Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Gay Ass Disco!

Theo Vaness was an openly gay disco star from the Netherlands. In 1979 he released Bad Bad Boy, his homage to the gay bars of Amsterdam.

In homage to gays in Seattle STUDIO at Havana is throwing a gay-ass disco night tonight and I couldn't help but think about Mr. Vaness as am working on what records to bring out. My fave cut on the album is the title track "I'm A Bad Bad Boy". It's got a great synth line bubbling underneath the guitars, and a sassy little bass line.

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The album was produced by Michaële-Lana and Paul Sebastian (real names Evelyn and Andrias Andrians), the same people who worked on the best albums by Madleen Kane. The album features mixing work by proto-techno DJ Francois K., and most of the drums were performed by Marc CHanterau of the French disco group Voyage.

But wait! There's an even gayer reason to play Theo tonight. "As Long As It's Love" his paean to gay lovers everywhere.

Don't accuse a man who loves another man
Don't accuse in vain, his pleasure or his pain
Black man, white man, gay man, straight man
He's doing the best he can!

Don't accuse a girl who loves another girl
Don't accuse in vain, his pleasure or his pain
Good girl, bad girl, sexy girl, shy girl
She's doing the best he can!

As long as it's love!


Theo Vaness - I'm A Bad Bad Boy
Theo Vaness - As Long As It's Love

Join us tonight in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who gay out everywhere!

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STUDIO: Keepin' it real. Gay.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like my country fellow man Theo Vaness (or Theo van Es) as well and his 'Bad bad boy' is excellent, but he wasn't gay actually... He was a married guy and singer in rockband the Shoes for years (search for 'The Shoes' in Allmusic.com) He told journalists in Holland at the time that he liked disco music and wanted to do something different than making rock music all the time. I think he still performs as a singer of the Shoes. Sorry, to tell you this...

H.M.A. said...

Ha! That's hilarious.

You know, as I was writing this post I was trying to find out what the hell happened to him. I couldn't find any info and thought, probably inappropriatly, but...
that he was probably dead of AIDS as so many other gay icons of the '70's disco era.

His stuff was so outré at the time and the cover to the Bad Boy album is so "Leather" I think the assumption around these parts is that he was gay.

Good to know he's still around, wonder if he'll ever get back into his disco guise....

thanks for that info Prof.!