This show is a salute to the Trash Disco music of the late 70s
and early 80s that was by artists who were openly gay....and that
wasn't many. So I'm bringing you (in my opinion) the very best.

 

Part 1 - 61:00
Dan Hartman - Instant Replay (1978)
Dan Hartman - Countdown / This Is It (1978)
Dan Hartman feat. Loleatta Holloway - Relight My Fire (1978)
Patrick Cowley & Sylvester - Menergy (1981)
Sylvester & Patrick Cowley - Do You Wanna Funk (1982)
Village People - Medley (1978-79)
Skatt Brothers - Walk the Night (1980)
Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax (1983)
Paul Parker - Right On Target (1982)
Boystown Gang, with Cynthia Manley - Remember Me - Ain't No Mountain (1981)
Loverde & Patrick Cowley - Die Hard Lover (1982)
Communards - Never Say Goodbye (1987)

Part 2 - 61:00
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (extended mix, 1984)
Erasure - Gimme Gimme Gimme (1986)
Alicia Bridges - I Love the Nightlife (1978)
Hazell Dean - Searchin' (1983)
Carl Bean - I Was Born This Way (1977)
Soft Cell - Tainted Love (1981)
Boystown Gang - Cruisin' in the Streets (1981)
Lime - Your Love (1981)
Kat Mandu - The Break (1979)
Sharon Redd - In the Name of Love (1982)
Sylvester - Dance Disco Heat (1978)
Sylvester - You Make Me Feel Mighty Real (1979)

Part 1

Part 2

DiscoMusic.com offers a listing of 700 disco records at this link.
Amazingly, only 22 songs are by 13 artists who actually
were openly gay. In addition to the ones in this show, they
included Paul Jabara, Luther Vandross, Pet Shop Boys, Patrick
Duvet, and Johnny Mathis. While disco may have been popular at
our clubs, in my opinion as a genre it wasn't really "our" music.

The Script
Part 1
This is JD Doyle and welcome to Queer Music Heritage for September, which will be a very different
show than usual. I've been in a Trash Disco mood lately so decided to do an entire show of that genre.
Now, what is Trash Disco? Well, that's a bit subjective, but to me it was dance oldies, mostly hits,
prior to say, 1985. And in many cities in the years after that at local clubs the music sometimes got a special
day of the week. For example, in Houston it was Sunday Trash Disco at the Montrose Mining Company,
with Brian Broussard and John Sims setting the beat.

Now of course, since this is Queer Music Heritage, I only play LGBT artists, which really made it hard
for me, as there just were not that many openly gay dance artists in that era. And that always seemed odd to me.
Here disco was supposedly the music of gay clubs, but the music was not by our artists. There's a pretty
good website called discomusic.com and a while back they polled DJs from around the world and came up
with a list of the best 700 disco songs. From that list I spotted only 12 gay & lesbian artists, doing 21 songs.
So I'm not imagining things. For this show I put together two hours, and 24 songs by 18 different artists.
You can find the track list on my site, and like in a dance club, I'm not going to talk for the rest of the hour.
It will be solid music, starting with Dan Hartman.

Part 2
Welcome back to Queer Trash Disco, Part 2. This is JD Doyle and I'm continuing my salute to the
Trash Disco of the late 70s and early 80s, and they are only by LGBT artists, and like on Part 1,
after this intro I won't be talking for the rest of the hour, letting you enjoy the music. This segment
begins with one of my absolute favorite songs, "Smalltown Boy," by Bronski Beat, and this version you
probably didn't hear in the clubs, as it's the extended one, that begins slow, and then builds and builds.