Biography All Music GuideWikipedia
Group Members: Ian Crause
All Music Guide:
Disco Inferno were formed by teenagers Ian Crause (guitars and vocals), Paul Willmott (bass), Daniel Gish (keyboards), and Rob Whatley (drums) in Essex in 1989. By autumn of that year, Gish was no longer part of the band after its restructuring; he would later join Bark Psychosis; the remaining trio began gigging around London to indifferent pub crowds. The band's early work, summed up on the accurately titled In Debt, bears the heavy influence of Joy Division, Wire, and other significant post-punk bands of the late '70s and early '80s. Though derivative and not nearly as experimental and imaginative as the band's later work, the material on In Debt successfully pays tribute (and at times rivals) the output of their predecessors. Without knowing it, you might think them to be a Factory band, circa 1981 -- dark, jagged, and haunting.
Crause soon became infatuated with the unique sounds of My Bloody Valentine and the Young Gods, as well as the Bomb Squad's revolutionary production and sampling on Public Enemy's records. A major turning point for Disco Inferno, they began to issue a series of some of the most uncompromising and experimental music of the mid-'90s. The Summer's Last Sound EP in 1992 marked this new beginning. Percolating indifference and economic troubles on the part of the band's label, Cheree, came to a head, and Rough Trade came to the rescue and began to issue the band's releases. The new label saved the band's life, as the members believed that they were too challenging for anyone else to understand or care for. The years of 1993 and 1994 turned out to be Disco Inferno's most productive and creative, yielding four EPs and an LP, D.I. Go Pop. Disorienting, confusing, and highly schizophrenic, the challenging releases were in direct contrast to the prevailing Brit-pop scene of the time. They took A.R. Kane's futurist pop a couple steps further and secured a devout and small following that found solace in their wildly imaginative, peerless nature.
After the It's a Kid's World EP, Crause found himself in a creative rut and hadn't the slightest clue as to what their follow-up should entail. Feeling creatively drained from Go Pop's boundary-breaking vision and inability to gain sustainable recognition, Crause and company mustered enough creative strength to record Technicolour, which didn't find release until 1996 and failed to register a blip on the commercial and critical radar. By that time, the group dissolved out of frustration and a seemingly endless, downward financial spiral. The band's last recording session saw posthumous release as a six-song EP on the Tugboat label. Crause continued to record under the Floorshow alias, but none of his work surfaced commercially until a single of salvaged material (issued under his own name) hit the racks in 2000. Ten years later, the One Little Indian label issued a disc compiling the five EPs released from 1992 through 1994.
Wikipedia:
"Disco Inferno" is a 1976 song by The Trammps from the album of the same name. With two other cuts by the group it reached number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in early 1977, but had limited mainstream success in the U.S. until 1978, after being included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, when a re-release hit number 11 on the Hot 100.
It was also notably covered by Cyndi Lauper on the A Night at the Roxbury soundtrack and Tina Turner on the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack.
Song information [edit]
The song was originally performed by The Trammps in 1976 and released as a single. It was inspired by a scene in the 1974 blockbuster film The Towering Inferno in which a discotheque is caught in the blaze. According to Tom Moulton, who mixed the record, the Dolby noise reduction had been set incorrectly during the mixdown of the tracks. When engineer Jay Mark discovered the error and corrected it, the mix had a much wider dynamic range than was common at the time. Due to this, the record seems to "jump out" at the listener. With "Starvin'" and "Body Contact Contract", it topped the U.S. Disco chart for six weeks in the late winter of 1977 and hit number nine on the Black Singles chart, but it was not initially a significant success at pop radio, peaking at number fifty-three on the Billboard Hot 100.
"Disco Inferno" gained much greater recognition once it was included on the soundtrack to the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, this time in extended form, running nearly 11 minutes. Re-released by Atlantic Records, the track peaked at number eleven in the U.S. during the spring of 1978, becoming The Trammps' biggest and most-recognized single. Later, it was included in the Saturday Night Fever musical, interpreted by the 'DJ Monty' in the "Odissey 2001" discothèque.
The song also became an unofficial theme song for former New York Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams. It was often played at old Yankee Stadium while the scoreboard and video systems displayed the phrase "Bern Baby Bern", a play on the song's refrain and Williams' first name.
In 1996, "Disco Inferno" was included on the soundtrack to the cult comedy classic Kingpin, and featured in two pivotal scenes in which Roy Munson (played by Woody Harrelson) confidently strolls into a bowling alley. The scenes and the song embody the promise of the mid- to late-seventies. The song was also used in the trailer to the Adam Sandler comedy Bedtime Stories. In 2006, the extended version was featured on a remastered version of the Ghostbusters soundtrack.
On September 19, 2005, "Disco Inferno" was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame.
Cover versions [edit]
Tina Turner version [edit]
Tina Turner covered the song in 1993 for the What's Love Got to Do with It soundtrack and it charted at number twelve in the UK Singles Chart, 4 places higher than The Trammps' version (number 16). The single included remixes by The Beatmasters.
Versions and remixes [edit]
Album Version - 4:0312" Version - 5:3312" Dub - 6:57Cyndi Lauper version [edit]
Lauper performed this song live for the first time at New York, Bryant Park on June 21, 1998.
In the Billboard magazine dated May 16, 1998 in the "Dance Trax" column, there was a story on remixers Bobby Guy and Ernie Lake, aka Soul Solution: "They are working with Cyn on a chest-pounding rendition of 'Disco Inferno'. The cut will be featured on the forthcoming soundtrack to A Night At Roxbury."
Although the original release date of the maxi single was August 3, 1999, it was distributed from July 24 in some regions. The single was officially released in the U.S. on December 16, 1999. Lauper performed it at many shows around the time of its release.
