Culture Club Disco

[Tory Lattin]

Whatwas once a hated genre of music is now being celebrated because mainstream white musicians are at the center of its revival. In the process, white celebrities perpetuate the erasure of LGBTQ cultures in popular media.

These marginalized communities carved a world of their own where they could express themselves as loudly and extravagantly as they wanted. The rightful innovators are the LGBTQ folks of color that so beautifully took up space in this world by existing and living, even when straight white people spewed unrelenting vitriol towards them. Not to mention the terror they faced in the form of hate crimes and police violence.

The mainstreaming of disco and ball culture are part of a larger trend of LGBTQ culture being appropriated. When this happens, the original history of these cultures is overshadowed by the celebration of white artists. Furthermore, the LGBTQ communities of color who create major cultural trends, fashion, and language rarely receive proper recognition.

Today, white people who (attempt to) use this language are often seen as charming, whereas Black (including Afro-Latinx) folks can face discrimination for reclaiming terms coined by community members who came before them. When white people co-opt Black queer language, they effectively render it a cultural asset to be plucked and used when needed. LGBTQ folks of color are not valued for who they are as humans, but for what they can contribute to mainstream culture.

In 2016, UK clubland found itself in an era of turmoil. And if we can say anything about 2016 in the wider world it was certainly turbulent. So as we embrace 2017 I look to see if things have changed. Fabric has reopened, other new London venues have been announced, nightclubs have suffered attacks and Trump is about to take office in the US. We may be about to enter a new fight back from oppressed subcultures and nightlife in general, and London is perfectly positioned to be at the forefront.

Perhaps the solution to some of our problems is to focus on that idea of community. Maybe we all need to learn to nurture local talent again. While dance music is now truly global, creating a localised environment for opportunity is essential. Local record shops and clubs in towns across the UK gave birth to DJs, producers and promoters who then went on to national and international success. They enabled them to build networks and experiment, learning their trade along the way. Giving a platform for local promoters to build infrastructure can do so much to build our foundations for the future.

I have the feeling we are witnessing that comeback right now with our approach not only to music, but drugs, gender and equality. The outsiders, the misfits and the dissidents are taking back the clubs. Long may they flourish.

Finding out more has been an ongoing process. I read Bill Brewster and Tim Lawrence, and found out more about how Mancuso had taken hippie counterculture, given it a multi-racial, polysexual makeover and a dose of New York grit, and created the blueprint for the club underground that is still with us today. Something that has musical and technological refinement, respect for past and present, and above all a love of the process and people at its heart.

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Are you sitting comfortably? Make sure you're sat comfortably. Make sure you feel relaxed. Do whatever it takes to get yourself into a state of zen-like blank relaxation. Light expensive scented candles. Eat a brick of hash. Are you relaxed now? Good, I'm glad, because I need to tell you something and the something I need to tell you isn't going to be easy to hear. I'm sorry. Forgive me father, for I know not what I do. Except, sadly, I do.

Sadly reader, through intense and potentially dangerous research, this truth is now un-ignorable. You owe it to yourselves to know what I now know. Micky24242 was right. This is all a plot. All of it.

Yes, you read that right. Everything you've ever enjoyed about electronic music or club culture is, in fact, part of a highly complex series of governmental machinations designed purely to leave you, the listener, the clubber, in a near-permanent state of vegetation, desiring nothing more from life than a new mix by DJ Nobu, a fresh pouch of Virginian tobacco, and an 18" deep pan meat-ball supreme.

Scoff all you like, scoff yourself silly, scoff so hard you inadvertently choke on your own tonsils, and see if I offer you mouth to mouth. While you're scoffing I'll let everyone else in on what I know.

