Happy 25th Anniversary of Disco Demolition, Chicago!!!!!

[XNASA]

http://whitesoxinteractive.com/History&Glory/DiscoDemolition.htm





"Memories.........light the corners of my mind.
Misty water color memories of the way we were."

:crazy:

[GOPisEvil]

1. Worst baseball promotion ever.

Not in theory, but in practice. Nothing like a riot between games of a doubleheader.

Mike Veeck's team, the St. Paul Saints, are re-creating Disco Sucks night, but the explosions will be done off-site. :-)

[playahata1]

22. On ESPN Classic yesterday, they profiled The Old Man, BILL VEECK.

He was better for the game than most people want to admit, IMO. :-)

[MallRat]

2. For those non-Chicagoans who don't know...

Here's a website devoted to the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park.

http://www.outernetweb.com/focal/disco/headlines/index.html

[johnnie]

3. Man...25 years already?

I remember this well. Well, not in person, I watched it on TV. Those were the days. It would be too politically incorrect to have something like that again. Oh wait..I forgot the Dixie Chicks episode.

[XNASA]

4. A couple of weeks before this happened.....

A friend and I drove out the the Pointe East nightclub in Lynwood to check-out a Dahl hosted Anti-Disco event. We couldn't get within a mile of the place. It was nuts.

We never went in, so actually, Disco Demolition didn't take me by surprise. I thought it was kind of cool, me being a disco hating rocker at the time.

I'm not a Dahl fan, though I still listen from time to time. If anything, it's amazing how someone with his limited abilities has been able to stay on the air this long. DD made him.

[Susang]

5. I hated the anti-disco stuff

Living in Detroit, where it all started, BTW, it seemed kind of racist, homophobic and sexist to me. It seemed like a lot of young white guys who were angry at music that was liked by blacks, women and gays. Since I was able to rock out and go to a disco, I didn't understand the animosity. :shrug:

[MotorCityMan]

7. I'w with you, SusanG

I never understood the whole anti-disco thing. Also in Detroit, and being a gay man, I did find it awfully homophobic, as disco was so popular in the gay bars.

My thought was always "It's just music". Let's face it, disco never went away anyways. It is just called dance music now.

[Susang]

10. All the so called "rockers"

Ended up incorporating dance beats into their music eventually. Disco changed the face of music.

Did you ever go to Cheeks? I hung out there as an underaged gal of ill repute. Also Todds, on both the "New Wave" Mondays and on the remaining nights, which were all disco. :-)

[MotorCityMan]

28. That is so familiar!

Why can't I remember where Cheeks was? Yes, have been to Todds YEARS ago.

How about Menjos? One of the better dance bars. Currently like Q as they play a lot of 80's music, which I like.

There used to be a nice dance bar called the Aruba that had $5 all you can drink nights with great music. Of course that was when I was 18 and could handle that. After last call it was White Castle.

[Susang]

29. Cheeks was on the infamous 8 Mile Road

At least I think it was, it was sooo long ago. I went to Menjos every once in awhile, but Todds was really my main hang out. I loved the vibe of all the gay, straight, punk & disco folks hanging out together. In Chicago (where I live now) the only bar I can think of that's similar is Berlin.

[XNASA]

8. Hmm. I think that the cross-section of disco fans was pretty broad.

Not sure that there was anything racist, homophobic or sexist about not liking disco. I'll bet a lot of those people at Disco Demolition owned Queen records.

I think it was a precursor to the whole Yuppie/Anti-Yuppie thing. I was Rocker at the time. And I didn't like disco at all, mostly because I thought that Disco fans were too self absorbed. The perfect clothes and they spent way too much time on their hair, etc...they were pretty ditzy.

I never really came around to disco at all, but I ended up spending a fair amount of time in discos. Mostly because of the party scene.

[Susang]

11. Ah, but most of the Queen fans I knew

Didn't really believe Freddy Mercury was gay. Thought it was all an act. Same with Bowie.

[XNASA]

14. Still won't convince me that I am, or was, any of those...

just because I was, and still am, a Rocker.

Just because a person doesn't like disco, it doesn't make them a homophobe.

Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Iggy, Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, Elton John, the list of Gay or Bi Rockers is quite long. It doesn't seem to have hurt their reputations or their record sales.

I'm not buyin' it.

[Susang]

16. I wasn't calling you a homophobe, silly

You know I would never think you were anything other than perfect. :loveya:

I was saying that I found the organized anti-disco movement, particularly as I knew it in Detroit, seemed to have other motivation beyond just a dislike of the music. Particularly since Dahl was in Detroit when the anti-disco thing started. It was originally called D.R.E.A.D. (Detroit Rockers Established Against Disco). They made official cards, t-shirts, etc.. In a predominantly black city where disco was very popular, it was very polarizing.

