to Legends of the Mirror Ball, a mid-90s double CD collection which features a lot of interesting Vanda and Young material
(a lot of which isn't disco at all, just 'seventies') as well as good American stuff like 'Disco Inferno' and 'Turn the Beat Around'. But of course
the mistake I made was that I should not have tried to write a song as silly as a disco song but AS GREAT AS A DISCO SONG. Now, unfortunately,
I love 'This Night is the Night' despite its shortcomings, the most important of which is that I didn't mean it.It was probably the first
of the disco songs we were writing at the time, although we may not have known it.
The credit for the concept in any case comes from Alison Bolger. Alison, Mia and I were going to a party at the old Minx - the end of lease party -
and on the train getting there we discussed lyrical ideas for disco songs. I wrote them down on an old ATM statement. I have it right here.
These are my notes from that night:
Going to a party/I wonder who will be there/Someone new?/Maybe you
When I go through the door/I check the dance square (Disco Square)
- This night is the night
- Dancing (Boogie Knows).
Holding hands and wearing headphones
CD-Rom/Nothing else gets me goin'
The second line is Mia's suggestion, as was the 'Boogie Knows' idea. I think she also came up with 'Holding hands and wearing headphones'
as a kind of late 90s 'Wired for Sound'. Alison said that disco songs were often about this night being THE night. I couldn't think of
any examples that fit this notion but the idea appealed to me.
3. GREAT AUSTRALIAN DISCO HITS
My all-time favourite Australian disco record (and there is tough competition) would have to be Trevor White's 'All You Want to do is Dance'.
This single was not a big hit when it came out, but I remember I heard it on the radio once, maybe twice, and never forgot it. A long time after
I happened upon it in a second hand record store (in the original generic 'Dinki Di Disc' sleeve) and snapped it up. Some time after I also got
Trevor's album but have never been able to listen to it. You won't spoil 'All You Want to Do is Dance' for me, Trevor!
The song starts with a killer classic of a descending bass & honky tonk piano, then goes into the somewhat high-pitched tale of Trevor's
disappointments with a woman who, no matter where he takes her, only wants to dance. I assume it's a woman.
This single has been my getting-excited-about-going-out record for many years now, alongside Donna Summer's 'The Deep' and Nick Gilder's
'Roxy Roller', which isn't a disco record. I am still astonished that 'All You Want to Do Is Dance' wasn't a massive killer commercial hit steamroller
of a record, because it is incredibly powerful.
A few months ago I went on Nathalie Fernbach's show to publicise something, I forget what, she kindly suggested I be her co-host for the duration
so I brought in some records. I played Est's 'Just Not True' and other classic singles that I have always loved. I asked her to play 'All You Want to Do is Dance',
she cued it up and it was ready to play but when the time came I had to ask her not to play it. Because I didn't want to expose this classic record to ridicule.
Not that I would ridicule it; but others might hear it and not realise instantly its perfection.
My second favourite Australian disco single would definitely be Christie Allen's 'Goosebumps'. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Christie a
few years ago at the Mushroom 'Concert of the Century' - although I didn't have the pleasure of seeing her perform 'Goosebumps'. She was amazed and
grateful that everyone was so interested in what had happened to her, and that people were so pleased to have her back for a moment.
'Goosebumps' and Christie's other big disco hit 'He's My Number One' were matters for many jokes amongst my friends and I at the time, I think because
we didn't really understand them. We were also probably a bit amazed by Christie herself. I knew a grown man who bought Christie's album and it was
the first pop album he'd bought in a decade, because he found her so sexy!!!
My third favourite Australian disco single is the abovementioned John Paul Young's 'Standing in the Rain'. It is such a funny piece of work,
it sounds so tossed off. The lines about what she was doing while (sitting down to dinner, etc) compared to what he was doing (coming down with a heavy dose of flu)
are all so outrageously commonplace… yet so preposterously truly tragic. I don't know if Vanda and Young worked the way StockAitkenWaterman later claimed to
(get up, go for a jog, read the trade mags, write and record a million selling single, have lunch, call the kids, drive home, watch soaps, check bank balance, get takeaway)
and perhaps the most irresistible part of their schtick was how easy it looked.
My fourth would definitely have to be Marty Rhone's 'Mean Pair of Jeans'. I think this is a disco record - it has all the sounds - but the beat is maybe a little
rock - nevertheless a total piece of class - Marty seems to be doing a kind of Elvis-lite vocal - the best part is definitely at the end when he starts sparring with the
backing singers, who have been doing a 'tell me what you mean - oh I see what you mean' over and over through the song, and finally Marty takes them on with an irritated
'Well can't you hear me!' thus, er, subverting, the entire, um.
