Category: Disco

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New And Improved Way To Listen

At least for me! Late to the party as usual, but damn, a separate headphone amp really does make a difference!

I bought this FiiO K5Pro ESS Headphone Amplifier a year ago to more easily control the volume on a pair of powered speakers I was using at my desk. I didn’t really think too much of the sound quality of the FiiO one way or another, and when I swapped out those speakers with a different pair some months later it became a superfluous piece of equipment that was boxed back up and put in the closet.

Well, since getting my Sennheisers a couple months ago, driving them to an acceptable volume on either my MiniDisc or CD walkman players has been problematic without cranking everything up to one step short of max. The two players I have that will drive the Sennheisers—despite their absolutely awesome sound—because of their advanced age won’t play every CD I put in them. So there’s that.

I remembered I had the FiiO in storage, so I pulled it out and hooked it to one of the CD Walkmans I have that has a dedicated optical LINE OUT jack via a SPDIF cable to the FiiO. After a few days I still wasn’t aware of any improvement in sound, but it certainly did provide the power the Sennheisers needed. The FiiO is a headphone amp, after all.

It was only after I connected the headphone jack directly to the CD player and then reconnected it back to the FiiO did I realize how much better evrerthing sounded. More crisp, more alive. Punchy bass. In other words, my reaction was “Wow!”

Apologies to John Cusack and HIGH FIDELITY.

So what am I listening to?

“Baby Let Me Kiss You”

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And Down The Rabbit Hole I Go

What follows is a series of photos I took over the course of several weekends at Hotbods in Phoenix during April 1983 when Steve invited me up to the DJ booth. Magic moments frozen in time that tie directly into my musical selection above.

I was working in very low light conditions with the fastest color film I could get my hands on, but even so a lot of these shots required extensive tweaking to get them looking this good.

In an unguarded moment. I call this “The Look Of Love” (with apologies to the group ABC)
This one is almost art…
The Universe was trying to send us a signal with that record in the background.
He was such a flirt.
I like this one.
My favorite of all the shots of Steve I took
The ONLY picture of Steve and I together…and it would’ve been so good under better lighting.

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Toot Toot, Beep Beep In The Afternoon

Donna Summer – Bad Girls (1979)

As I opined a few years ago:

I was sorely disappointed with this album when it first came out. I couldn’t help but think, “She followed up Once Upon a Time with this?!” Even now, nearly four decades later, it fails to move me the way OUAT—or for that matter, even I Remember Yesterday or Four Seasons of Lovedoes.

And then to have it followed only by the greatest hits album, On the Radio, which seemed like nothing more than a contractually-obligated release to end her relationship with Casablanca Records…

While Donna did put out a few very catchy, danceable songs afterward, IMHO there were never again any whole albums that spoke to me the way her mid-Casablanca releases did.

Over the years my opinion of Bad Girls almost did a complete turnaround. While it’s still no Once Upon A Time it’s still a damn fine album, along with Four Seasons Of Love, I Remember Yesterday, and Once Upon a Time, bookending the epitome of her career.

SO MANY NIGHTS under mirror balls!

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A Fun Afternoon Soundtrack

Various Artists – Dancing Queens (2001)

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And Her Face Just Ghostly

Munich Machine – A Whiter Shade Of Pale (1978)

Another lesser-known project by “The Godfather of EDM,” Giorgio Moroder. It was also the debut of Chris Bennet, whom he collaborated with on Giorgio & Chris the following year.

My two favorite tracks on the album harken from Side 2 of the original vinyl release: La Nuit Blanche and In Love With Love.

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In Honor Of Dolly

This record is among the half dozen or so pieces of vinyl in my collection at the time that survived “the great purge” in the late 80s. I never thought it was a particularly good record, but it still held some sentimental value that caused me to keep it back then and even today I remember the afternoon I bought it—and where.

