The Blindboy Podcast - Disco is the real Punk Rock 2

Episode Date: September 9, 2020

The bizaare story behind a disco "Novelty Song" and why it is an important piece of art by a sex worker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Duck the chuckling cusp of your husband's buttress, you howling Vincents. How are you getting on? It's September. God bless you all. Are you a new listener? Are you a new listener? Are you listening because you saw me on the Joe Duffy show? Talking to him about religion. Talking shit about God. Well, you're welcome if you are a new listener. That was actually. It was received quite well.

I didn't get much online abuse. Which I was expecting. Because that's generally what happens when you go on RT1. You get quite a lot of angry. Right wing people. And conservative people attacking you. I think what I said. On it.

It must have been so common sense. that even contrarians could agree so i'm happy with that also i've been nominated for quite a large award this week which was a really pleasant piece of news to receive my bbc series blind by understrives the world which you can still see on the bbc iplayer that's been nominated for a broadcast award which is it's like a bafta but it's an industry award in the uk and that's just a lovely feeling reviews don't really matter but awards do because awards create more work awards create tv series so a huge amount of work went into that TV show, not just from myself but from a massive team of journalists from my co-writer James Cotter

so it's lovely to get that and I'm receiving it 10 years to the week this week, 10 years ago I did my first ever professional TV script on Republic of Telly I was a young fella in my early 20s

and I wrote The Guide to Limerick for Republic of Telly which was my first ever script and I didn't know whether it was going to be good or bad or whatever and James Cotter would have been the person who commissioned that script and helped me with it so it's great that 10 years later both of us are still

working on a show and now getting nominated for a pretty significant award over in the UK and it's one of them awards where obviously if I win it

that's fantastic but it's one of those ones where it doesn't matter it's like a nomination is as good so that's pleasant news to receive this week

I've also been thinking a lot about Crazy Frog's dick right, so do you remember Crazy Frog he was like a cartoon frog from around 2004 he was you know I don't like the term

novelty music because novelty music and novelty tune, it's disparaging and it's a label that gets used against the rubber bandits a lot and I don't like it but I think Crazy Frog was actually novelty music and that's okay to call it that and I think the makers of Crazy Frog would also be comfortable

saying that it's novelty music Crazy Frog was a digital frog who started off doing ringtones for phones, it used to go ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding like that and then who started off doing ringtones for phones, he used to go ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding, like that. And then he released a song,

which was a cover version of Axl F. So there's not a lot of creativity going on in there, it's a cover version of a song. And then you just have this frog going ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding over ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding- Ding And that was the song in 2004. But I always remember Crazy Frog. This little green frog on a motorbike with a pixelated dick. He clearly had genitals,

but they were always pixelated back in 2004. And I remember thinking, like, first off, why did you give him a dick in the first place? And who pixelated him? And what was thinking, like, first off, why did you give him a dick in the first place? And who pixelated him? And what was that conversation like? You know, here's this digital frog. He's a digital green frog and he has a small little frog genus. Frogs don't even have pricks and ricks.

Frogs don't have dicks. Real frogs don't have dicks. But Crazy Frog is an anthropomorphic frog and he's got a dick and balls. But they were blurred out in 2004 and someone had to have that conversation someone had to have that conversation and say you know

why do we blur out his dick because it's obviously flaccid it's not so any sexualisation happens in the eyes of the viewer so why are we blurring out his dick and it's probably someone going

well then you have to imagine like crazy frog having sex you know and people in 2004 i don't just don't think people were ready for that thought and we heard nothing from crazy frog for years and then this week a twitter account official crazy frog twitter account shows up in the middle of a fucking pandemic and all it is is one image of crazy frog lying on a bed with his little dick

no pixelation, his penis and genitals, his balls out and it took me aback because I'm going ah ok someone has now decided that the world is ready for crazy frog's dick

do you know what I mean it's like someone said do you know what nearly 20 years ago we pixelated his penis but like just look at the state of the world man

