monday, september 28th
Disco Demolition Night, shamelessness, Ruth Bader Ginsburg & more
Gooooood afternoon!
After plugging away at this thing for four weeks, I was ready to take this Monday off to reset and hit the groove again a week later…it wasn’t so much of a challenge to be convinced to do otherwise. For those of you who have listened for a little while, you may recall that I offered up a few hour-long mixes earlier in the year that were things I had kept close to my chest for a while. I made something of that sort on Friday and decided this weekend that it would be fun to stray off the typical MMM trail for a week. I’ll talk a little more about what you’ll find in this week’s mixtape at the bottom of the newsletter. Because this is a bit of a divergence from normal programming, there will be no cover art this week. You’ll just see our friend Garfield.
I also wrote far more than I intended to (hence the delay), so my many apologies for those of you who take the time to read it ;) I guess that’s what you get with a six song mixtape.
Last Week This Morning
In this weekly section I’ll walk through the previous week’s mixtape: a track-by-track and sound-by-sound guide to what you heard, what you might have missed, and all the extracurriculars to go along with it. Today, we’ll look back on last Monday, September 21st.
Sleepwalk
We started last week’s Monday Morning Mixtape with “Love’s Theme” by the Love Unlimited Orchestra. The LUO was a pop orchestra constructed by Barry White in the early 70s that would be instrumental in guiding the course toward disco due to the success of “Love’s Theme,” which went to number one on the pop charts in 1973.
We spoke about lushness a few weeks ago as it related to Kamasi Washington’s “Truth” and it feels equally pertinent to describe this track in such a way. The heavily layered strings, piano anchor, and wah-wah guitar all feel like they’re spilling over the brim and encapsulating the listener. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to make comparisons to Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” here.
All sleepwalk songs will be housed on the Spotify playlist below.
2020 has been a shit year, but it’s also been a disco year. Just go back and listen to records by Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Jessie Ware or chart-toppers such as “Say So” and “Dynamite” and you’ll hear the heavily-flared dance floors of 1978-1982 sprinkled throughout. Though I highly doubt this trend has legs, it’s been a lot of fun. I suppose this has me particularly primed for disco sounds from its peak era, as we’ve heard on previous mixtapes this month with disco/disco-adjacent sounds from ABBA and Al Green. As noted above, even the sleepwalk from last week leaned heavily into the kind of orchestration that would move Soul Train sets to discotheques. So for those of you who know me well, a disco-based Grateful Dead song, in this case “Shakedown Street,” should’ve come as no surprise. (Personally, it’s been a massive Dead year, but that’s a story for another mixtape.) // The “Disco Dead” were heavily maligned for their stylistic shift, though the band deserves credit for its candid intentions, as per percussionist Mickey Hart:
We were trying to sell out – 'Oh, let's make a single and get on the radio'. Sure. We failed miserably once again. I mean, we could never sell out even if we tried, and we tried.
In a way, the song feels more like a piece of musical/cultural criticism than it does a frivolous fling at hitting pay dirt. Against the backdrop of urban decay and white flight, there’s an argument made for the vibrancy and cultural importance of music (specifically, disco) coming out of cities in the late 70s. This was certainly an unpopular opinion, provided that detractions against disco were often heavily steeped in implicit racism and homophobia. The Dead have just about always been “uncool,” and owned it, and this was no less of an exception.
Eight months after the release of Shakedown Street in late 1978, Disco Demolition Night took place at Comiskey Park in Chicago in the interlude of a doubleheader between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox. The end result of the promotion was a riot in which fans nuked thousands of disco records in shallow center field, leaving a massive crater (and forcing the White Sox to forfeit the second game). It’s an event that feels resonant today as white, straight, working-class male disillusion with the culture at large (particularly as it gravitates away from their interests and towards those of people of color and the LGBTQ+ community) is a phenomenon we’re all too familiar with in 2020. Certainly the Grateful Dead weren’t the outright cause of this event as there was direct vitriol aimed at disco, but it’s easy to imagine that for less open-minded, more problematic listeners the adoption of disco by the Dead, one of the most visible (white) rock bands of the 70s, was one more example of cultural disintegration and alienation. Oh well, fuck ‘em dawg.
A final note: the little all-hands-on-deck “Woo!” that ends the pre-chorus is so cheesy and awesome. It just sounds fun.
My neighborhood is loud. Plugs sit on the corner all day and blast music. The A train flies by every five minutes, sounding like an underground plane in lift off. Cars honk incessantly due to the detour caused by a Black Lives Matter street mural a block over. A few weeks ago a middle school marching band paraded in full boom for no particular reason. Through it all, a woman comes out every Sunday and preaches on the corner, backed only by a pre-recorded gospel choir. She gives no fucks.
As someone who hasn’t attended mass in any capacity since Easter, she’s a welcome sound fighting through the din, though my appreciation likely sits with the minority. What she has to say squares me up in a spot that’s atrophied over the course of this year, but I also love the fact that she’s out there full force even if it seems like no one is listening. The great thing about shamelessness is that it is rarely overcomplicated. Unhindered by thoughts and self-consciousness, shameless things and people can just be, taking the path of least resistance to the feeling.
This is how “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” by the Roy Ayers Ubiquity operates, unhinged without being reckless. It’s uber-simple (containing a single rhyme scheme, used twice over the course of four minutes), just-a-perfect-day, drug-haze sunshine, feeling no need to rush or be anything that it’s not. Its simplicity leaves it vulnerable to criticism, but why would you want to take down something that captures bliss in such earnest?
