Disco Disaster

I have a small confession for you: every once in a while, I wish I had experienced the disco era. Now, let me clarify, it's not that I have some sort of longing to break out in dance, but I'm intrigued by the notion that there was a time when pop culture revolved around dancing. At least that's how my parents describe it. Everyone--young and old--went out dancing. That had to be fun, right?

Ah, but for every silver lining, there's a dark cloud, it seems. I had never really thought about the consequences of a disco-centric society. And no, I'm not talking about foot pain. Apparently, as disco grew in popularity, it began infiltrating things it shouldn't infiltrate...such as television. Case in point--absolutely horrible t.v. variety shows. Now, some variety shows were apparently quite popular, but until to day I had never thought that there must've been some really, really unfortunate shows that didn't catch on.

Thanks to MentalFloss.com for opening my eyes. :) Read on...

"Featuring female singers Keiko 'Kei' Masuda and Mitsuyo 'Mie' Nemoto, the duo Pink Lady enjoyed huge success in Japan. Nine of their singles sold more than a million copies. Their first step towards a career in the US was a concert in Las Vegas, which led to an English-Language album with one minor hit. This impressed producers at NBC, who had created a variety show for Pink Lady with (then) up-and-coming comedian Jeff Altman.

As producers quickly discovered Mie and Kei knew little English, and had to learn their parts of the show phonetically—a draining process for all involved. Rather than perform their own hits, the girls were forced to sing disco numbers such as 'Knock on Wood' and, in this clip, 'Boogie Wonderland':



Amazing, right? ;) Maybe I was born in the right era after all. :)

A New Toy

After years of contemplation, I finally took the leap and bought a synthesizer! To be precise, I bought the Yamaha MO8, which is really the perfect keyboard for the different things I'll use it for (the first project being music production for Footloose: The Musical, Ripley's summer theatre show).

It didn't take me long to realize that, when you buy a serious keyboard, nothing comes with the keyboard. Well, except the AC adapter. So, in addition to the MO8, I also bought 1) a music stand, 2) a keyboard stand, 3) a sustain pedal, 4) a keyboard amp, 5) a bench, 6) a flash drive for external storage, and 7) all the cords needed to connect everything. Here's the whole set-up. :D




Fortunately, I got such a great deal on the keyboard itself (hooray for eBay!!) that even with buying all the accessories I still came in under the retail price of the keyboard alone. That's pretty exciting.

I've been playing on the keyboard all weekend, and I must say that I'm very pleased with it. Granted, I'll need several months, at least, to really understand how powerful it truly is, but for now I'm at least able to accomplish what I need to accomplish (as I said, Footloose).

Of course, no matter how great my keyboard is, I will never be able to accomplish this...



(btw, this girl is apparently ten years old. I would say she has a bright future in synth music production, don't you think?)