just look at the world you've got Donald Trump telling people to drink bleach there's a global pandemic the half the world is literally on fire like we can deal with a frog's pixelated dick

people have got bigger fish to fry there's the internet look at what ISIS were doing they were beheading people, like we can deal with his little, with his dick, and they did, so I, Crazy Frog got his dick out last week, and I thought about it for longer than I should have been thinking about a digital frog's dick, and then that got me thinking about, like fucking Donald Duck man like Donald Duck right so Donald Duck never

wore pants right that's a we all know that I think that was even in an episode of Friends Donald Duck never wore pants but then he goes to the shower and he wears a fucking towel when he's in the shower and it's like what's the point but most importantly Donald Duck never wore pants he had no

evidence of genitals whatsoever right and you kind of go Donald Duck would have been the 50s, the 60s and you're like okay grand he doesn't need a dick it's a children's cartoon he doesn't need a penis but then what ruined it was Donald Duck has a lot of

nephews right and you're going why does he have nephews like what a strange thing to do what an odd thing like why can't they just be his sons why do they have to be his nephews and then someone had to go do you really want to think of Donald Duck fucking is that what you want so they had to give donald duck nephews so that you did so that if if he had sons if those three ducks were his sons then you had to think about donald duck fucking do you know what i mean so they they removed they made him a eunuch they made him without any sexual desire or sex and instead he's just this uncle with no penis

you know and that always stuck with me but then Goofy Goofy has a son so that means Disney were like I don't know why

but if you find out Goofy has a son well then Goofy fucks Goofy with his and here's the thing I well then Goofy fucks. Goofy with his... And here's the thing. I... I'd rather have Donald Duck having sex

than Goofy. Because with Goofy... I don't know, there's something too silly about Goofy. I can't imagine Goofy engaging in the act of coitus but I don't want to imagine a Donald Duck engaging in the act of coitus

but I can I can and I'll get over it but not Goofy but as soon as you, here's Goofy's son alright so Goofy fucks then does he ok great thanks for that so I thought about that a lot this week all because of Crazy Frog

and his strange cock and I was trying to think you know is Crazy Frog and Crazy Frog's dick and the feelings that come up around it is it in any way relevant to the theme of this week's podcast

and I thought it wasn't I thought it wasn't but it kind of is it kind of is in a roundabout way so I've done a series of podcasts about the history of disco I've done three of them

I urge you to check them out if you haven't heard them. Just type into Google, blind boy podcast history of disco. They're possibly my favorite series of podcasts that I've done. Okay. This is part of that series. The first one, I tried to make the case as to why disco is the real punk rock music. Right. as to why disco is the real punk rock music, right? Because disco comes from the marginalized communities of gay, Latino, transgender, African-American people in New York,

stemming directly from the Stonewall Riots of 1969, okay? So this podcast is kind of within that series. I want to talk about disco as the real punk rock, but about a specific song. This podcast is about a specific disco song that I, that would have been considered novelty. And I think this song is punk rock as fuck. Okay. So this week's podcast is kind of, the theme is accidental.

And I'm kind of exploring the theme as I go along. There are certain songs, okay? There are certain songs. I adore music. I fucking love music. When I hear a song, if it's a good song, if the songwriting is good, if the production is good, I will like it. I don't give a shit about the genre. I don't care whether it's cool whether it's uncool i just like good fucking music okay but there are certain songs that become so that are played so ubiquitously that they cease to become music in your head that you can appreciate and usually it's what happens when a song gets used heavily in an advertising campaign. When a song becomes used heavily in an advertising campaign and you hear it so much that it starts to become annoying and then it loses meaning.