My fifth would undoubtedly shoot us through to the late 80s: Dragon's 'River', which was only released on a single. I was lucky enough to score the 12" (the 'Alluvial Mudmix')
of this underrated classic a few years ago, and what a delight it is. Todd's disco record… he later apparently derided it as just a demo, obviously without appreciating that it merely
proved the truth we all know, that there's never been a finished product better than the demo. Patty Stirling bought a copy of 'River' when she was living in Australia in the late 80s,
and I hope she still treasures it. I know she and I were the only people at the time who knew its value.
4. DECEMBER 28, 1999
December 28, 1999, was a very productive day in the progress of creating the Disco Square record. I put it down at least in part to my having read, the night before, a book about
pop music edited by Simon Frith in which it was explained that disco music has since become reborn under the less derisable term 'urban contemporary'.
Now, in Australia, there is not a large population of people of African origin, like there is in America. There has, therefore, been some ambivalence amongst certain of the population
towards Australian dance music, for the usual foolish reasons - the assumptions that non-blacks can't (or simply shouldn't) make that kind of
music. Of course, anyone who has heard Wa Wa Nee knows that to assert that non-black Australians
can't make dance music is sheer idiocy. Whether they shouldn't is maybe another matter but I guess ultimately critics would have to concede that certain people would dance to the
sound of a branch hitting a window (or architecture, ha ha) if that was all there was, and fair enough. So maybe you just have to define what is meant by 'dance music' and what kind
of assumptions you're making when you categorise something in this way. I have never forgotten being 17 or 18 at
RMIT's Storey Hallwhere Hunters and Collectors were playing a show - this was before they'd ever made a record, back in their funky days -
and listening to some tosser outside deriding the band because they had stolen this music from the black man. Funnily enough, there was a H&C bootleg tape in circulation in those
days which featured (if my memory serves me which it often doesn't) a picture of some
pigmies on the front. Hmm.
Anyway, my point is that 'disco' means something of the moment to me, and the moment - actually it was a lot longer than a moment - was the years 1974-1979 or thereabouts.
Whereas urban contemporary -well, that's me! I am urban and I am contemporary. I have a short attention span and (is this a paradox?) I like repetitive music with simple rhythms
and strange untraceable noises. I used to call it disco but now I realise my music is urban contemporary.
Today Andrew and I went to Greg's to retrieve/mould/input into a remix he has been effecting for the last six months over a piece of music we first tried to get up and running
for the first Huon album Epic. The piece was a sample from a song on the Ah Club's album, mixed with a piece of Korean orchestral music and a bit of synth from Andrew's Korg.
I had tried to sing a vocal line to the result, a long tale about a couple I saw on the train, I can't remember anything else about it, but I just couldn't get it to be even
slightly tuneful. We then put it aside and waited a while. I think we tried to get it happening again for the second album but it just didn't come together, although I thought
for a while I had worked out a melody. No. It was then to be called 'Sugar Daddy' and the lyrics appeared on the CD-rom part of the Songs for Lord Tortoise CD.
I really liked the piece of music, but it wasn't enough by itself, and so ultimately I took it to Greg to see if he could make something of it. He really did. He added extra kick
and a new violin line on top of the one in the sample, and then as we looked on (at Andrew's suggestion) he added in a second violin melody which was then boosted by midi versions
of a choir, brass etc. It was incredibly impressive and we were extremely pleased with the final product. Then we gave him our 'Getrappel' song (AKA 'Ride on Time') to discofy.
I had spent a lot of my time at Greg's in a state of great unease because I was unsure whether I had turned the coffee pot off when I had left home. Andrew had picked Mia and I up
at the same time, as he and I were going to Greg's and Mia was going to 3RRR to play guitar on Nathalie's show with Vanessa, 3RRR being just around the corner from Greg, Julie, Tom
and Ellen's house (Tom and Ellen are Greg and Julie's children). I take my cues from the post-punk era when the idea of music creating a sense of unease was regarded very favourably,
so if any of my unease was translated into the Ah Club song then I am probably happy about it. Anyway after a couple of hours I figured Mia would be back home so I called her and asked
her if the coffee pot was still on the gas jet and she checked and said it wasn't.
