OMG, I've fallen down the rabbit hole! One video leads to another, leads to another…
So many in fact, that I've pre-published Dance Party posts for the next two weeks. THIS song, however, couldn't wait that long.
At the time this record came out (1980 or thereabouts), it was EXTREMELY hard to find. As I recall, I had to mail order it from a place in NYC, supposedly one of only a handful of stores in the country who had it. It was (and remains) an aural orgasm; I swear I almost wore my original copy out.
I've always preferred this song played at a slightly slower tempo, but I'm obviously not going to find that on YouTube. Lots of memories of dancing with my friend Lee at the Fineline.
Lee, if you're reading this (doubtful, as I know you're never online) call me!
I think it is a testament to brilliance and universal appeal of this film that it's been translated into so many different languages. I still remember seeing it in the theater when it originally came out and was absolutely blown away.
I never noticed it back in the day, but I think Mr. Foster was trying to channel the BeeGees. (At this point I don't remember if this song came out before or after Saturday Night Fever.)
Alec Costandinos produced under several studio monikers, one of which was Sphinx. I always thought this to be an odd subject for a dance tune, but whatever. It has all the lushness Alec was come to be known for.
Continuing with yesterday's theme, more "symphonic" disco from Alec R. Costandinos… (It's broken into four parts because of YouTube's length/size restrictions.)
Steve Golden and I met in 1979 and had a strange relationship from the very beginning. I think that in another timeline things might've taken a decidedly different course, but in this one, a full blown relationship was never meant to be. That did not mean, however, that we did not love each other deeply; it just meant that circumstances never allowed either of us to fully move upon those feelings, physically or otherwise.
Steve is now gone from us for twenty years (twenty years!) and is another one of those stories I hope to blog about in more detail at some point, but suffice to say that he was a DJ at one of Phoenix's big gay clubs during the period this song came out. One night I was down on the floor dancing with Dennis, my partner at the time, and out of nowhere Steve stopped the music (absolutely unheard of), came over the speakers and said, "Mark, this is for you." I looked up to the DJ booth and as he blew me a kiss, played this song.
Unrequited love, indeed.
But if things hadn't gone the way they did, I wouldn't be where I am now, or with who I am now, and that is infinitely better…
This was the first song I ever slow danced to with another man. David Martinez, August 1977 at The Forum in Phoenix, AZ. I remember being so disappointed when I actually bought the album and brought it home because it wasn't on the same translucent pink vinyl that I saw playing at the club. It wasn't until the late 90s that I finally got hold of the elusive pink version…
I was quite infatuated with David. We dated long distance (he lived in Williams, and I was at school in Tucson). He drove to Tucson one weekend to see Fleetwood Mac with me, and I made the six hour trip (by bus) shortly thereafter to spend a weekend with him as the trees were changing up north. We hiked to the top of Bill Williams Mountain where I took this picture of him:
I had also decided at this point it was time to come out to the rest of my family (my dad had known for some time already), and since I knew my Mom always went through my dresser drawers, I left a copy of the then-seminal Loving Someone Gay in the top drawer on the way back to school. Needless to say, this prompted another trip home the following weekend…
Eventually the pressure of living in two separate cities proved too much for the budding relationship and David and I drifted apart. I briefly reconnected with him via email in 2000 and had every intention of looking him up after I'd moved back to Phoenix two years later, but it never happened.
How did this get sidetracked from the Thursday Dance Party?