Right. Those songs, like most of Abba's music, most of Abba's music. Abba's music, you hear it everywhere music Abba's music you hear it everywhere you hear it on the radio and you often need to if you're a fan of music you need to set time for yourself to actually re-listen to Abba

with a fresh set of ears and go wow this is fucking amazing because Abba are incredible Abba are ridiculous ABBA invented having multiple hooks in a song okay the modern songwriting style that you hear today you can trace right back to ABBA so there's a lot of ABBA songs that you can just completely overlook a big one for me I'll tell you when I had the moment an Abbas song called S.O.S.

everyone knows S.O.S. right you can't not know it I'd heard it my entire childhood it had been drummed into my ears so much that it existed in my brain as a non-song I didn't hear it as a piece of music anymore I heard it as background music and I never appreciated it

and then one day about six years ago I actually listened to SOS with earphones and I removed the abboness from it and all the cultural connections and I listened to the fucking song and I'm like shit this is as good as Bowie this is as good as David Bowie at the height of his career holy Holy fuck. And you need to do that with music sometimes. And there's so many of these hollow notes to an extent. The Beatles. Music that is so ubiquitous. You need to re-listen to it again.

To truly and deeply appreciate that you're dealing with an absolute work of genius. So I had this moment recently. With a song. Where. It came on my Spotify by accident. The song came on my Spotify by accident and I nearly, I nearly just like skipped it because I'm like, fuck, I can't listen to this. I can't listen to this. But then I listened and it blew my fucking socks off. This song that I'd heard my entire life and it blew my fucking socks off. I'll play it for you. Ooh, how do you like your love? But if you want to know how I really feel

Get the cameras rolling, get the action going Baby, you know our love for you is real Take me where you want to, man, my heart's love for you is real, take me where you want to, man my heart's just for you, more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more,

more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, more,

more, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, more, how do you like it, more, So, you know that song. You know that track really, really well. That song for me, when I was growing up, there was an advert on television. I can't remember what the fuck it was. I think it was like an Argos catalog advert. But literally, that song, more, more, more. It was on TV every single day, at least seven or eight times a day when I was a young kid. And it just hammered into my head as not being music when you hear something like that and it's used as a jingle

and it's completely ubiquitous it stops being music in your head and it becomes background noise and you stop recognizing it as something you could listen to and it can be triggering so when I came on my Spotify I wanted to turn it off but I stuck stuck with it. And when I did stick with it, I was out running. You know, as you can hear there, it's like, yeah, you know the fucking song, but it's cracking. It's banging. It's really, really good. It's catchy. It's incredibly well produced. The musicianship is good. And then for me as a producer and someone who's a massive nerd about disco music

and obsessed with audio fidelity when I it's you know what it's a bit like fucking this is a hot take now but listening to music like this it's like how Christians describe being born again like if you meet a

Christian not like a Catholic or a Protestant, but someone who's like a Christian, they could be raised in Catholicism, raised in Protestantism. They've known the teachings of Jesus their entire life. And then they get born again. They have a baptism and it's like they truly rediscover Christ. It's like,

yeah, he was there my whole life but I was only taught about him through organised religion. But then I found him and I was born again and he was revealed to me even though he's been there all along that's what this is like I was born again with that song I heard it with fresh ears

and was like fuck and I'm a disco and music nerd and I knew I was like something about the size of this song. Something about how big the drums are. Something about how warm the bass is. How well mixed the guitars are.

How I can hear what you'd describe as saturation and compression on it. Knowing that this is a song from the 70s. Immediately that kind of got my spider senses tingling. And I went, this is not just a catchy songs, immediately that kind of got my spider senses tingling, and I went, this is not just a catchy song, but someone important is behind this, because I can tell, my ears can tell,

someone important is behind this, so I look it up, the song by the way, it's more and more and more, by an artist called Andrea True, but I didn't give a fuck about that, I was like, who produced it? So I went to find out who produced it

