STORY OF DISCO SUCKS

_________________________________________________________________________________

At the photo shoot for the COUNTRY SWINGS, DISCO SUCKS album cover (photographer Eileen Worner in center) ...photo by Mike Holloway ...I guess, because he ain't in the picture (below)

______________________

It's mid-1978... we gotta record out and we think were doing good because a dozen or so Radio stations are playing MY GIRL PASSED OUT IN HER FOOD. Were booked months in advance, six nights a week, mostly between Phoenix and Tucson, with a bi-monthly mini-tour going up to the San Francisco Bay Area (on the strength of KFAT Radio http://kfat.com airplay). We were feeling the stirings of the anti Disco attitude in those days, but we were to fully realize how strong it was when one night at THE STUMBLE INN (in Tucson)..... We finish a song and a disco-styled dude stands up a yells loudly..."Play Some Disco" !! He knew we didn't play disco, he was just heckling. So I called to the band to gimme a disco-beat-music-groove, which they did, and then we fell into chanting disco sucks..disco sucks....disco sucks. Well the crowd, which was maybe 250-300 people, rather erupted into cheers of approval !! I think we all knew instantly that we needed to do something with this powder keg of potential..... The next week we're in Flagstaff doing a week stand at the MUSEUM CLUB www.museumclub.com. We had spare time in the daytime so I suggested to the four songwriters in the band that we all write an anti-disco song and all judge which is the best (no two guys ever collaborated on a song). Scott's version was voted the best. So we worked it up and started playing it nightly ...to the same reaction every time...VOCIFEROUS APPROVAL !!...( it helped that we were playing "country rock" venues near colleges)... We became very anxious to record and distribute this dynamite. As we started entertaining album title ideas, a bumper sticker was noticed which read DISCO SUCKS/COUNTRY SWINGS... I argued against having the word SUCKS as part of an album title because it might hurt our career, whereupon Scott pointed out that we didn't have much of a career so what the hell........GOOD POINT ! So the title agreed upon was COUNTRY SWINGS, DISCO SUCKS. Into the recording studio ! Full speed ahead ! Recording the two parts of the song was alot of fun ! Lots of sound effects, especially the toilet flush where you can even hear the stopper in the reservoir drop to commence refill... it was a nervous moment when a thousand dollar Sennheiser microphone was placed inside a toilet bowl (you hope it does'nt fall off the stand and into the water and if it does, who gets to use it next?...) All went well with the entire second album process including the guest musicians... especially David Syme http://symepiano.com (who is sorta the Rain Man of pianists... otherworldly brilliant on keyboards, but I had to teach him about gas guages when his new car stopped running...)..... anyway, the recording goes well. Got some good supporting songs like CAROLINDA and HOME WHERE THE HEART IS done, the cover art is looking good (photography by Eileen Worner).... the cover is shot at the Farmer John's meat packing plant at Grant & I-10 in Tucson which has this wonderful mural that wraps around the whole building. ...It's still there! (no charge for photo ops). Now everything comes together, promo packages are assembled and addressed. Each band member picks up his 60 to 80 packages and heads for the post office (six seperate post offices so we don't overwhelm any one person and have to bear the grumbles and dirty looks of postal workers...these people can be vicious, and even deadly in their venting). A new release is out on WAGON TRACKS RECORDS!... One method I had of finding out who was playing us, or not, was including a self addressed, stamped postcard in the package. Each card had 5 little boxes the radio folks (music directors, program directors, DJs) could choose to check off (will play a lot~~ will play some~~thinkin' about it~~ won't play~~ and, Hell NO,WON'T PLAY). I only got a few Hell NOs, including one from a DISCO-ONLY station in Houston. Some wise-ass stranger-to-me suggested I send one. There were notes written in the margins of the postcard that returned from Houston suggesting where I could stick our album, descriptions of graphic sexual encounters involving my mother and a poorly spelled description of what would become of the BAND if we ever played Houston..... of course I made a note about ever playing Houston . Anyway, within a week of the mass mailing, the cards started coming in....LOTS of cards!.....Like all of them! I was gettin' letters from Stations I'd never heard of, and phone calls! Mostly from AOR stations (ah... that's Album Oriented Rock)....Monster 50,000 watt Stations in mega-markets like L.A., Chicago, New York... you know, all of 'em! Armed Forces Radio got hold of it, and they are syndicated world wide! Stations Behind the Iron Friggin Curtin are airing it! The King Of Nepal sends a jacket with the Wheels logo and some squiggly Nepal writing embroidered on it! British Airways made it available to the first class passengers in their headphones! ......Here's a good one....I get a call from a Ken Burkhart (mean anything to you? Oh Yeah!.. well me neither... at the time) and he blurts out that he needs me to "service" all of his 200 some odd AOR subscribers immediately! Not Tommorrow...Now!! I had no clue what he was talking about or what he really wanted. So I ask him if he wants me to send him 200 records? He says NO!, and I could tell he wanted to say: NO, YOU STUPID BASTARD!, but he says no, I want you to send them to all the AOR stations that subscribe to our programming service (and I can tell he's trying very hard to control himself because he talking "too calmly" where it sounds sarcastic and condescending). Then he demands to know who owns the record label?.... well it's me and ah.. the bass player....well then, who is your manager? ah ..that would be me..I guess... and the last thing I heard before the phone line went dead was him grumbling out the name of GOD's only son, including his middle name (which I think was incorrect). I was puzzled by "old grumpy's" call.. what the hell did he mean by "subscribers" and "programming service?"......ahh, the hell with 'em, probably some jerk trying to score some free records, and besides, I gotta leave for our first gig in Denver in a coupla hours..... O.K., we do the six night stand in Denver and I come home to a stack of phone messages and mail a foot high (of course my girlfreind, on the phone, mentioned all the mail/messages/cards piling up but I had that "fagedaboutit" attitude cause I'll be home soon and I'll deal with it then. Besides, do you fully realize how hard it is to perform high energy music for four hours a night while drinking like a fish, social smoking in the parking lot, having to deal with your pounding head all morning. Plus, you're in a new city with a Brewery Tour! and Elitch Gardens, new Strip Clubs and music stores, etc.. who the hell has time for business?!! And besides, a major label is gonna call soon and take care of everything.... and they did!!... call I mean. SO... we get back from the Denver gig, I'm going through mail and messages and "Will Play" cards. A message from Alan Browning sticks out because he's the program director for the then very popular local Tucson AOR station.. KWFM http://las-solanas.com/kwfm . It was a "call-me-urgent" message. I called him first because I'd sent him the record, I was impressed that he would call little ol' me and I wanted to know what he wanted. He comes on the phone and asks: Did you know that Burkhart/Abrams in Atlanta sent out a special directive to add Disco Sucks, if you can get it, in heavy rotation to all their subscriber stations ? (KWFM was such a station and had the record in Heavy rotation) . Huh.. Wha... Atlanta? OH YEAH! BURKHART! I Just talked to that grump last week ..Who is that guy ? Allan layed it out for me so even a three year old could understand... good thing. Basically, Burkhart/Abrams was probably the most powerful radio programing service in the world, ...what they say goes. I'd been handed a platinum record on a silver platter! So now what? Well, first thing is return the call from Jimi Fox of MERCURY RECORDS. I knew Jimi from his Tucson days as a DJ and he kinda hung with the STINKY FELIX band I was in years back (we gave him producer credit on the 45rpm single we did. To assure local airplay... at least). I didn't know he was an A&R(arranging and recording etc.) guy with Mercury, but I was glad! Problem solved! Move over Rover and let JIMI take over! While talking with Jimi I get the idea that we gotta done record deal and just a few "details" needed "tweaking" with the Mercury brass (including JERRY KENNEDY). Amongst the other messages are Capitol Records wanting me to sign with them because we had " worked so well together in the past" (see discography/HELL'S ANGELS 69) and the "success" of the DUSTY CHAPS was cited. The Chaps success in Tucson was why Scott and I started the WHEELS as a joke on Monday nights at the STUMBLE INN where the Chaps were the house band and on CAPITOL RECORDS......Also, there was a message from MEL TAYLOR, who was the drummer for "THE VENTURES" www.theventures.com and had managed a band I was in around the "HELL'S ANGELS Album" period. Management Problem Solved! DR. DEMENTO http://drdemento.com has included DISCO SUCKS in his syndicated show (200+ stations nationwide) to be broadcast this SATURDAY!! (Disco Sucks is enshrined at #10 on Dementos's TOP 25 FUNNY SONGS OF 1979). Things are so lined up and rocketing so fast that my next big decision is what color should my Corvette be?