I asked Greg if he wanted to come and jam but he said he would rather stay and play with the kids, which I think is fair enough. I would have to say that I believe that if Mia and I,
or Andrew for that matter, faced our responsibilities to reality and had some kids, then we wouldn't be running around constantly having albums instead, but that's just my feeling
and doesn't reflect Andrew's or Mia's beliefs. Anyway Andrew and I went back to Mia's and my place, where we had agreed to do some jamming. A lot of Huon songs have come from jams,
though I coerced the truth from Andrew on the phone yesterday that he secretly often comes prepared, i.e. he works out some bass riffs prior to a jam and people like me naively
assume that there's been some kind of magic meeting of minds in the music room. Mia, Andrew and I worked up four new tunes, two of which were (I think) sufficiently urban contemporary
to go on the Disco Square record (the other songs were great, too, but I have to get this urban contemporary thing out of my system so I'm not even thinking about them at the moment).
I tried to remain true to the urban contemporary feel by playing a constant, unerring 4/4 kick beat throughout.
After this, and feeling well pleased with ourselves, Mia went to do some errands and Andrew and I attended to our third task of the day, dumping down three songs Mia and I had created
on our four-track onto Andrew's minidisk. Whether these songs would be acceptable for Disco Square has also yet to be decided. There are a number of important self-imposed requirements
for the Disco Square concept.
1. All songs must be dance music by some criteria (still not fully decided)
2. Each side of the album must go for
14 minutes exactly
3. There will be no gaps between the tracks, so almost all songs - except the two which will start each side and the two which will end each side - must be bump-uppable with each other
At time of writing, Huon has a surplus of excellent music, much of which would be quite perfect for Disco Square. As well as the songs worked on today, there is 'This Night is the Night';
two songs created from actual disco samples which Stewart has played on; a song we refer to as 'Rocky' because it is made up from samples of crass but obscure sixties pop; a song created
from a slowed-down sixties Italian ballad; and that's about all.
Actually, on reflection, there's not much, and maybe it's time to worry about the whole notion of an urban contemporary Huon record.
5. 29-30 DECEMBER, 1999
29 December 1999
This morning I timed the songs we did yesterday, in the kitchen with my wristwatch. There seems to be about 19 minutes' worth of usable material there, and that's without 'Getrappel',
'This Night…', the remix version of 'Early 80s Cars' (have to listen to that one a bit more to decide if it's worthy - definitely a pastiche of those late 80s Fall 12" b-sides - an enjoyable
oeuvre but one worth imitating?), the rather ratty Italian ballad or the two bonafide disco songs we did last week from samples.
N.B. Hardline attention to the appropriate lengths, etc is not cynical but a practical and necessary aspect of the Huon album compilation/creation process. In this case I think the dedicated
pursuit of 2 x 14 minute sides will result in a very trim, compact and bountiful LP. At this point I feel extremely positive about the result, especially after listening back a couple of times
to yesterday's 'jams'.
30 December 1999
Now, after listening to the tape over and over, I feel even more positive. I have given the 'jam' songs temporary names, like 'Piper' for the song which features a DX7 setting that sounds a bit
like a pipe organ, etc. I was doing the dishes this morning and I thought more and more like it would be very easy to come up with words for these songs, especially the last two we did, the
aforementioned 'Piper' and one I call 'Motown Paranoid' because Andrew said the verse was like Motown and the chorus was like 'Paranoid' (there's nothing sophisticated about these temporary names,
not that the names finally arrived at are that sophisticated either). These songs are very formulaic and repetitive, which is great for our purposes. They also have reasonably simple and structured
rhythms, so that's a good thing too.
Other questions have occurred to me, for instance the problem of how to release this album on CD after the initial period during which it will only be available on 10" gold vinyl through 555.
Should we add to it, or simply stick with the 28 minute length? I suppose one solution would be to use that ever-exciting format, the 12" remix. We could do extended versions of many of the songs
simply by copying and pasting on Andrew's computer. This would give us extra scope to rework tracks we particularly liked and saw potential in but which were necessarily limited by the 28-min. requirement.
Perhaps we should consider finding someone to rap over the extended parts, or would this be bullshit? We are running a fine line here between parody and homage. And that is kind of pathetic.
It is a constant problem with the CD format, that - just the way people used to do in the days when indie bands released cassette albums - it is too tempting to fill up a CD with stuff. The extra stuff
is almost invariably inferior (and regarded by the artist as inferior), no-one wants to listen to it, but at least no-one can say that the CD ended before you expected it to - that is, if anyone these days
actually listens to CDs from beginning to end!.