and then of course Tom Moulton now Tom Moulton is someone who I'd have mentioned on one of the earliest disco podcasts Tom Moulton is a hugely important person not just in disco music but all modern music because Tom Moulton is credited with inventing what's known as the 12-inch single, okay? Now, here's the crack. Disco music, just a really, if you want to hear the full history of disco music, go back and listen to those disco podcasts I did. But disco music, it was early 70s, mostly the gay scene, the African-American scene, the Latino scene. It was music that was made for dancing. It was music that was to be played on discs in venues where they didn't serve drink, usually gay bars. And there were places where people would do coke and speed instead of drinking because drink wasn't available in new york and chicago detroit disco is is early disco is specifically the new york scene early disco is new york from the stonewall in to gaffs around there but like the patrons weren't drinking they were dancing to this music there was no band people were playing vinyls. But your standard vinyl back then, which was, was it six inch?

Six or seven inch vinyl? I think it was seven inch. A single that a DJ would be playing. It was three minutes long. And what would happen is, three minutes wasn't working for people who were dancing. For people who were out there dancing. Something ending after three minutes or just having a little every song has a breakdown and a break beat where everyone wants

to dance to and this wasn't working so tom malton wanted to make these songs longer and there's two stories as to why this needed to happen the first story is quite, the song needs to be fucking longer. Some DJs were getting two 7-inch singles on two decks and trying to mix them together when one starts, the other finishes, but that wasn't working. They needed longer music. One story is that it was simple. Tom Moulton needed longer music at the discos. The second story is Tom Moulton was a chain smoker.

He wasn't allowed to smoke in the DJ box so he needed to leave the DJ box to go and smoke but if the song if he left the seven inch record on and the song is four minutes long then he has to rush his cigarette or maybe he wants two cigarettes so apparently Tom Moulton was like how can I make a record that's 12 minutes long how can I make a one song that's 12 minutes long I can fuck off away from the dj box everyone's still dancing no one's minding the record and I'm smoking two cigarettes how can I do that so Tom Moulton figured out how can I put one song on 12 inch vinyl so 12 inch vinyl is the large vinyl that's what an album traditionally comes on a 12 inch vinyl but Tom Moulton wanted to mix songs he was he was getting

songs he was he's the inventor of the remix he was taking music remixing it for elongated versions of it for 12 inch large records which meant the song would be 11 minutes long 15 minutes long which was unprecedented at the time singles were three minutes for radio you didn't have a single that was 15 minutes long that was like suicide for sales but these sales were fucking djs were for djs and discos and people dancing so anyway tom malton makes a 12-inch song, which is 11 minutes long. I can't remember the first one ever,

but a happy accident occurred, which he didn't predict. If you think of a record, a record, the music goes in on little grooves. So if you've got an entire album, like six songs on one 12 inch record that's loads of information that you're putting into one space but instead if you put one song that's 11 minutes long if you put it like as opposed to one half of a record being 30 minutes

long now one half of a record is 11 minutes long. What naturally happened is you've got less data being put onto the vinyl and what it allowed it to do was that the grooves that were being cut into the record had much larger spaces. So what this did, it increased the fidelity of the music tenfold. Now all of a sudden with a 12 inch vinyl single the loudness of the music was increased massively and the clarity of all the instruments it gave a degree of audio fidelity that had never been heard in music before which also perfectly suited these massive sound systems that were coming about in discos and Tom Moulton did that and Tom Moulton was the father of the fucking remix and when I heard that song more and more and more and then I look it up and I find out that Tom Moulton is making it I'm going of course that makes sense that's why there's

so much presence on the bass drum that's why even though it's banging I can hear every piano perfectly I can hear every guitar perfectly when you with that level of fidelity nothing gets squashed everything can be loud but you can still hear things there's no compromise so I left it at that and was re-listening to more and more and more on my runs going this is my new favorite fucking song can't get enough of this man can't fucking get enough of this and like I said I didn't give a shit who was singing it all I cared about was Tom Moulton made this he produced this this is amazing and then I started listening to the lyrics and the lyrics which I because I don't when it comes to disco music and shit like that I don't

usually listen to the lyrics I don't really care it comes to disco music and shit like that, I don't usually listen to the lyrics. I don't really care about them. Because to me, I would have heard that as a novelty-ish type song. You have to remember, that song is 1976, which would have been the end of disco. Again, I hate saying novelty, it's not fair. What I mean is, the lyrics would have been throwaway. For me, it's just more, more, more. How do you like it?

