Brick -- "Dazz" (1976)

The golden eras of disco and funk overlapped in the 70's, and it seemed by the time I hit college in 1975, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing one or the other.

A certified rock and soul kid away from home for the first time, I couldn't get into most disco until years later, when it was more of a nostalgia. I must have been sheltered from all of it in high school, but once in the dorms of Buffalo, if you wanted to hang out at any club, you could not avoid the 4/4 four on the floor and synchronized hi hat.

Brick, and who knows where these guys were from (Atlanta, as I found out many years later), created this ingenious funk riff with clavinet chords, a thomping shuffle kick, a very splashy hi hat working the eighths, and what sounded like a clap and stick mixed together on the 2 and 4 beats. The beat swayed.

These guys were marketing savvy enough to call the style and the song "Dazz" -- "disco" and "jazz" merged together, except that while you could absolutely dance to it, it was definitely not disco in any traditional sense of the word. This was badass funk, not more than one step away from The Ohio Players, that you could jam to. This I had no problem getting into, although the lyrics, like most funk songs, were ridiculous. It was pretty much this...

Everybody go on and dance
If you want to.
Music makes your body move
Well all right!
Funky dancing get up
Get down, shake your booty.
Music makes your body move
Well all right!

Jazz dazz (disco jazz)
Jazz dazz (disco jazz)
Jazz dazz (disco jazz)
Jazz dazz (disco jazz)


OK, so the words were stupid, but that truly didn't matter.

I actually ran out and got a copy of their album Good High (!!!) because the song's full version had a lengthy flute solo and some insane squealing analog synth bass going "wo-o-o-owwww!" I couldn't care less about the rest of the album and I couldn't tell you another song these guys did. This was unquestionably one of the best party songs of the era and I wish instead of playing the same Motown and Aretha hits at weddings and bar mitzvahs, some DJ would be smart enough to lay this one down.

It's worth noting that after this song's success, Brick tried to make lightening strike twice with a follow-up called "Dusic" (!!) but that never made it! Wonder why?

Note to fellow music geeks: do not confuse this song or group with the Dazz Band, who came out later with the equally amazing "Let It Whip" (which truly had not a drop of jazz in it).

Believe it or not, I've got a few videos on this one. First, you have Brick performing "Dazz" live on the great old TV show "Midnight Special" and you'll note that they speed it up considerably. Then a sedentary homemade video of the long album version of "Dazz," which really is one of the mothers of all jams. Finally, some young white guy shows how he plays the electric bass to "Dazz" which was so entertaining, I had to add it. See -- great funk riffs never die, no matter how old you are!

The Most Absurd Disco Cover Songs of All Time

By the time disco was running full steam in the late 70's, the rush to cash in on the disco craze was so compelling that some rock artists jumped on the bandwagon, much to the dismay of their fans, notably Rod Stewart ("Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"), Kiss ("I Was Born For Loving You") and even the Electric Light Orchestra ("Shine A Little Light").

In the pursuit of the almighty dollar, disco actually turned its eyes to the classics. No, I don't mean Chopin (he was exploited for Donna Summers' "Could It Be Magic") or Beethoven (Walter Murphy got him with "A Fifth Of Beethoven").

I mean classic rock and folk songs from the 60's and 70's that didn't sound remotely like they should be played in a discotheque and probably should have been left just the way they are.

Disco turned the tables -- literally and figuratively -- on rock and roll.

There has been no musical category too sacred for a disco makeover. Some covers made perfectly logical sense because they were already rhythmic and soulful, like Bonnie Pointer's take on the obscure Motown tune "Heaven Must Have Sent You," Angela Clemmons' straightforward handclapping re-do of the Chairmen of the Board's "Give Me Just A Little More Time," and Donna Summer's synthesized epic "MacArthur's Park Suite."

However, the whole trend moved into the absurd when record executives and producers had the bright idea that the rock, folk and Broadway musical catalogs had to be raided, spiffed up with a 4/4 bass drum, 8th-note high hats, bouncy strings, hand claps, and oh, jacked up to about 125 beats per minute. Many songs were not meant for this destiny, but clearly destiny be damned! And that's what this post is about.

Remember the audience for the pseudo-musical "Springtime for Hitler" on opening night in "The Producers," jaws agape, eyes wide open in disbelief. You know what you are seeing and hearing is so bad, you can't decide if it's really awful or you just want to laugh at the whole thing and pretend it's a joke. You may have the same reaction when you hear and see these heretical disco genre twists.