[playahata1]

24. What? RAY DAVIES and IGGY POP are gay/bi?

Isn't/wasn't Davies married to Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders? (Yeah, I know about "beards".)

[XNASA]

27. I don't think you can write a song like "Lola".....

....without a little experimentation.

As for Iggy.......I don't think that there's anything that Iggy hasn't done or tried doing. I'm pretty sure that Iggy has no taboos.

[playahata1]

25. And I wonder how Judas Priest fans and other metal-heads felt

when they found out that ROB HALFORD was gay?

[SiouxJ]

15. Yeah I remember feeling the same way

anytime you organize to promote hate of anything, it turns my stomach - except hate of the Shrub admin. of course ;-) . What exactly is the point? I can usually find something I like in any genre. I remember the redneckish guys in my school with their "disco sucks" t's and I thought it was so silly. Why was is so important to make such a big statement about something that a lot of people really liked? But it's sort of human nature. If you notice, the "what music do you hate" threads, usually get a lot more replies than the "favorite music" ones. I've always found that interesting. It seems people like to talk about what they hate more than what they love. It's not just music, I've noticed it with most things (except maybe food) - movies, celebrities, whatever. It seems you will get way more replies by posting a negative thread than a positive one. I try make a point to avoid the negative music threads but I do get sucked in sometimes. ;-) .

[johnnie]

17. Speaking for myself

As with XNASA, we were rockers. Punk was also pretty big and being a rocker, disco seemed more of a corporate type of scene. I was a teen, and it was about Rock "n" roll to me back then. I didn't consider myself homophobic, sexist or anything else like that because of my dislike for disco. I just thought the whole scene was everything in the music world that I hated at the time.
I still consider myself a rocker to the core. I haven't even been to the Rock hall of fame yet, and I live within 10 minutes from the place. I am actually thinking of going this summer though.

[Susang]

19. I guess I really put my foot in it

I really wasn't calling anybody who didn't like disco, or who was a rocker any names. I was just commenting on a general feeling I had on the movement itself. Here's a link to an article that sums it up much more eloquently than I did:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9826/braunstein.php

[johnnie]

20. Oh, don't worry about it Susang

I didn't take it personally, and I would think you are probably correct on your assumption with a lot of the people who were anti-disco. But a lot of those people were probably the same ones who were anti-Rock n Roll when it came out.

[playahata1]

23. Racism, sexism, and homophobia is the biggest reason.

Another reason is that once disco went mainstream, it sounded so f--king the same. Assembly line. Indistinguishable.

[prolesunited]

6. I remember Pointe East

They were pretty lax about IDs and my friends and I would all go there.

AND I was on the field during that riot! Can you see me? ;-) We rented a bus, filled the aisle with coolers of beer and drove up there with signs hanging out of the window. Insanity truly reigned. We lost our bus in the ensuing mayhem and a girlfriend and I ended up hitchhiking home from the city.

Here's Steve Dahl's site:
http://www.dahl.com/

Apparently, WTTW11 is airing a one hour Teamworks Media documentary called Disco Demolition 25th Anniversary: The Real Story tonight (July 12th, 8:00 pm) and there's viewing parties all over the city.

Also, here's another site about the event:
http://www.discodemolition.com/

BTW, I didn't do anything on the field or to anyone but stand there in awe as the events unfolded around me. As soon as they started clearing people, I was out of there.

[Donkeyboy75]

9. As crazy as ten cent beer night in Cleveland?

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/060499/spo_hangover.html

[Maestro]

12. Donkeyboy75

is right. As crazy as some of the Cominsky Park stunts were, the ten cent beer night with against the Rangers was a debacle.

[johnnie]

18. LOL, now that one I remember too

I almost was at that game, but decided not to go. I was too young to drink back then, but it would have been pretty wild to have gone. Of course we heard all about it, over and over again.

[Maestro]

13. They need to do a "Down with contrived teenage hip-hop" day

They could burn Britney, Cristina Aquilera, and few choice others in efigee.

[AngryAmish]

21. I always smile when I think of Disco Demolition

I was a lad of ten in the suburbs who was a Cubs fan. Channel 44 didn't come in too good on our TV, but I remember the local news broke in to say there was a riot at Comisky!

Disco Demolition turned me into a Steve Dahl fan for many years. The Loop fans who rioted were knuckleheads, but mostly harmless.

[AlGore-08.com]

26. When disco goes unchecked...

The horror! The horror!