It means nothing. It means nothing. But then I'm listening to him and I'm going, some of these lyrics are fucking strange. What's going on here with these lyrics? Oh, how do you like your love? But if you want to know how I really feel, get the camera rolling.

Get the action going. Baby, you know my love for you is real tell me what you want then my heart you'll steal more more more how do you like it more more more how do you like it and I'm just going 1976 disco get the camera rolling

get the action going what's she talking about did Tom Moulton write these lyrics what's the story and I'd foolishly written off the singer. It's like my own misogyny blind spot had come up and I'd assumed

throwaway lyrics, they mean nothing. I don't even know who the singer is. Tom Moulton is the talent here. He's the producer. But I'm listening to the lyrics going get the camera rolling, get the action going that's strange as fuck what the fuck is this so then I start to start googling who who the fuck is Andrea True who is this woman singing and that's when things got really spicy and really interesting

um before they get on to Andrea True and how the lovely little rabbit hole that it took me down. Let's do the Ocarina Pause so that I'm uninterrupted for part two. I don't have the Ocarina this week. I don't have the shaker. I have the flexitone. So if you're new to the podcast, the Ocarina pause is where the digital advert is inserted I don't want this advert coming out of nowhere surprising you

don't know what the ad is for so instead I give you a little warning and you may or may not hear an advert so here is the flexitone pause and this is a queer little instrument it's a latin instrument this is a queer little instrument it's a Latin instrument on April 5th

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That's sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca I'm looking at it here, it's gone a bit rusty. That's disappointing. Rusty flexitone, I could do without that now. That's a shame so that was the flexitone pause there was an advert there support for this podcast comes from you the listener

via the Patreon page this podcast is a huge amount of work so if you're enjoying the podcast and you're listening to it regularly just consider paying me for that work if you're enjoying the podcast and you're listening to it regularly, just consider paying me for that work. If you're a consumer and all I'm asking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month, that's all I want. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Become a patron of this podcast. And it's a model that's based on soundness. So the thing is, if you're someone who can afford,

if you're listening to this podcast and you can afford to give me that coffee or a pint once a month, then I invite you to become a patron. But if you can't afford it, if you've lost your job, if you don't have a job and you're enjoying the podcast, don't be feeling guilty about that because someone else is paying for you. It's a model that's based on soundness. What it also means is because this podcast is listener funded, it means I've got full editorial control.

All right. I get the occasional advertiser, but they have to do it on my terms. If I don't want them advertising, they can go fuck themselves because this is a funded by the listener podcast that gives me full editorial control. because this is a funded by the listener podcast that gives me full editorial control this is a podcast which started off with me talking about crazy frog's dick you know a digital frog's fucking dick and now i'm talking about disco music and some advertisers just wouldn't be cool with that that'd be too strange well go fuck yourself advertisers this is what we do here because of the patrons of the podcast so patreon.com

forward slash the blind buy podcast give it a crack if you can afford that um what else oh yeah leave a review for the podcast right like the podcast leave a review that stuff's important because it means more people see the podcast so whatever app you're using if it's on spotify fucking subscribe to it apple podcasts go and leave that review and give it uh five stars if you enjoy it i've been getting i went and looked at the fucking reviews last week and i've been getting a lot of one star reviews from dickheads now if you if you don't like the podcast and you think it's shit then by all means you're entitled to a one star review but i've been getting one one-star

reviews from conspiracy theorists who take issue with me promoting people wearing masks because of covid so people who are covid conspiracy theorists give me one or two fucking one-star reviews which is i hate that that's not fair that pushes my podcast down and that's not a real one-star review that's you disagree you disagree with me and you're a conspiracy theorist but that's not a real one star review that's you disagree you disagree with me and you're a conspiracy theorist but that's not good enough for one star if you think i'm talking shit and you hate my podcast fine okay you can have it so catch me on twitch as well twitch.tv forward slash the blind by podcast um i'm not gigging i don't think i'm going to gig for a long long time because of the pandemic so what I'm doing instead

is filling up my time with live streams three or four times a week twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast it's great crack play video games I chat with Chi I make live music it's great fun

