“I want to really get people from Niagara Falls and surrounding areas to check out the Rapids Theatre and check out downtown Niagara Falls,” said Dan DeGoski, producer and DJ of Studio 54 Revisited.

The Rapids Theatre is the perfect venue for this type of party because it depicts the way Studio 54 was back in the disco era, according to DeGoski.

“Its going to be a very electrifying night,” he said. “People are going to be talking about this party until we hold it again next year.”

If the event takes off, as DeGoski expects it will, he plans on revisiting Studio 54 again next year and turning into a charitable event.

Motivational entertainer Sammy V will act as MC for the event.

“He can make your grandma run the 100 yard dash in seven seconds,” said DeGoski on Sammy’s ability to get the crowd moving.

This is a party all ages can appreciate, he added.

The party will begin at 8 p.m. and DeGoski and Kathy Duff will teach the original “bus stop” dance made famous in the movie Saturday Night Fever at 8:30 p.m.

A $100 prize will be rewarded to the person with the best disco outfit and to the best disco dancer. Admission is $12 and ages 21 and older will be admitted. Tickets will be sold at the Rapids Theatre Box Office and at the door the night of the party.

Hera Björk from Iceland was the last one to perform in Telenor Arena during Monday’s rehearsals. The disco song Je Ne Sais Quoi is closing the first Semi-Final in Oslo, and Hera hopes for an up-tempo knock out. At the rehearsal, she revealed a new, wine-red dress to be worn for the contest.

The performance of Je Ne Sais Quoi started with Hera standing alone, surrounded by smoke, with five backing vocalists in the shadows behind. For the second verse, two of the female backing singers joined Hera in the spotlight for some minor choreography. Hera and the three female backing vocalists wore their all-new wine-red stage dresses this day, but the make-up and hair wasn’t ready for this first rehearsal.

In the backdrop, the multitude of lamps formed a starry night sky with a purple hue, evolving into red and white lights pulsating in the backdrop. In the second part of the song they turned light blue and white. The quality of the sound has received much praise from the competing delegations. However, discussions are now being held to change the output of the sound from the Icelandic backing singers.

Iceland had a fan following attending the rehearsal, cheering loudly for Hera and the team on stage. After completing the last run-through of the song, Hera and the rest gave them a cheerful wave and a huge bow.

Heading over to Europe for the band’s biggest tour yet, including shows in Bristol, Manchester, London, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Athens and Brussels, drummer Tony Mitolo is looking forward to a European vacation before he and bassist Sid Sidhu take up rhythm duties for ARIA Award winners Empire of the Sun. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” he says.

“Three and a half weeks of The Swiss and 3½ weeks of Empire of the Sun and I can definitely say there’ll be some contrasts – like closing Glastonbury with Empire on the same stage Massive Attack played last year.” The massive tour will find Tony and Sid playing to some of their biggest audiences yet, including four sold-out shows in Los Angeles (where the crew from hit show Entourage  are rumoured to be attending, along with the who’s who of Hollywood).

But when the boys head home to Adelaide they won’t have much time to relax before hitting the road again with LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip on their national tour and releasing some more singles.

“There are two singles coming out over the next month and then some more in September,” Tony says. With dance floors being set alight across the globe, sadly Adelaide fans might have to wait a while for the debut album.

“I just think releasing singles is so appropriate for dance music,” Tony says.

Murphy has always had his finger on the pulse of what moves the indie community and that hasn’t changed. “This Is Happening” continues the winning streak that peaked with the brilliant “All My Friends” from 2007’s “Sound of Silver.”

Lead track “Dance Yrself Clean” follows this thread with Murphy slinging lines like “I miss the way the night goes/ With friends that always make it feel good” alongside gyrating synths.

His lyrics this time out lean heavily on realizing the comforts of home and spending time with the ones who know you best: “Break me into bigger pieces/ So some of me is home with you.” ”All I Want” runs on a languid guitar line that could channel a Steven Malkmus song, as Murphy sings the praises of attachment: “You’ve never needed anyone for so long.”

But he still enjoys the occasional night out. An anthem for a spring break spent in Brooklyn, “Drunk Girls” will have partiers chuckling through the morning after and will stay in their heads long past the hangover.

On “You Wanted A Hit,” Murphy sneers that he’s incapable of writing one, articulating directives like observations and vice versa, though the inverse is probably true. Either way, fans of his brand of contemplative dance music will be just as satisfied with these nine “misfires.”

Check out this track:On “Pow Pow” a rippling bassline lopes around Murphy’s panoramic perspectives on the food in his neighbourhood, a Village Voice music critic and making peace with the man.

In his new book Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age, the US writer Steve Knopper gives an articulate overview of the mechanics of a contemporary business in a constant state of flux and panic.

Knopper identifies numerous much-discussed factors as being to blame for the state of confusion in the music industry over the past decade – Napster, iTunes and corporate greed among them – but he also reminds us that 30 years ago the biggest threat to music was music itself. Specifically, disco.

