on the hunt for rare early disco tracks

[terebi_me]

I'm currently reading Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco by Peter Shapiro... I don't remember how I heard about this book, but I looked to see if the library had it, and checked it out, and now I'm hip deep in delicious, delicious 70s music and NYC nightclub history. It is excellent (And I trust I'm not horrifying anybody with my

Comments

[techstep]

The majority of the Fela collection has been reissued a few times in the past decade, frequently in the form of twofers. (My version of Expensive Shit also has his He Miss Road album.)

"Soul Makossa" should be pretty easy to find, even if only on Manu Dibango's greatest hits collection.

The rest, I'm not familiar with, but since I like disco, I probably should be.

Have you also read Last Night a DJ Saved My Life? It's more of an overview of DJ culture in general, but has quite a few lists of tracks worth scouting out.

"Last Night"

[terebi_me]

I've read excerpts, and it sounds totally awesome - I think I picked it up and then set it aside, knowing that it would take serious perusal. As it is, I feel like my weekend is going to be spent reading "Turn the Beat Around" and making a track-hunting list.

Fuck, I wish I was a DJ.

The Fela Kuti stuff I figured would be easy enough to get, and I can check the library for Manu Dibango... if I have to pay for it, it's going to be a while. I can't do things like spontaneously buy the Psyco on Da Bus album, but damn, I'm glad I did - it's amazing. I love Tony Allen! (And I'm curious to see if he was with Fela Kuti in those early days...)

[lunesse]

stupid joke:

knock knock
who's there
philip glass
philip glass who?
knock knock
who's there
philip glass
philip glass who?
knock knock...

around and around infinity....

a funny story!

[terebi_me]

I stole Philip Glass's glass of champagne once. He was at Reed graduation in '93 (I think), when his daughter Juliet graduated, and in those days I traditionally crashed graduation to scrounge. I had never seen a picture of Philip Glass before, but when I went to see a documentary about him a couple of months later, I remembered that I'd seen him before.

He's kind of hot (or at least he was then; I've no idea what he looks like now). He REEKS of money. I just thought he was some rich dad of somebody; I didn't know he was the artist who, at that time, I was listening to extremely heavily, having just discovered Einstein on the Beach.