2003 JUNE 2 #153
Steve Fisk - Donna Summer On The Radio
In the early eighties I did a radio show that aired both in Brussels and Louvain. Together with some friends, I selected very strange and alternative stuff. But when someone brought this hard to find album to the studio one week, even we judged most of the tracks way too experimental to be in the show. Half of it even bored the hell out of us! Except one track: Donna Summer on the Radio by Steve Fisk. This captured in a funny and imaginative way our hatred against disco and it's first lady! So we aired it at least twenty times in the three years the show lasted. People even phoned in to request it. Come to think of it, it was probably the only request we ever granted. We never played another track of the album and - as a classic 'pars pro toto' - referred to the whole lp as 'Donna Summer on the radio'.
And... 20+ years later, when I thought of proposing this track to Otis I called my friend with whom I did the show to tell him about the project. I started off with: "Do you remember that strange gray album with the purple drawing..." ""Sure! You mean Donna Summer on the radio," he completed my question instantly... Why did he remember it? Because it's nothing like anything else you've heard, and that's a lot if you're a fan of this project! It's spoken word but it has a song structure, the words are naive but they perfectly evoke the feeling that disco was a constant pain in the ass for people like us who hated it, it's minimal and repetitive at first but just when you think you've had it, it goes another way, it's... just great.
So, consider yourself warned: this track will nest itself in your mind for at least two decades!
- Marc Engels
TT-2:12 / 3MB / 192kbps 44.1khz
from the LP, "Regional Zeal: Mouth Music From Olympia,
Washington"
Palace Of Lights Records (1982)