Back in the summer of 1979, the Detroit rock radio DJ Steve Dahl was so aggrieved that his beloved Stones and Zeppelin were being dropped from playlists in favour of Village People, Donna Summer and Chic, that he launched his “Disco sucks!” campaign. Dahl encouraged listeners to phone in their disco requests, which he would then destroy on air with explosive sound effects. “Midwesterners didn’t want that intimidating [disco] style shoved down their throats,” said Dahl.

What began as on-air mischief soon snowballed into an anti-disco movement. Joined by a failed rock guitarist called Steve Veek, Dahl took “Disco sucks!” public when Veek secured the use of Comiskey Park, the home of the Chicago White Sox that was owned by his father. In July 1979, Dahl announced that anyone in possession of a disco record would receive cheap entry to the next White Sox home game.

Instead of the usual 16,000 fans, an unprecedented 59,000 turned up. Joined by baseball fans, they proceeded to storm the pitch, where they smashed and burned their Bee Gees vinyl. “They wore Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath T-shirts,” writes Knopper, then a 13-year-old disco-hater “smashed bottles on the ground, smoked God knows what and chanted their almighty rallying cry: ‘Disco sucks’!”

If that’s not enough to turn you into a disco fan, then I don’t know what is. The unspoken subtext was obvious: disco music was for homosexuals and black people. Not only that, but, as Knopper notes, in the disco era “to make it with a lady a guy had to learn how to dance. And wear a fancy suit!”

It wasn’t real concerns such as the threat of war or the loss of jobs that inspired this hate-fest, but something far more malevolent ingrained in rock fans’ collective psyche. What should have been harmless insurrection became a demolition rally for hard-rocking, middle American, predominantly white dudes with dubious taste. “It’s incredible that rock fans would actually riot for the right to hear REO Speedwagon and Foreigner,” Knopper writes.

In the short term, this disco backlash worked. Records sales bolstered by disco’s glory days of 1974 to the Saturday Night Fever-fuelled high of 1978 fell by 11% in 1979, and the major US record labels began to look elsewhere for cash cows: to hard rock, new wave and power-pop fluff.

But it was a pyrrhic victory. Disco spawned house music and the club scene and impacted upon the then-emerging hip-hop culture. In short, disco’s influence is everywhere. Could you envisage such a thing happening today? Could you imagine thousands of knuckle-headed Nickelback fans protesting Madonna’s latest album?

Thankfully not. In an era when all music is just a click away, when gay culture is embedded in the mainstream and America has a black president, it would be nice to think minds have expanded. Thirty years on, the “Disco sucks!” campaign was clearly a resolute failure. But for a while it had an industry quaking in its Cuban heels.

The Queen of Disco Music (December 31, 1948 – present)

Donna Summer Singer/songwriter/pop culture icon Donna Summer is the best Disco Music expression.

Donna Summer, of course, rocketed to international superstardom in the mid-1970s when her groundbreaking merger of R&B, soul, pop, funk, rock, disco and avant-garde electronica catapulted underground dance music out of the clubs of Europe to the pinnacles of sales and radio charts around the world.

Donna SummerMaintaining an unbroken string of hits throughout the 70s and 80s, most of which she wrote, Donna holds the record for most consecutive double albums to hit #1 on the Billboard charts (3) and first female to have four #1 singles in a 12 month period; 3 as a solo artist and one as a duo with Barbra Streisand.

A five-time Grammy winner, Donna Summer was the first artist to win the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (1979, “Hot Stuff”) as well as the first-ever recipient of the Grammy for Best Dance Recording (1997, “Carry On”). In 2004, she became one of the first inductees, as both an Artist Inductee and a Record Inductee (for 1977’s “I Feel Love”) into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York City. It is estimated that Donna Summer has sold more than 130 million records worldwide.

The arrival of a new Donna Summer album is a major musical event and CRAYONS is a worthy addition to one of the world’s most influential musical catalogs. “I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it,” says Donna. “I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There’s a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else … like when you’re cooking.”

Donna Summer Donna Summer

In 1975, Moroder and Bellotte produced the international hit, “Love to Love You Baby,” which rose to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and triggered Summer’s triumphant return to the United States as a key figure of the then-emerging
disco genre. “Love To Love You Baby” paved the way for such international hits as “MacArthur Park,” “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “Dim All The Lights,” “On The Radio,” and “Enough Is Enough,” as well as the Grammy and Academy award winning theme song “Last Dance,” from the film “Thank God It’s Friday,” which remains a milestone in Donna’s career.

In 1980, Summer became the first artist to sign with David Geffen’s new label, Geffen Records, leaving her disco days behind and moving into the next phase of her career .” In the years that followed, Summer collaborated with writers and producers such as Quincy Jones, Michael Omartian and England’s dance-pop production compound Stock Aitken Waterman and produced a steady stream of hits from “State of Independence,” featuring Michael Jackson on backing vocals, to the abiding feminist anthem “She Works Hard For The Money,” one of the most-played songs of all-time, and the infectious “This Time I Know It’s For Real.”

In 1994, she released “Endless Summer,” a greatest hits retrospective containing a new song, “Melody of Love,” which became Billboard’s #1 Dance Record of the Year. She also released the critically acclaimed gem “Christmas Spirit,” a collection of Summer’s original songs and holiday standards recorded with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Summer spent the ‘90s continuing to tour, performing to sold-out audiences worldwide.

