ERICA BERGER
FRANK DeCARO
Mirror balls. Qiana shirts. “A Fifth of Beethoven.”
If that’s all you remember of the Disco Era, you’ve forgotten some important details.
Because the music’s heyday — a few overheated years, back in the ‘70s — also brought other things. Like songs about female empowerment and gay liberation. Like places where everyone — once they got past the doorman — could dance together as equals. Like a world where the music seemed as if it would go on forever.
Until one day, it didn’t.
Frank DeCaro has a long, rich résumé — from a longtime stint on “The Daily Show” to two books of kitschy celebrity recipes, to his wonderfully affecting, gay-in-the-Garden-State memoir “A Boy Named Phyllis.”
But lately he has been devoting himself to deeply researched, lavishly illustrated coffee table books looking at often-neglected parts of pop culture. “Drag: Combing Through the Big Wigs of Show Business” (2019) examined the long history of that campy performance art. His newest, “Disco: Music, Movies and Mania Under the Mirror Ball” (Rizzoli, 240 pp., $55) celebrates a trend that became a subculture.
“Like drag, I think it’s an underappreciated art form,” he says. “And it deserves to be taken seriously.”
The cover of Frank DeCaro’s book, “Disco: Music, Movies and Mania Under the Mirror Ball”
Q: One of the things that struck me about the book was all of disco’s Jersey connections — Garden State natives like Gloria Gaynor and John Travolta, diner favorites like disco fries. But let’s start off by talking about your Jersey roots.
A: Well, I grew up in Little Falls in the house I still have. In fact, I have spent all but three Christmases of my life in that house. Even though I spend a lot of the year in California, I still come home for Christmas, like the kids on a “Waltons” special. Only now I’m more like Grandma Walton.
Q: You mention going to the Strawberry Patch teen disco as a kid. What was that?
A: That was a disco in Wayne — right behind the Fountains of Wayne yard store, which gave its name to the band, and next to the DMV where I got my driver’s license. They had a teen event every weekend. My friend and I would get all dressed up in our designer jeans and our Huk-a-Poo shirts and my father would drop us off. And did we dance the night away? No, we were teenagers; mostly we just stood around. But disco was fun and we wanted to be part of it; if you were trendy at all, you wanted to be part of it. It was as big and all-encompassing then as hip-hop is now. It affected every aspect of the culture — not just music but movies, television, who our idols were.
Q: The book goes into, of course, the Studio 54 scene. But not everybody was going to get past that velvet rope. Where were the bridge-and-tunnel kids going?
A: Well, once the music became popular, discos were opening everywhere. They were in hotel ballrooms. You could go to a motel and the cocktail lounge would have a light-up dancefloor. So you didn’t have to go and wait on line outside Studio 54. Of course, if you could get in, you went; it was like being accepted at an Ivy League college. And once you were in — as Andy Warhol said, “It was a dictatorship at the door, and a democracy on the dance floor.” You could dance with whoever else was there — Liza, Nureyev, anyone. But disco was really everywhere. Even if you didn’t leave your house, you could turn on your TV and it would take you into clubs across the nation. Disco was huge. It was like a tsunami of sequins.
Q: What is it in a song that immediately identifies it as disco?
A: There’s definitely that thump-thump beat — I think they call it four-on-the-floor. But it’s also the mood. It’s all about, “Let’s keep dancing, let’s feel good, let’s feel good about ourselves.” It’s the music of empowerment. You know, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now.” “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” It’s about hope for the future, it’s about love, it’s about diversity. It definitely seems like a strange contradiction, but for a musical genre that’s synonymous with the velvet rope, it’s really about acceptance. It’s about, “Hey, we’re all moving forward and everyone’s welcome.”
Frank DeCaro, when he was a young disco fan.
Q: The book traces disco back to the early ’70s. What are your first disco memories?
A: I remember being maybe 12 and at some place painting ceramics — I was an arts-and-crafts person as a little kid — and “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation came on the radio and I thought, “This is the best.” I don’t know, maybe I was high on spray paint! And then I remember going to Willowbrook Mall to see Musique, who sang “(Push, Push) In the Bush,” to get them to sign my album. My first concert was The Bee Gees at Madison Square Garden. I still have the ticket stub; it’s in the book. I kept everything. I still have the Jordache jeans I wore that night. They only fit on one leg now, but I still have them.
Q: And then there was this backlash. The shouts of “Disco sucks!” The infamous “Disco Demolition Night” in 1979 after a White Sox game. What happened?
A: It was so much fun, and the lyrics were so minimal, it was always treated with disrespect. But in the end, most of the complaints weren’t really about the music; they were about who was enjoying the music. Plus, with the huge exception of The Bee Gees, the music wasn’t being made by straight white guys; it was coming from strong women of color, and the queer community. They were the tastemakers of the moment, and straight white male rock fans felt they were being left behind. They felt threatened. I mean, listen to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” — “Don’t try to take me to a disco/You’ll never even get me out on the floor.” Why was that so terrifying?
PHOTOFEST
Disco group Boney M.
Q: One of the points the book makes, though, which I thought was interesting, is that disco didn’t really die. It just changed and morphed and inspired other things.
A: It did. It wasn’t really covered at the time, because most of the people who were writing about music then had been gunning for disco. They were glad to see it go. But it definitely inspired other music. I mean, if punk was rock music for ugly people, what was new wave but disco for neurotic people? Or the earliest house tracks — really, they sound like some of the earliest disco tracks. You hear disco’s influence everywhere today. I think when you listen to Dua Lipa singing “Houdini,” there’s some Donna Summer there. Miley Cyrus singing “Flowers” … she’s doing the “I Will Survive” of the 21st century. Lizzo, Pink, Sabrina Carpenter — all these performers have some disco in their DNA. Even if it doesn’t sound like “Bad Girls,” it’s still recognizable as music to get swept up in, and dance to, and feel good about, and feel good about yourself.
Q: It’s still staying alive.
A: Disco got the last laugh, really. I mean, obviously, it won out — all we talk about now is diversity and embracing our real selves. That’s what disco was really all about, anyway. It was a shining moment for people of color and women and the queer community. It was so good and infectious you couldn’t not come down with boogie fever. You had to get up and dance. And you still do. You go to any event in a rented ballroom, and you’re dancing to disco, or disco’s grandchildren. And even the people who once yelled “Disco sucks!” are singing along.
For more on Frank DeCaro’s “Disco: Music, Movies and Mania Under the Mirror Ball,” visit rizzoliusa.com.
CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET
Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the state’s arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of any amount to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.
