Educating The Masses

[rhessel]

Hello:

It is really nice to see everyone of us looking into one direction. It is nice to see all of us trading ideas for a good project.

Let's join our efforts to build an evergrowing site, instead of giving offences to each other (as happened some days ago).

Cheers,

[Funky Dude]

I for one think this is a fantastic idea. The masses need to know there's more to disco than just "Stayin' Alive", John Travolta dressed in a white suit and what made the top 20 pop charts.

Australia needs education on disco more than any other country because most people I know only ever know the most typical of typical disco songs and the only retro radio stations that play disco, they play only what made the charts. I even sent an email to one of the stations asking them to play more obscure stuff and they told me they tend to want to stick to what made the local, state and national charts, and on top of that they told me that they don't have a lot of the songs that I mentioned in their CD or record library.

Sure, many obscure funk and disco records flow through the Aussie record markets, but I never hear any of the obscure stuff on retro radio and most people know what's been played on retro radio. I don't know if underground obscure disco was played in Aussie discos in the 70's because I wasn't alive back then but I do know I only ever hear mainstream disco on radio. I go to CD stores and most of the disco CDs are bloody compilations of the Australia's top 20 disco which includes "YMCA", "Stayin' Alive", "I Will Survive", "Ring My Bell", "That's The Way I Like It" etc... although there are some compilations with less-known stuff. But when I ask the storekeeper for certain funk/disco albums he/she checks the database and most of the time NOTHING comes up.

And even with the pay TV station musicMAX, when they play discoMAX every Saturday night, they mainly have the mainstream stuff, and what's worse they play too much 80's and 90's mainstream and not much 70's and they play the same bloody clips over and over again the next weekend. Clips from that show that I'm totally sick of include:
B-52's - Love Shack 1989 (that is the most overplayed 80's song in Australia and NOT DISCO, I'll never listen to this song again)
John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - Grease Megamix (the most overplayed 70's video clip in Australia and I'M HELL SICK OF IT)
All of the rap video clips of the 90's

My collection of disco videos is far greater than musicMAX's because I've got a lot of Top Of The Pops disco clips, a few Soul Train episodes plus clips, even disco clips from Countdown which musicMAX don't bother showing.

And I've always mentioned we were swamped by ABBA fever which around 1976 my mother told me there was nothing but ABBA ABBA ABBA on radio because the little teenyboppers constantly requested their music.

I know we had fantastic rock groups and had a few disco groups of our own, but the majority of disco aired on radio is mainstream. We need some retro groove stations in Australia that play non-mainstream disco and funk, and we NEED Soul Train and Disco Step-by-Step and Soap Factory episodes aired in Australia to visually show there is more to disco than the top 20. What sickens me is that some obscure stuff that charts in USA and England charts low in Australia for example "Machine Gun" by the Commodores, in 1974 it charted at 22 in USA, 20 in UK but only 95 in Australia. Most people I know only listen to the retro radio and I hear the same old songs over and over again. Some of our neighbours even have their radio turned up and I mainly hear "Love shack L-l-l-l-love shack, love shack l-l-l-l-love shack" or "Mamma mia, here we go again" and they feel content with just mainstream and couldn't care less about anything else.

I may be wrong about this but from what I gather, the only Aussies that know about underground disco are groove DJs and enthusiasts such as myself and there are a few of us around. I'm probably the only person living in the Illawarra district who has the most obscure disco songs.

We are in most need for education on the disco music genre.

[NickNack]

On 2002-06-14 21:51, DotBomb wrote:
OK, Graham... I won't fight you here. You have your opinions, I have mine... let's leave it at that.

Hi DotBomb,

Don't think Graham is trying to shut you down. What he says are facts, not opinions. It was only a month or so before you joined that Bernie had to cease his very popular Dance Groove Radio because of these same legal issues. 'DGR' was an absolute winner and very popular with the members, even though you couldn't download or copy it. Yet, the fees Bernie would have been forced to pay for playing copyrighted material were ridiculous. So much so that the ENTIRE site would have gone under had he tried to keep it going.

I think it reasonable to say that if it was legally possible AND cost effective to have music here, Bernie would do it in a heartbeat.

_________________
Dancin'... A Thing To Free Your Mind

Nicky

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: NickNack on 2002-06-16 20:37 ]</font>

[DotBomb]

You know, what strikes me about all this is the sheer absurdity of these copyright laws. By the same token, if the courts are shutting down Napster and AudioGalaxy, why aren't the publishers suing libraries? It's the same thing! Copyrighted material being made available for free... I hope some attorney talks publishers into shutting down every library that holds copyrighted material!

These laws are ABSURD, especially when it deals with this kind of music. 95% of disco is NEVER EVER EVER EVER going to be reissued on CD. There is hope, possibly... that 50% of them will recieve a release of the bastardized radio edits to CD... but never in their original form will they ever be released, or money made from them again. ABSURD! ABSURD! That's the verdict! The court and legal system in america is a joke when it comes to dealing with intellectual property. IF THEY WANT US TO STOP MAKING MP3s, IF THEY WANT US TO OBEY COPYRIGHT LAWS, THEY MUST MAKE IT AVAILABLE. IF IT IS AVAILABLE... I AM SURE MOST PEOPLE WOULD GLADLY PAY FOR IT!

I have on mp3 mostly what does not appear on CD. I have ripped a good deal of vinyl to mp3 and made it freely available for those who wish to know of the music... the recording companies will never shut me down, no matter how hard they try... and in the future, I am strongly considering starting a website of my own... complete with mp3s for download. My response to the RIAA bloodsuckers???? MAKE IT AVAILABLE ON CD, AND THEN I WILL REMOVE THE MP3!

There must be a major copyright law reform, otherwise this is going to spin out of control. As the laws are now... I can understand everybody's hesitation to do what I have suggested... that doesn't stop me from attempting it myself.