Tuesday, June 16, 2020

The 1980 Listening Post - David Peel & the Death-O-Lettes - Death to Disco

David Peel & the Death-O-Lettes - Death to Disco


#76
1980 Housekeeping
David Peel & the Death-O-Lettes
Death to Disco
Genre: Junk Rock
0.5 out of 5




When I was a kid I remember getting on board with the “Disco Sucks” phenomenon. In retrospect, i think it was more hateful of gays than it was about disco. As critic “Dave Marsh described Disco Demolition Night as "your most paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead".[1] Marsh was one who, at the time, deemed the event an expression of bigotry, writing in a year-end 1979 feature that "white males, eighteen to thirty-four are the most likely to see disco as the product of homosexuals, blacks, and Latins, and therefore they're the most likely to respond to appeals to wipe out such threats to their security. It goes almost without saying that such appeals are racist and sexist, but broadcasting has never been an especially civil-libertarian medium."
But to a young impressionable teenager who was just getting his fists ready to pump and learning the devil horns and wanting to “belong” I came dangerously close to owning a “Disco Sucks” t-shirt. 
But, then again, I also had a Village People album and Meco’s Star Wars & Other Galactic Funk.

The opener for this seems to be a four on the floor nigh-dance tune that is all about screaming that “Disco Sucks!”. It’s weird because it could be turned INTO a disco song. So, I don’t get it. Is Peel on the anti-disco bandwagon or is he mocking it? 
After that first track it becomes obvious that Peel has a bone to pick with Disco. Virtually every song is a screed about it. Screw this guy. He has issues. 

I can see Peel touring with GG Allin. He’s less scatological but attempts to be just as offensive in his own way, under the guise of “humor”. I didn’t find it funny. 

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