Yes, here are the 10 most hard to believe songs that somehow found themselves converted into disco hits. You will see another recurring theme here -- the magical year of 1979, when the genre seemed to peak with insanity.

1) Viola Wills -- "If You Could Read My Mind" (1981): Gordon Lightfoot's 1970 slow sensitive breakthrough folk hit about his devastating divorce gets completely overhauled for the dance floor. The sadness of Lightfoot's fallen-apart relationship? Tossed out! Here's Viola Willis on "Solid Gold" with several women finely choreographed in sparkling gold spandex outfit belting out about that sad breakup. P.S. Not satisfied with desecrating one 70's Canadian folk artist, Wills released a disco version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" too.


2) Rosebud -- "Have A Cigar" (1977): Only a mere two years after Pink Floyd released their prog-rock tribute to drugged-out former bandmate Syd Barrett, Wish You Were Here, Warner Brothers released a 12" single from an anonymous studio band covering Roger Waters' song about, cough, the greed and hypocrisy of the record business. The song kind of takes on a whole new meaning when a funky slap bass and pounding cowbell accompany a couple of unknown singers belting out repeatedly in a rather quantized fashion: "Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar, you're gonna go far (go far-r-r-r-r!), a-ha!"


3) The Raes -- "School" (1979): Continuing the disco-izing of famous 70's prog-rock songs, this Toronto couple took on the opening song of Supertramp's Crime of the Century album. Like Pink Floyd, Supertramp seems have had some traumatic experiences in early UK education and paint a picture of a scared kid being poked around by his parents, friends and teachers. The Raes' version rethinks the song as a duet, where they take that tagline of "He's coming along!" and shout it along with some big cop show horn riffs.


4) Linda Clifford -- "Bridge Over Trouble Water" (1979): Nobody minded when Aretha Franklin made this song into a deep gospel take on Simon & Garfunkel's Grammy Award winning song about companionship even in the worst of times. After all, she was the queen of soul and she could sing the phone book and move the world. On the other hand, I don't think anybody expected this epic tune to feature background singers flittering: "Gonna be a bridge!" And if that point wasn't driven home clearly, here's Linda Clifford, a vision in red while dancing over the Williamsburgh Bridge, belting it out for all the cars driving by and perhaps a jumper who couldn't not believe what they were hearing. Note the jogger running past her at the 1:15 mark!


5) Elton John -- "Johnny B. Goode" (1979): Even the greats make their mistakes. John's career was at its nadir when he released his official disco album Victim of Love, produced by Giogio Moroder partner Pete Bellotte. I bet you didn't even know this album existed! Hoping to capture some of the stardust Bellotte gave Donna Summer, John opened this travesty with an ill-conceived eight minute disco rendition of Chuck Berry's rock and roll classic. Don't choke when you see Elton lip synch the single on TV here. Just keep thinking: "He went on to write 'Little Jeannie' the next year, thank God."


6) The Wonder Band -- "Whole Lotta Love" (1979): Even sacred hard rock bangers Led Zeppelin was not safe from the usual anonymous studio band treatment on this headbanging classic from their album, Stairway to Love. Speeding up that slow throbbing beat, the immortal guitar riff is short and clipped while those singers get their lines in over the hot congas: "You need coo-o-o-olin'! Baby, I'm not foo-o-o-o-lin'!"


7) Amii Stewart -- "Light My Fire" (1979): Making over Eddie Floyd's old Stax hit "Knock On Wood" is Stewart's claim to fame, but she found the time to follow the Donna Summer playbook for The Doors' breakthrough rock classic -- start nice and slow, and then rev up the beat and hold that note on "fi-i-i-i-ire" forever on the tempo transition. Stewart's costume and Egyptian-like dance moves (which clearly seems to have influenced Madonna later on) make this video clip a mesmerizing relic.



8) Sheila & B. Devotion -- "Singing In The Rain" (1977): Words fail me. I'll let the video say it all. A complete 6-minute choreographed routine that easily rivals the "Satan's Alley" finale of the film "Staying Alive."


9) Chilly -- "For Your Love" (1978): Lots of cheesy psychedelic camera visuals... and laughs galore from a group that looks like the cast of "Hair" annihilating the Yardbirds classic.


10) Ethel Merman -- "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1979):This may take the cake. Broadway warhorse with super lungs Ethel Merman was 71 years old when she recorded an entire album of show tune disco remakes, many of them of her own signature properties. I'll spare you "Everything's Coming Up Roses" for this surreal version of the "Gypsy" show stopper.