AND THEN IT HAPPENED !!!

JULY 12, 1979

COMISKY PARK, CHICAGO

The "DISCO DEMOLITION" is what happened!!!!! And caused the CHUCK WAGON and the WHEELS sky rocket to flame out and crash down much faster than it went up! You see... WLUP in Chicago was playing the song in heavy rotation. Wacky DJ, STEVE DAHL, was really working it as the centerpiece of his Disco Sucks Crusade! WLUP in general and DAHL in particular came up with a "surefire" stunt that they promoted as a "DISCO DEMOLITION". Here was the deal.... Bring disco records to Comisky Park and between games of the double-header between the White Sox and the Tigers because we're gonna burn them right out on the playing field while everybody chants along with DISCO SUCKS PART 2.... Yeah! BIG FUN! BURN BABY BURN! YEAH, BEE GEE THIS! ARE YOU SEEIN' THIS TRAVOLTA!! ....only problem was..... it was 50cent BEER NIGHT!............ (I'll say more even though I don't need to.... Right?) .... everybody knows fire and alcohol don't mix. FIFTY THOUSAND drunken disco haters are in the stands (TWENTY THOUSAND more trying to get in), flags flyin', banners displayed proudly. Then Dahl lights the, not so big, bonfire on the field, which inspires the drunken mob to start their own fires in the stands! Of course the seats catch fire, drunks catch fire, molten plastic runs in little streams, security forces are outnumbered by hundreds to one, the playing field is ruined, the Chicago Police Riot Squad is called in (now there's a bunch famous for exercising restraint) and the media swarms in to cover the RIOT! And the kicker is: They CANCELLED the second game of the double header!!! That's so .... it's... UNAMERICAN!! The very first time in history a second game was cancelled for a reason besides weather! A RIOT CANCELLATION!! Well of course it made National News... BIG TIME! The national media villified the disco haters and made comparisons to the Nazi book burners and lynch mob mentalities. When I was told about the incident the next day and the particular about the chanting to PART 2.... I thought ....ALRIGHT! More fuel for the rocket!....NOT!.....BIG TIME WRONG!!! Disco Sucks disappeared from the airwaves quicker than you can say.... Bye Bye Vette! The FCC didn't have to tell anyone to do anything..... and they were ready to. So... suffice to say, all deals were off and we spent the next five years trying to light the fuse to that rocket again.... But you know, the ripples from that few weeks can still be seen if you really look. Our "career" did pick up and was a real hoot for years after. And, truth be told, I would have killed myself in that damn jet-black VETTE...... after all, drunk driving back then was considered a sport.

That's my story and it's stickin to me... Chuck Aug. 2006