6. 3 JANUARY, 2000
Work has proceeded apace on Disco Square. On Saturday, Stewart and I went over to Andrew's mainly because Andrew was helping Stewart compile his recordings for Christos' show onto a CD, but while we
were there I tried a vocal on the actual 'Disco Square' title track. Unfortunately I was unhappy with the vocal and I also decided I didn't like the lyrics I had written. In fact I have come to the opinion
that maybe I should be keeping right away from songs that take that parody/pastiche angle to the disco experience. I mean, really, there have been enough of those anyway, from
Ariel to
Department S to
Rick Dee to the
Eagles. Andrew played us a little loop he had made from a sample I had got hold of - he's separated the stereo tracks into two loops, so that there's a guitar on
one loop and a piano on another, playing complementary pieces. It will end up sounding excellent though he later told me that after Stewart and I left he spent a long time trying to set another beat to it,
unsuccessfully. Stewart added drums to 'Lonely Experience', a song about Georges de Chirico, on Sunday (yesterday), and then Mia did a beautiful vocal in one take. Today Andrew and I went to Greg's to finish
up the work on his remix of 'Getrappel'. It works very well. Greg had pretty much done all the work himself on the remix, but while we were there he added a banjo-type sound in to accentuate the unusual rhythm
in a couple of key places. The original 'Getrappel' was donated to the Hayfever magazine which is doing some kind of story on me and Michael. Today I was thinking about doing a video for the song, had some
reasonably interesting ideas. Is there time?
Greg expressed his opinion on vinyl releases that they were a waste of time in this day and age and good records only released on vinyl just got 'lost'. He is presumably thinking of the Small World Experience
album. To a degree I think he is right as certainly today you will even find bona fide music enthusiasts who no longer maintain a record player. Either they have actually made a genuine effort to rationalise their
collection to kick out the vinyl, or their record player's broken and they can't afford to/can't be bothered to get it fixed. I notice there have been a few newspaper articles lately bemoaning the loss of vinyl
to civillisation. It revolutionised recorded music and then was dumped, etc.
Like practically everything else in the world except carnivorism and rightwing politics I can see both sides of the argument but I also happen to believe that sound quality is a capitalist, elitist conspiracy
created by marketing types in the 1950s to sell stereograms and perpetuated by all facets of the recording industry. My reason for believing this is most likely that I haven't been educated into a proper
understanding of hi-fi etc but on the other hand I would rather not be educated into an understanding of it, thanks. I don't have any opinion on the 'warm' sounds of vinyl, because I can't hear it the way
others can, ditto with the 'cold' digital sound of compact discs and other digitised formats. Screw it!
I want this Huon 10" to be vinyl because it's a disco record, and DJs can play it at clubs. However, in recognition of the fact that this will simply never, ever happen, I want it to have no space between the
tracks so a DJ would be unable to select any track, he or she would just have to drop the needle down and hope for the best... as if I have a clue what DJs do... I have never DJd. So basically I want it for one thing,
and refuse to take it to the logical extreme, or do I mean extreme logicality. Maybe we should put spaces between the tracks, maybe people really would play it in clubs? Doubtful. I suppose if we leave it without
gaps a dedicated DJ really could find the track they wanted anyway, if they were familiar with the record. It's so tough, who knows the answer! I think ultimately the bottom line is that I would rather not compromise
my vision for the sake of the extremely unlikely possibility that people might play the record in clubs. Phew, glad I sorted that out.
1.How curious that Vanda and Young wrote 'Standing in the Rain' and 'Walking in the Rain'. I wonder if they did any others - 'Kneeling in the Rain', etc. I wouldn't put it past them. Back
2.I should point out that I'm excusing Huon from being regarded in this context. We're not in the mainstream and we can do whatever we damn well please, because no-one takes any notice, whatever we do. Back
3.On 28 February 2000 about 3 pm a woman boarded a bus I was just alighting from. She wore a Wa Wa Nee t-shirt. The sight both elated and worried me. Back
4.Could have been Melbourne University, come to think of it. Back
5.Even back then I knew how stupid it was to discuss black people as though they were some kind of amorphous one-mind. I also felt very iffy about terms like 'the black man'. But I couldn't express all this. Back
6.In homage to Plastic Betrand's An 1 album and Lipps Inc's album. Both 28 minute LPs. Homage, homage, it's all homfuckenage. Back
7.'Disco Dilemma' (1977) Back
8.That follow-up to 'Is Vic There' - was it called 'Going Left Right'? Back
9.Disco Duck' Back
10.'Disco Strangler' - that was them, wasn't it? Back