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday usually a little bit at the weekends won't be doing it this Friday because I have to be somewhere but other than that, come along part two alright, so back to the song

More More More by Andrea True so like I said, I was listening to it and kind of patting myself on the back, I was patting myself on the back because here's this song and I was able to tell, holy fuck, someone important is behind this. This sounds too good. One of the greats is responsible. So I was patting myself in the back because I was right. It was like,

sometimes if I walk into an art museum, right, a good art museum, like one of the ones that have in London, like the National Portrait Gallery or something, or the National museum like one of the ones that have in in london like the national portrait gallery or something one of or the national gallery one of my favorite things to do when i walk into a gallery is to walk into a room full of paintings and i can spot without without even ever having seen the painting i'm really good at knowing which one is from one of the masters I'm really good at knowing which one is from one of the masters right by which I mean there's loads of paintings in the room but I can walk in and I can spot

Caravaggio's a bit obvious I can spot a Rubens I can walk in and I can there can be a load of paintings that look like Rubens but I can go that's the Rubens that's the Dega I can I'm able to spot what I call the glow.

Paintings that are made by the masters, like the names that you know. Every other painting in the gallery is as good technically, but a painting by one of the masters, it has something extra.

And that, it, I can only explain it is that it feels alive it has the glow it's the difference between a fucking corpse and a human a corpse corpses don't look

like people I've gone very dark now it's gone unnecessarily dark you know the difference between a corpse and someone who's asleep basically and that thing some people call it a soul whatever that thing that makes something alive that's what's present in the painting of a master and it's what it's what's present

in the work of masters in any genre and when I say master I know masters sounds gendered to mean male I don't mean it like that certain artists who are peak peak peak at their game their work contains a glow and this song contained a glow and that's how I knew when I looked it up I wasn't surprised to find out that it was Tom Moulton, inventor of the fucking 12-inch, inventor of the remix, making this tune and why it had so much fidelity. And I overwrote, I wrote off the female singer. I was going, I don't give a fuck who she is because Tom Moulton's a legend. But then I looked into her and it was the lyrics.

I'm like, why is she talking about cameras? What's that about? That's a strange lyric for a fucking disco song, which is supposed to be about dancing. Turns out that Andrea True is the Tom Moulton of porn. New York in the 1970s, right? Around Manhattan.

The Stonewall Inn. Times Square. You not only had the emerging disco scene right which like I said it's almost coming out of the same there was quite restrictive laws around Manhattan at the time

the disco scene there was very anti-gay laws there was laws about I think it was illegal for men to dance together but laws that had tried to shut down certain businesses selling liquor those spaces

which were often run by the fucking mafia those spaces became the gay discos that pioneered electronic music, right? They couldn't buy drink in there, they had to go to these places, the mafia ran them but similarly what also came out of that new york manhattan times square scene

was the emergence of the porn industry and those areas were they were notorious for vice and for sex work and for pimping um the 70s around Times Square, that area of Manhattan, I don't know, is it mid-Manhattan? That's mid-Manhattan, I believe. It wasn't like what it is now. Times Square and the area around it in the 70s was a really run-down area. It'll remind you a little bit of O'Connell Street in Dublin. Now it wasn't particularly safe. There was a lot of drugs. A lot of sex work.

