“That was the height of disco, you couldn’t not hear it. I went to the Paradise Garage a couple of times. Actually, we played as the Contortions once, we did a show with Richard Hell, Contortions, and Teenage Jesus. We had this huge confrontation with the owners. They didn’t want to pay us because no one showed up. They brought all these menacing black muscle bouncer guys, and at one point they were closing in on me. So I broke a beer bottle and slashed my face with it cuz I wanted them to think I was so crazy that they would leave me alone. Which they did. A lot of rock people had a knee-jerk hatred of disco, which I never really shared. There were things I liked about it, although there was a lot that I hated too. It was so bleached out and whitened, but I could see that it was taking the real funk rhythms and really straightening them out, submitting them to this tyrannical beat. I liked the idea of this hypnotic music that would literally put people into a trance. I thought that was cool.”
- James Chance
“I never heard anything avant-garde. To me it was just New York City Blues.”
- Alan Vega
“Yes, the urge to let our imagination run riot, and the need to dance to twisted sounds remains. The Mutant Disco, the haunted dancehall will never close down.”
- Kevin Pearce, liner notes for Mutant Disco
“What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.”
- The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
The 13th Floor Elevators were probably one of the first bands to describe their music as “psychedelic”. Then again, they did have an electric jug player to back it up.
“That was the height of disco, you couldn’t not hear it. I went to the Paradise Garage a couple of times. Actually, we played as the Contortions once, we did a show with Richard Hell, Contortions, and Teenage Jesus. We had this huge confrontation with the owners. They didn’t want to pay us because no one showed up. They brought all these menacing black muscle bouncer guys, and at one point they were closing in on me. So I broke a beer bottle and slashed my face with it cuz I wanted them to think I was so crazy that they would leave me alone. Which they did. A lot of rock people had a knee-jerk hatred of disco, which I never really shared. There were things I liked about it, although there was a lot that I hated too. It was so bleached out and whitened, but I could see that it was taking the real funk rhythms and really straightening them out, submitting them to this tyrannical beat. I liked the idea of this hypnotic music that would literally put people into a trance. I thought that was cool.”
