Smart Bar gets ready for a Disco Demolition anniversary

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  • Samone, The Black Madonna and a couple other Chicago locals will play sets on the 35th anniversary of the anti-disco event.
  • Smart Bar gets ready for a Disco Demolition anniversary image
  • Chicago club Smart Bar will host a party called Disco Lives on Saturday, July 12th. Disco Lives will happen exactly 35 years after a particularly infamous moment in dance music history. On that night in 1979, a couple Chicago radio "shock jocks" hosted an anti-disco rally, Disco Demolition, during a double-header at the Comiskey Park baseball stadium which culminated in the destruction of thousands of disco records (and a riot) on the field. It preceded and likely helped bring about the overall commercial decline of disco, and as the Smart Bar crew explains, it's often remembered "as an acute cultural reaction to music that was "superficial" because it was viewed as the product of homosexuals, blacks, Latinos and women." To celebrate the endurance of the music and its scene, a pair of local disco-loving parties, Changes and Blood, Sweat & Tears, will link up at Smart Bar for Disco Lives. Changes founder Samone and The Black Madonna, the mind behind Blood, Sweat & Tears, will take care of the music along with Grimy Edits man Zernell and Jamie 3:26. Tickets to Disco Lives are available here on RA.
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