It was sometime in the fall of 1978. As is typical with Phoenix that time of year, it was balmy. The extreme heat was gone for the season but it hadn’t yet turned cold. I’d gone to Odyssey Records on the southeast corner of Camelback and 12th Street in search of something else, but this record was prominently displayed in the store’s 12-inch singles section. Naturally I’d heard it in the clubs by this point, but it hadn’t grabbed me enough to actually rush out and get a copy. It seemed that Dolly—like Rod Stewart—had been pushed in the disco direction unwittingly and it showed.

But then I saw it…the pink vinyl peeking out of the center hole of the sleeve.

I had to get it if only for that one aspect. Finding colored vinyl in the wild back in the day was a pretty rare occurrence. Would I have gotten if it were standard black vinyl?

In all honesty, probably not. This was years before 9 to 5 or Best Little Whorehouse in Texas or Fried Green Tomatoes. Naturally I knew who she was and I was familiar with many of her songs, but Dolly really hadn’t made an impact on my consciousness yet. Of course, all that changed over the next 40 years and while I considered Baby I’m Burnin’ more of a novelty than anything else at the time, it’s become one of my most treasured records.

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Tonight’s CD To MiniDisc Dub Session

Saint Tropez – Belle De Jour (1979)

I’d been a fan of Saint Tropez since their initial release, Je T’aime in 1977. It was sexy, slow-dancing disco, and in fact the main track from that album, Violation was the first time I’d ever slow danced with another man, David Martinez.

Belle de Jour is one of my favorite disco records from 1979 and one of only two album covers I have framed.

After I heard Belle De Jour the first time that night back in ’79, I left the club, gave up my prime parking spot and drove downtown to Circles Records. Firstly because if anyone in town had this record, it would be them, and secondly—well, they were open until midnight…

Sadly, they didn’t yet have it in stock, so I drove back to the club and was rewarded later that evening by the DJ playing the track a second time.

I did finally get a copy not too long after that and—like J’Taime—acquired a copy of its own translucent pink vinyl version via Discogs about ten years ago.

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Afternoon Tunes

Cerrone – Cerrone’s Paradise (1978)

Still coming off the high that was Cerrone’s debut, Love in C-Minor, the year before, when Cerrone’s Paradise appeared in 1978 I was less than impressed. I wouldn’t say I hated it, but it most definitely wasn’t Love in C-Minor.

It was only years later that I realized Love in C-Minor was a heavy collaboration with disco daddy Alec Costandinos of Romeo & Juliet fame. All of Cerrone’s releases subsequent to his first were his own work; his own sound. And over the years I came to love it.

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Afternoon Tunes

Cindy & Roy – Feel It (1979)

Obscure doesn’t begin to describe this one. It didn’t get much club play back in the day, and all the copies I’ve seen are marked For Promotional Use Only. It’s not great, but it’s not awful; middle-of-the-road disco would be a good description. It was their only release, and even now they’d rather not talk about it. There’s no CD release, so I dubbed my vinyl onto a shiny silver disc some time ago.

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Morning Tunes

Hott City – Ain’t Love Grand (1979)

This album—although never a commercial success (and as far as I know, the group’s only release)—holds a very special place in my heart. One of the few pieces of vinyl to survive my expensively-stupid great purge in the late 80s, I still have the original white vinyl copy that Steve Golden gave me all those many, many years ago.

Needless to say, it was quite a treat to stumble across the CD in 2024.

Don’t judge me.

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Afternoon Dance Party

Disco Discharge – European Connection (2010)

I had never heard this track before (weird, I know, right?) but I absolutely love it. It plays me.

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And Suddenly…

…it’s 1979 and I’m 21 again! 🥲 It’s Friday night and I’m getting ready to go out and meet my buddy Kent at Moon’s Truck for a night of dance, drink, and hopefully to catch the eye of a handsome stranger to round it all out with some unbridled debauchery. More often than not however, it would just be dance, drink, and slinking off to Denny’s on 7th Street for food at 3 am with the rest of the boys before heading home to finally get some sleep.

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