I’ve long wanted to include “Thirteen” on a mixtape, but it’s always sat at second-tier to the priority of things that hit me more readily. The original song, released by Big Star in 1972, sits as the pater familias in the pantheon of rock’s “songs of innocence” (other notables include the White Stripes’ “We Are Going to Be Friends,” the Moldy Peaches “Anyone Else But You,” and the Velvet Underground’s “After Hours” [a predecessor to “Thirteen” by three years, but not quite as strong a cut]). Acoustic, autumnal, and slightly haunted, it is the perfect fall song. Bedouine, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and Waxahatchee do a wonderful job recreating it here, each sounding distinctive and caring in their rendering. Here’s to hoping that there’s more from this folky-boygenius to come!
For those intrigued by this sound, Waxahatchee released a critically-acclaimed album, Saint Cloud, this spring, while Bedouine’s Bird Songs of a Killjoy was one of 2019’s most underrated records.
David Allan Coe’s “The Ride,” featuring the ghost rider Hank Williams, is country’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll).” That’s all that really needs to be said.
I’ve really been floored by Lianne La Havas’ new self-titled record of late. Not someone who’s music I’d ever encountered before, I played the album a couple months ago and found it to stand out, even as I half-listened. In returning to it over the past few weeks, it has truly opened up as a complete narrative of love lost and personal growth, without coming off as a gimmicky concept album, which is to say that the songs are strong enough to stand on their own while shining as a group. “Bittersweet” is the album’s opening track and aptly displays La Havas’ talents as an excellent soul vocalist and thoughtful songwriter, but it’s worth diving all the way in on this one.
Post-script: Thank you to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away two Fridays ago at the age of 87. I’m sure many of you are far more acquainted with her story than I (guilty as charged, your honor), but I know that she worked tirelessly as a lawyer and a justice for the rights of millions of Americans that were hundreds of years overdue. Her spirit, which I tried to represent in a small way through sprightly and wise soundbites, will be terribly missed among many as we move through uncertain times.
As I paraphrase from a tweet my sister read me yesterday, let us hope that Amy Coney Barrett will be cognizant and appreciative enough of the doors Ginsburg opened for her to keep those doors open behind her.
Do you have thoughts, comments, or questions on last week’s mixtape? Listen again and leave a comment below! I’ve provided the link to the mixtape on SoundCloud as well as the playlist on Spotify for ease of listening.
A Tweet I Loved
There were so many this week. I picked three favs.
In Other News…
Mark Sinclair, professionally know as Vin Diesel, released his debut single on Friday. Yes, the Vin Diesel. Though it sounds like Bain snorkeling, I’ve heard worse. But the fact that he’s already at half a million streams (guilty, again, your honor) and is verified on Spotify feels mildly offensive to most musicians.
Here, you listen
Long-reads
1: James Carr is one of soul music’s lost heroes, a singer who had the guts and talent of Otis Redding but struggled with mental health issues which overcame his successes. Robert Gordon profiled him with humanity in this old article which can be found on WFMU. If you’re a fan of soul music, James Carr is required listening and if you listen to James Carr, this is required reading.
While the first song plays, a soft hum wafts from a corner of the control room. By the second verse, the hum has assumed more definite characteristics and by the next chorus, James Carr is belting out the words. In the half-hour of set-up time, he's been practically invisible, but once the music begins, it's as if an empty stage has been filled.
- Robert Gordon, on meeting James Carr
2: A music criticism giant was lost last week in Stanley Crouch, who was a jazz critic throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. While you may not know him by his name or his literary work, Crouch was one of the founders of Jazz at Lincoln Center, helping to institutionalize jazz as a timeless American entity. Though his views on jazz are not mine, he was a staunch traditionalist when jazz grappled with its public-facing identity, there’s absolutely something to be appreciated in the fervency with which he approached his subject.
Ethan Iverson shares an obituary in NPR full of personal anecdotes that color a character in Crouch that was as lively as his writing.
The music started and Stanley fell asleep, slumped over in his chair. After the first song, Roy Haynes went to the microphone and said, "I heard Stanley Crouch is in the audience tonight. Stanley! Come up here and tell the audience about how great I am!"
I hurriedly woke Stanley and sent him to do Haynes's bidding. His posture straightened up as he magisterially approached the stage. In full control of the room and the mic, Stanley delivered an impromptu ten-minute lecture on the greatness of Roy Haynes. It was a flawless performance.
- Ethan Iverson, on Stanley Crouch’s madhatter jazz acrobatics
Last Kind Words
The final Monday of September is down and we’re already a quarter of the way through the Mixtape season! I’m pretty stunned by how quick it has flown.
You can find the super-mix for this week via the Soundcloud widget below. Because this is a bit different, I’ve decided to include the track list with the initial release on Soundcloud. I likely won’t write about this one at all, but you’ll have a sense of what you’re getting yourself into. If you like jazz/funk/soul/fusion, this one’s for you. You’ll hear a couple of repeats from previous mixtapes from this year, but I think they’ll sound a bit more contextualized in this space.
I have a special plan for the writing in next week’s mixtape, so stay tuned!
Stay safe and I’ll see you in October!
With love,
TG