OTHER "PRIZE WINNERS":

Witch Queen -- "All Right Now," originally performed by Free
Witch Queen -- "Bang A Gong (Get It On)," originally performed by T. Rex
Salazar -- "Let's Hang On," originally performed by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Salazar -- "1-2-3," originally performed by Len Barry
Vicki Sue Robinson -- "To Sir With Love," originally performed by Lulu


3 SONGS THAT WOULD MAKE GREAT DISCO COVERS:
(I don't think anybody would mind if somebody redid these as disco songs if they were done well)

"I've Got The Music In Me," originally performed by Kiki Dee
"Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'," originally performed by Crazy Elephant
"Na, Na, Hey, Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)," originally performed by Steam

The Pet Shop Boys -- "So Hard" (1990)

The Penn and Teller of the English synthpop world had released a number of great singles but hit the jackpot with the Behaviour album in 1990. Where the duo could have picked all kinds of big name collaborators, they chose German musician/producer Harold Faltermeyer, whose biggest claim to fame before that was composing and writing the "Axel F Theme" from Beverly Hills Cop.

The Pet Shop Boys represented a striking confluence of disco and DJ culture, gay subtext, and artsy pretensions. Former Smash Hits magazine editor Neil Tennant sings in a slightly nasal tones, pretty much devoid of emotion, but carrying a melody quite well and full of irony. Their lyrics had sort of a journalistic bite, alluding to gay relationships, dependencies ("Rent") and trysts, but never quite giving it all away. They had an unquestionable devotion to the art and artifice of pop music, and often celebrated it in their songs and shows.

The Pet Shop Boys present an interesting contrast with the just-discussed New Order. Both created dance music and relished their 12" extended remixes, but that's where the comparisons ended: whereas New Order incorporated a lot of live instruments into their music, the Pet Shop Boys were all about the synthesizers, and a lot of them.

Whatever the music skills of the Boys, they always made a point of teaming with the best synthesizer and drum programmers as well as remixers in Europe, notably Julian Mendelsohn and Shep Pettibone early on. However, Behaviour was a real tour de force of analog synth programming, layered, EQ'd and arranged brilliantly.

"So Hard" opens with a short flying percussion pattern, some introductory kicks and spacey pads. The kick then goes straight 4/4, the hi hats move in, a woosh of a keyboard, giving way to the throbbing synth bass line and a minor key Fairlight riff. The instrumentation is definitely house music-based, lots of little hits and bleeps quantized in time with the groove. The narrator is again in a frustrating relationship, and as if often the case with The Pet Shop Boys, playing head games:

I double-cross you and you get mysterious mail
I've tried hard not to shock you
It's hard not to with the things I could say.

Tell me why don't we try
not to break our hearts and make it so hard for ourselves?
Why don't we try not to break our hearts
and make it so hard for ourselves?

You lock your letters in a box
and you've hidden the key
I go one better - I'm indebted to a contact magazine.

Tell me why don't we try
not to break our hearts and make it so hard for ourselves?
Why don't we try not to break our hearts
and make it so hard for us?


The Pet Shop Boys put angst to a disco beat. The song's break delivers it in spades:


Everybody's got to live together
just to find a little peace of mind there
If you give up your affairs forever
I will give up mine
But it's hard
so hard.


The group's best album coincided with their first major tour of America, one which I caught with my then-girlfriend (later wife) at Radio City Music Hall. I use the term "concert" loosely here because there was nothing traditional about it -- it was closer to theater and performance art, with numerous costumed dancers and players, a lot of pre-programmed synths and drum machines, and Tennant and Lowe casually moving in and out of the scenery, very much keeping with their low-key composure.

And Harold Faltermeyer? Despite the success of Behaviour, that was his last major commercial harrah.

Below is the official video, a strange black and white number shot around Newcastle in the UK. With various scenes of two couples having found outdoors, playing pool and pinball, the Boys appear like mysterious ghostly figures, Tennant singing with total ennui and Lowe not saying anything and sometimes just staring into space. They are accompanied by what look like bulky black bodyguards everywhere they go. If I put my English majors cap on, I'd say the PSB are the guilty consciences of the foursome, motioning blankly like the cats that ate the rat. By the video's end, it seems that one guy is checking out the other girl, and gets slapped for his trouble.

By the way, if you enjoy the Pet Shop Boys, you owe it to yourself to investigate the Pet Shop Boys Song-By-Song Commentary site, "Interpretations and Analyses of Every Song Written or Performed by Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant" by Wayne Studer, Ph.D.