Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

Toot Toot, Hey, Beep Beep
5 Out of 5 Stars

Disco was always a producer's medium. Most of the records were based on a single, often made by studio musicians and just as often, not being capable of following things up. Donna Summer was part of that machine for her first few albums, which often seemed lackluster in comparison to her vibrant, catchy hit singles. But then came "Bad Girls." Summer was still teamed with a simpatico producer (the trendmaking Giorgio Morodor), but she had become the closest thing Disco had to a reigning star (quick, other than Village People, name one disco act with a lasting and recognizable career), and for the first time, an album that hung together as an entire piece. And not just a single disc, either. "Bad Girls" roared out of the box as a double disc collection.

Donna Summer's "Bad Girls" took all the tropes of disco (throbbing beats, swirling strings, catchy hooks) and made it into more than just the hits. Summer also pushed the medium by going outside the dance floor with ballads ("On My Honor"), straight ahead pop ("Dim All The Lights") and electric rock meld with the dance material (Jeff Baxter's red-hot solo in "Hot Stuff," preceding Eddie Van Halen with Micheal Jackson by a decade). Tie it to a concept about creatures of the night and the whole city scene, and you had disco's first bona fide ground-breaker. Summer helped by having the chops to carry the album vocally, while Morodor jumped effortlessly from dance to his patented Euro-sound and the poppish ends of the album.

There was much more than the classic singles. "Sunset People" would have been a hot had the times been concerned about over-exposure for albums (same with "Walk Away," a minor hit nonetheless), while closing the album's concept about waking up on the strip and seeing a new day dawn with promise. "Dim All The Lights" continued the new idea of starting a dance-floor smash with a slow into and hitting the meat of the song with a blast (think "Last Dance" and "On The Radio"). "Like everybody else," she belts on the title track, "they want to be a star." So did Summer, and "Bad Girls" said it all across two long players. Perhaps her artistic peak as a singer and writer, it's also her best album overall.



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Could this be the magic?
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Continuing their Roxy Music art dance meets Elton John Piano pop, "Magic Hour" is the Scissor Sisters at their best. As they keep searching for an American Audience and switch to the Casablanca Records banner (home to the best of 70's dance music, take that as a clue), Jake, BabyDaddy, Del and Anna are still looking for love at all the best parties.

There's plenty here to tape your feet to; from the silly bonus track "Eff Yeah!" to the pulsing "Keep Your Shoes On," the Sisters are playing to their strengths. After all, not every band could take a phone message about a crappy night on the NYC club scene and mix it into a party anthem ("Let's Have a Kiki"). They also allow the mood to be serious, as on the heartbreak story of "Inevitable" or the frothy "San Luis Obispo." There are those who might think that the band is not changing much from their other albums; I say Scissor Sisters have a sound. For me, it's well worth the continuing interest in the band.



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Vanished like a Spirit in The Night
3 Out Of 5 Stars

One of the mysterious to me is that this album, by Casablanca recording act The Skatt Brothers, has never made it to CD release. I will go out on a limb to say that it's an incredibly dated record, had one minor dance classic and another single that became a huge hit in - of all places - Australia. But except for its extremely minor and devoted cult following, "Strange Spirits" remains utterly unknown.

That really sucks. There are a lot of reasons this should be better known, the greatest of which is historic. This may be one of the earliest efforts by a band that was outre' gay on a major label. Granted, there was plenty of lyrical gender bending, but when the biggest hook on one of your best songs is "give your love to the cowboy man" being song in a campy, uber-deep voice over a near disco beat, well, the gaydar should be hitting 8.5 by then.

There's also the band's pedigree. The late Sean Delaney was one of the lead singers, played keyboards and did a fair chunk of the songwriting. Delaney was openly gay, was lovers with super-manager Bill Aucoin (who repped the Skatts), and was an early contributor to the stage show of Kiss. He was also one of the men who discovered seminal 70's rock band Starz, brought them to Aucoin, and recruited their bassist, the late Peit Sweval, to play on "Strange Spirits." And if the background vocals sound familiar, it's because some of the men here were regular contributors to Village People albums.



Which is what The Skatt Brothers seemed to be positioning themselves for; something not as gay as the VP's, but exploiting the homo-eroticism of Kiss. There are a few moments here that come close ("Life At The Outpost" and "Fear Of Flying," alleged to have been written about fisting), and some that are outright comical ("Fear Of Flying" and the soft-rock attempt at a harmonic power ballad). Sean's "Midnight Companion" is the better ballad, and I knew several old-school LA men who swore up and down that Sean had written it about/for them. (The album's cover was shot at Griff's - now the Faultline - leather bar, adding to that back story.)

But there's one moment of pure genius: that comes from "Walk The Night." A song that makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's about cruising for some hard-core gay SM action, the darn thing became a major danceclub anthem and still gets played. The makers of Grand Theft Auto acquisitioned it for one version of their game, and it is the only Skatt Bros song to make a CD appearance (on "The Casablanca Story" collection, and as a CD single along with a Village People cut). Even with the campy/sinister vocal singing lead, buttressed by horror movie laughter and screaming, there's no mistaking these lyrics:

Upon his lips the taste of pain
venom kiss of love insane.
He's got a rod beneath his coat
he's gonna ram right down your throat.
Make your grovel on the floor
spit up and scream and beg for more.
He'll whip ya good,
and strip ya down.

Yep. They just don't write 'em like that anymore. Still available on auction sites.
 
 
PS - The guys in this video are NOT the band, seems an Australian Promo company made the vid on their own when the song took off down under.