NED DOHENY - Get it up for love
02. MICKY DENNE AND KEN GOLD - Let's put our love back together
03. WHITE HORSE - Over and done with
05. BROWNING BRYANT - Liverpool fool
06. NICOLETTE LARSON - Lotta love
07. ALESSI BROTHERS - Do you feel it?
08. PHOTOGLO - Steal away
09. BRIAN ELLIOT - Room to grow
10. CHICAGO - Saturday in the park
11. DON BROWN - Shut the door
12. MATTHEW LARKIN CASSELL - Re
ndezvous
13. PAGES - If I saw you again
14. THE DOOBIE BROTHERS - Losin' end
15. FLEETWOOD MAC - Sugar daddy
16. ROBBIE DUPREE - Steal away
17. DAVID BATTEAU - Spaceship earth
18. TONY JOE WHITE - I've got a thing about you baby
19. JAN HAMMER GROUP - Don't you know
„The Eagles were the dream of rock and roll incarnate. Hotel California became a state of mind – the land of blue jeans and cocaine, mirror shades reflecting palmtrees, blond hair flowing from convertible cars on freeways that led to oceans. You love it and you hate it!“ (Don Henley in Barney Hoskyns’ book „Hotel California“)
Ah, the mid-70s ‘Me Generation’, not so happily remembered. And in the taste-conscious music world for years now people have laughed at the L.A.-sound with its super-smooth, over-lavish, luxury-laden excesses. Chord progressions as thrusting as that bridge across the bay. Love the white blazer by the way. Neiman-Marcus, right? But “Too slow to disco - vol. 1” isn’t interested in your ageing hang-ups. As you know, once musical genres get old the best parts still shine through, and this collection is a delectable document of this forgotten phase of the mid-70s West Coast music world. We’ve unearthed some of the lesser-known but still beautiful mood music of this period, by people who were often still starting out, or would write their biggest hits years later, but who surfed the West Coast wave penning some total gems. So, yes, welcome to phase 1 of our PRM (Personal Rediscovery Movement, cult fans). This sound is everywhere these days, echoing down the years, influencing the likes of Midlake, Haim, Gonzales, John Grant, Ariel Pink, Jonathan Wilson, Rhye, Devendra Banhart, Darkside, Destroyer, Phoenix, out to the more discofied sounds of Chromeo, Breakbot, Holy Ghost! and Todd Terje. And what was Daft Punk’s „Random Access Memories“, if not an album entirely dedicated to late 70s L.A.? (And indeed Thomas and Guy recorded with some of the most legendary late 70s studio musicians, quite a few of whom appear in younger guises on this very compilation). And it’s not just dusty rediscoveries in old record shops, there’s also a growing „new sound of L.A.“ spearheaded by bands like Poolside, Classixx, White Arrows, Miami Horror, Kisses (and more bands on the CASCINE label) whose music is infused with the city’s trademark mellow, sunny pop and disco notes. And anyway, you can’t blame music-loving youngsters for falling in love with this style and sound – it’s almost otherworldly in its deft smoothness, so effortlessly uplifting, all those warm and breezy melodies. You think anyone ever got tired of an endless beach with a beautiful sunset? That’s why across Europe and the USA soft-rocking mixes and re-edits are gently filling up the music clouds, and once more tastemakers putting quality songs in the party playlist. Looking at you Todd Terje, Aeroplane, Rayko, Northern Rascal, LNTG, Alkalino,...
Giant hanging coke spoon? Best club in the world! Yes, pop culture has always liked to use excess as its default measure of historical worthiness. That’s why the cable channels and bookstores are filled up with books, documentaries and compilations covering the late naive hippie sixties/early seventies West Coast in endless detail. But the excessive, megalomaniac, big ego-bands like The Eagles, CSN&Y, Fleetwood Mac kind of sucked all the oxygen out of the mid-70s era until Punk and Disco provided two blessedly different routes out of all those Lear Jet parties and lyrics about sleeping around in your own band. As a result loads of great artists and songs have simply been forgotten. Musical pleasures should always be unabashed, so with this first volume of our TOO SLOW TO DISCO compilation-series we want to share some of the great acts and songs that made the mid-late 70s California scene so awesome. And pleasingly (judging from the many telephone calls we had to make in order to find the mastertapes) most of the artists are very much still alive and kicking. So, think of us as your enablers: in just a moment you too can be transported from your current grey, drab modernity to a lost world, a sun-drenched land of possibility, where the music is as deftly arranged as the cocktails they’ve just brought round. Oh that’s good, yeah…