Donna SummerIn 1997, when the new “Best Dance Recording” Category was created at the Grammy Awards, Donna Summer was the first winner with her fifth career Grammy award for “Carry On.” In 1999, Sony/Epic Records released “VH1 Presents Donna Summer: Live & More – Encore!,” an album and DVD of Summer’s critically acclaimed VH1 broadcast taped at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The show premiered
on VH1 as one of the network’s highest rated shows to date and featured live performances of Summer’s top hits.

Donna Summer has earned five Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, three consecutive #1 platinum double albums (she’s the only artist, male or female, ever to accomplish this), 11 gold albums, four #1 singles, 2 platinum singles, and 12 gold singles. Donna is also the first female artist to have a #1 single and #1 album on the Billboard charts simultaneously (“Live & More;” “MacArthur Park” 1978) a feat she also repeated six months later (“Bad Girls” & “Hot Stuff” in 1979). She has charted 21 #1 hits on the Billboard Disco/Dance charts, over a period of 25 years a milestone solidifying her as THE Queen of Dance.

In addition to her recording and performing career, Summer is an accomplished visual artist whose work has been shown at exhibitions worldwide including Steven Spielberg’s “Starbright Foundation Tour of Japan” and The Whitney Museum as well as a prestigious engagement at Sotheby’s in New York. In 2003, Random House published her autobiography “Ordinary Girl,” co-authored with Marc Eliot. Also that year, Universal released “The Journey,” containing all of her original hits, as well as three new songs.

Two years ago, Donna Summer decided to go back on the road and reconnect with her audience. “I was sitting around the house, like I say on stage, and fast becoming a desperate housewife,” she laughs. “I asked myself, ‘What am I going to do? What do I like?’ I needed to feel like I could connect again with the audience, fully be there, conscious, not with the bells and whistles and a lot of stuff. I wanted to get an honest relationship going. And once I did that, I felt like I could put another record out. It really is difficult after so long to define yourself when people have such a definite past image of you. You need to drop that image somewhat and move on into the future. It”s not easy to find a way to bridge the gap between the old and the new and still not lose the audience and make them feel you’ve deserted them from who you used to be. I’ve gotten older, I’m a mother, I have grandkids, my life has changed. Looking around, I’ve been blessed literally to have a world audience. I’ve traveled all over the world singing in so many different countries and I really wanted to incorporate some sounds and elements, in the words and instrumentation of other places. I wanted the world to recognize that it had also influenced me.”

Donna Summer Singer/songwriter/pop culture icon Donna Summer is the best Disco Music expression.

Donna Summer, of course, rocketed to international superstardom in the mid-1970s when her groundbreaking merger of R&B, soul, pop, funk, rock, disco and avant-garde electronica catapulted underground dance music out of the clubs of Europe to the pinnacles of sales and radio charts around the world.

Donna SummerMaintaining an unbroken string of hits throughout the 70s and 80s, most of which she wrote, Donna holds the record for most consecutive double albums to hit #1 on the Billboard charts (3) and first female to have four #1 singles in a 12 month period; 3 as a solo artist and one as a duo with Barbra Streisand.

A five-time Grammy winner, Donna Summer was the first artist to win the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (1979, “Hot Stuff”) as well as the first-ever recipient of the Grammy for Best Dance Recording (1997, “Carry On”). In 2004, she became one of the first inductees, as both an Artist Inductee and a Record Inductee (for 1977’s “I Feel Love”) into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in New York City. It is estimated that Donna Summer has sold more than 130 million records worldwide.

The arrival of a new Donna Summer album is a major musical event and CRAYONS is a worthy addition to one of the world’s most influential musical catalogs. “I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it,” says Donna. “I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There’s a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else … like when you’re cooking.”

McFaddin Ventures in Houston, Texas commissioned a study on the stimulation of males and females during the playing of music. They accordingly custom tuned their speakers to make their numerous properties more exciting. Their programmer/disc jockey, Karen Cook, was the first female disco DJ in the states and trained other McFaddin Ventures discjockeys to work the music format – 6 up, 3 down, to sell more drinks.

In the late 1970s, Studio 54 was arguably the most well known nightclub in the world. This club played a major formative role in the growth of disco music and nightclub culture in general.
[edit] Disco Dancing

Some cities had disco dance instructors or dance schools which taught people how to do popular disco dances such as “touch dancing”, “the hustle” and “the cha cha.” The pioneer of disco dance instruction was Karen Lustgarten in San Francisco in 1973. Her book The Complete Guide to Disco Dancing (Warner Books, 1978) was the first to name, break down and codify popular disco dances as a dance form and distinguish between disco freestyle, partner and line dances. The book hit the New York Times Best Seller List for 13 weeks and was translated into Chinese, German and French. disco dancing

Some notable professional dance troupes of the 1970s included Pan’s People and Hot Gossip. For many dancers, the primary influence of the 1970s disco age is still predominantly the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). This developed into the music and dance style of such films as Fame (1980), Flashdance (1983),”The Last Days of Disco”(1998), and the musical A Chorus Line (1975).