In the early 1960s, operatives working for the CIA met with their English counterparts from MI6 at a truck stop in central Belize, around a hundred miles away from the capital city, Belmopan. They ate a traditional slow-roasted pork dish, and clinked glasses fill to the brim with Belikin, the country's indigenous German style pilsner. The Pibil Four, as they went on to be known, consisted of Americans Chad Tullock and Barnaby Raddlestein, and their British cohorts Reginald Trotter and Derek Perrin. They had decided to stage their meeting in the Central American country due to its lax border security policies.

The dinner was the result of several years of intense and panic-stricken preparation by the twin intelligence services. The 50s had seen Elvis Presley fuck the teenager into being, and with the teenager came teenage rebellion, and with that came (eventual) adult resentment, and with that came the realisation that these new adults might not be so happy with the state of the world. This, of course, wouldn't do.

The plan was hatched: in order to crush any semblance of teenage rebellion, the agencies had to harness it, creating a method for controlling the youthful hordes that looked cool, trendy, and ultimately seductive and incredibly appealing.

It wasn't until the mid-70s that things really started to take off. Disco had been willed into being and as planned, had been incredibly well received by the target audiences. Discotheques had begun to spring up around the globe, and nightclubbing as we know it today was finding its feet. The jewel in the Project Paradise crown at the time was Studio 54. Enlisting support from major celebrities was a masterstroke: youth will always be seduced by fame, and as everyone knows, early seduction has long lasting consequences. Horses, cocaine, and Andy Warhol's blank visage were incredibly useful weapons to have in the armoury.

Disco begat house which begat techno which begat everything else, and with everything else having been begat, the dream that the Pibil Four planned meticulously all those years ago had become a reality. Every city in the world had numerous nightclubs, and nearly every patch of grass in the western world played host to a three day festival featuring multiple stages and an array of pop-up food options. The plot had worked: dance music had ensnared millions.

What, then, was the lasting impact of Project Paradise? Well, you wouldn't be reading this without it for starters. Aside from that tragic thought, there are more serious and wider-reaching implications, obviously. All of us have been sold a lie, swallowing it wholesale in the process. We idolize and adore DJs out of all proportion; we spend good chunks of our lives and paychecks supporting an industry set out to rob of us freedom; we get angry on the internet whenever someone suggests that our favourite musician might not be as good as we'd like to think. They've won.

The DJs are in on it too. Skream? MI5. Nina Kraviz? SVR RF. Ever wondered why Daft Punk adopted the helmets? They're a Brigade de renseignement et de guerre lectronique invention that actually aids with the mind control process.

So next time you step foot in a warehouse on a Saturday night, stay woke. Remember that everything you say and do is being monitored and fed back to every intelligence service in the world. You are part of their system now, part of their game, part of their everlasting trap.

On a humid January evening, two hundred people have crammed themselves into the building. A steady ebb of sub-bass is intermittently interrupted by Chinese voices screaming along to traditional Minyao (民谣) folk songs teased by the DJ. The club, called OIL, is one of a group of new spaces that have recently opened in mainland China dedicated to showcasing their own strain of club culture. Its compatriots include Zhaodai in Beijing, Loopy in Hangzhou, ALL in Shanghai and Nomad in Chengdu.

Within the Disco culture, other subculture appeared such as the Club Kids who took the Disco culture to another level, much more extreme. When going to clubs, the Club Kids were transformed, wearing extravagant makeup and clothes, almost like a costume. The club was their stage and they wanted to look perfect, they had a role to play.

Drug was also a thing at the time and so was alcohol. Most of the Disco and Club Kids members used to smoke and drink a lot whilst clubbing. It was their way to be themselves and feel happy, forgetting about their other issues.

Leigh Bowery and Boy George are the most famous names among the Club Kids.But there was many other famous people taking part in the Disco movement such as Donna Jordan or Grace Jones.

The Japanese Culture Club (JCC) at IU Indianapolis is a student-lead and run organization. The club promotes interest of Japanese culture by offering unique opportunities for students to experience various aspects of Japan. The club holds weekly conversation hours (Japanese-English Conversation Table) as well as an annual speech night in April. All students are welcome.

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