From the man who brought us TISM, Damian Cowell warmly welcomes you to hop aboard his ride-on mower as he tries to cut dance music's grass with his own inimitable take – 'Damian Cowell's Disco Machine'.
It's cheesy, it's catchy and it's awash with casual profanity – so bring your gumboots. From international best-selling authors to operatic pop divas and comedic geniuses, Damian's dance party record features a grand guest list of people he admires, including: Shaun Micallef, John Safran, Tim Rogers, Kate Miller-Heidke, The Bedroom Philosopher and more.
"I've gone back to my roots. Nowadays when people say that, it means there’s usually a banjo involved. Or even worse: ‘authenticity’… Don’t worry ladies and gentlemen. There’ll be none of that carry-on here.
“It’s a disco album, but not a really disco album.”
These are five things that Damian Cowell likes about disco – that lead him to creating 'Disco Machine'.
Nicolas Jaar would never use the term ‘disco’
Never heard of Nicholas Jaar? Don’t worry. Neither have I. Apparently he is an electronic music artiste and recently graduated philosophy student who loves quoting John Cage, is working on an art-house film and when asked by a critic to tell a joke, quoted Slovenian Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek. Electronic music’s journey to the centre of its own arse looks to be bang smack on course if you ask me.So that’s why I really like the word ‘disco’. Whenever I say it, people relax: “oh, you’re only doing a disco album!” That type of thing. To me, disco is dance music without the correct haircut. Dance music with a sing-along chorus. Dance music which isn’t afraid to be outright daggy, and frankly sneered at by people who like Nicholas Jaar. And like a comfy pair of ugg boots, a couch and something good on DVD, disco is a place where I like to hang out when I’ve had a shit day at work.
Can’t sing, can’t dance, lotsa bling, loud pants
Even when I was a serious whitey music-loving teenager who dismissed disco as the greatest evil perpetrated by mankind since religion, I had a secret liking for Boney M. It wasn’t necessarily the music – although 'Daddy Cool' is a great little piece of funky dance – it was Bobby Farrell.He was the guy with the side-parted ‘fro and huge knee length boots in the middle of the talented chicks, doing these so-lousy-they’re-great pigeon-toed jerky moves and pretending to sing because in actuality, the group’s creator Frank Farian (later to bring us Milli Vanilli) had recorded all the male vocal parts himself.
This 'let the chicks do all the work/but take all the credit' template has been passed on through history to the likes of Dr Albarn and all those blokes in bands like La Bouche and The Shamen who’d turn up about halfway through for their obligatory eight bar redundant ‘rap’ bit and spend the rest of the time doing St. Vitus’ Dance and fingering their paycheque - and I’ve adopted it on my new album.
Emasculation gets the chicks
You know my favourite all-time disco film clip moment? When the Gibb brothers, all Farrah Fawcett soft-wave hair and neat beards, shirts open down to the ‘pubes and gold medallions a-nestlin’, go stalking along the street and Barry Gibb sings in this absolutely bizarre (the first time you heard it, at least) strangled chicken falsetto “Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk”. And this guy was a sex symbol.Eurovision
Eurovision has been the home of disco for many years now, and it is obligatory viewing in my house. This is where you don’t have to put up with sullen too-cool-for-school kids like Lorde or Jesuse or Yahwehe or whoever else is this week’s fish 'n chip paper. You just get really happy enthusiastic fist-pumping cheese-purveyors from Lichtenstein with a rudimentary grasp of English and a dash of House piano.I absolutely love it, but I’m very afraid, ladies ‘n gentlemen. Eurovision is under attack. From coolness. Last year, we had, splutter, cough, gasp – indie fucking folk. Tattooed baristas with hobo beards simpering in Danish with the weight of the world on their shoulders. It’s the beginning of the end, my friends.
Berghain is not a disco
Berghain is in Berlin – where else – and is the world’s most exclusive, snooty dance club. And it ain’t no disco. A disco is a school hall at the end of grade three and there’s one tube of fairy lights strung across a table with someone’s big sister DJing. THAT’s a disco. Berghain it isn’t, and Berghain – (even though it’s probably closing as we speak because I’m writing about it) – can get fucked.I recently did a show called Modern Unconsciousness. It was about an ultra-exclusive club where all these people queue up outside night after night and never get in, and then one night our hero actually makes it inside and finds out inside is a queue as well. A queue to get into a queue. I modeled it on Berghain.
Damian Cowell and bandDamian Cowell's 'Damian Cowell's Disco Machine' is out 1 February.
Damian Cowell Tour Dates
Fri 13 Feb – Woolly Mammoth (Brisbane)Sat 14 Feb – Newton Social Club (Sydney)
Fri 20 Feb – Corner Hotel (Melbourne)
Fri 20 March – The Jade (Adelaide)
