San Francisco Disco Preservation Society
August 19, 2019 9:50 PM Subscribe
The mission of the San Francisco Disco Preservation Society is to collect, restore, digitize, preserve, and present historic audio and video recordings pertaining to DJ and nightclub history in San Francisco and internationally, as well as educate, inform, and entertain the public and future generations through its archives, public events, screenings, and online access to its resources. Hours and hours of themed disco! ENJOY! (Via WFMU)
Amazing. Thank You so much. Just downloaded their latest podcast episode. 93 minutes of Disco!
posted by mundo at 1:20 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by mundo at 1:20 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Recently we passed the 40th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night, pretty much the evil opposite of what these fine people are doing.
Austin radio station KUTX marked the occasion with a four-hour "Disco Lives!" show, with tracks curated by DJ Rick McNulty ranging from The Love I Lost (1973) to Daft Punk (2013) and after.
I don't think the show is archived. I did capture the stream, but I wouldn't know where to, um, not do anything at all with it, ahem.
posted by AbnerRavenwood at 2:19 PM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
Austin radio station KUTX marked the occasion with a four-hour "Disco Lives!" show, with tracks curated by DJ Rick McNulty ranging from The Love I Lost (1973) to Daft Punk (2013) and after.
I don't think the show is archived. I did capture the stream, but I wouldn't know where to, um, not do anything at all with it, ahem.
posted by AbnerRavenwood at 2:19 PM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]
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This is not the disco you were expecting. No one would believe there was this magical time in SF, after the devastation of HIV had ebbed a little, before the devastation of the dotcom assholes, where there was just freedom and beauty and youth and art and rebellion. Yeah, most of our heroes still slung guitars, but there was a lot of weird glitchy music coming out of every funky cafe and second hand store and If you didn’t have work the next day, there were places to go and be hypnotized all night and if you didn’t already know people there, you’d surely know some by morning. At the time I thought it mostly throw away music, it was always there in the background, I thought it would always be there if I wanted it. Now 25 years later, it’s never there, and I have no idea where to find it. I recognize the names. DJ Mark Watkins, Wendy Hunt, Doc Martin. Every night some weirdo I never heard of like “Aphex Twin” or “Moby” or “Chemical Brothers” would be playing some warehouse. I wonder if my kids would think this music sounds dated.
There was opportunity and tech back then. I had a good job developing silicon chips that could communicate with single cells. That got me an introduction to R.U. Sirius and Rudy Rucker. I left that job to develop the first HIV viral load test. The city was beautiful and expensive, we lived 4 of us in a 2 bedroom flat in the Castro. But nothing like today.
The people who stayed are either filthy rich and complaining about the city or barely struggling to get by and complaining about the city. I’d really like to believe there’s a whole group of young people who’ve figured out how to get by there, subverting the system, as many generations previous have done, but I don’t think there is. It’s a capitalist rich people’s playground now, and probably not a bad one as far as those things go if you’re cool with a big segment of the population denied their basic human dignity, my new adopted town seems hell bent to become one of these lavishly dead cities.
But man, what a scene we had back then. I’m glad I left before I had to watch what happened next. This music is such a time capsule.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:58 PM on August 19, 2019 [24 favorites]