A lot of homelessness. All the problems that would go along with. Those type of urbane problems. Were present in the fucking 70s. So you had the emergence of disco music. And the gay scene. But you also had. From the amount of sex work that was happening in that area the emergence of pornography but pornography starting to be seen as a legitimate art by which and again it was funded and run by the mafia porn in those

days they used to be called stag films right? If you want to see a good portrayal of this watch David Simon's TV series The Juice. D-E-U-C-E an incredible fucking TV series which covers all of this early New York carry on. Especially around the sex work. But

early porn films were called stag films. They weren't easily accessible they were kind of shared around in like men's clubs and stuff but with the 70s and with the involvement of the mafia what happened was they had peep shows and they had slot machines and they had like these little these little boots that would play short loops of pornography films and men would go in and look at these in a little boot and see a short loop of pornography but then they started to I think Andy Warhol was responsible for it I think Andy Warhol aired the first ever film which could be considered pornography it was called a blue movie i think it was actually called the blue movie but a lot of pornography was being put on in theaters

but it was being called art it's like this isn't porn this is art where people happen to be having full sexual intercourse in the film and this was being shown in new y and from that New York scene sex workers who were direct contact sex workers on the street started to appear in pornographic films then the films by the mid 70s alongside with disco started to become more legitimized and you started to see premieres of films and by 1976 America was becoming quite liberal like cities like New York anywhere were being very liberal and relaxing their attitude towards sex and it had gotten to the point before VHS and it's known as the golden age of porn where pornography was being shot on film I'm talking hardcore pornography was being shot on film I'm talking hardcore pornography was being shot on film

the production values were getting better and it was starting to be perceived as a legitimate artistic form right and you had really fucking famous porn stars like Linda Lovelace Marilyn Chambers

and you had Andrea True who sings the song more, more, more. Andrea True was also an incredibly famous porn star in the New York scene of the golden age of pornography. That's why I say she was the Tom Molson of porn. But then I'm going, well, what the fuck is she doing singing a song? But the lyrics start to make a lot more sense then but if you want to know how I really feel get the cameras rolling

get the action going baby you know my love for you is real tell me where take me where you want to then my heart you'll steal more more more how do you like it how do you like it that's andrea true not talking about sex she's talking about porn she's talking about filming fucking porn

on this song more more more which became an incredibly mainstream breakthrough disco hit a huge fucking song and i kind of just was like alright I need to know what this is interesting stuff this is unorthodox these are ticking all the boxes for me of something that seems like an interesting piece of art on the one hand you've got fucking Tom Molson being a fucking legend

mixing this as an early disco track on 12 inch and now you've got andrea true who's a sex worker a porn star writing these lyrics that she clearly wrote herself about her experience in sex work this is now stops being the radio friendly jingle and now becomes an important piece of art that reflects the culture that it came from so andrea true's kind of origin story it's almost archetypal classic what you'd expect from that era she's from nashville she was born anne marie troden born in nashville tennessee which you a pretty conservative fucking place, and from down south in America, went to Catholic school,

Catholic girls school, and then gets to like 18 and decides, I want to be fucking famous, I'm going to New York. So she arrives in New York to be an actress, to be whatever, and then finds herself in sex work, finds herself working in porn, and becomes a huge porn star in the golden age of pornography and she'd studied like piano when she was a teenager but

from what i can tell she didn't really there's no real musical aspirations So the way that the song. More and more and more came about. Is really really strange. Okay. So while she was a porn star. And had a pretty big name. Like it would have been porn in 76. I think it had just become legal in New York. It was still associated with the mafia.

But there was money to be made. Because it was being shown in theatres and films films were being shown in theatres and you had middle class people now couples going to see porn films to see Andrea True's porn films and

she would have done other work outside of porn and one of it she got hired by a real estate company in Jamaica to appear in adverts right so to appear in some adverts for real estate for a Jamaican company so in 1975 or 76 she fucks off down to Jamaica to do an advert for a real estate company now the thing is with Jamaica at the time, like Jamaica's in the Caribbean

and 1975 is, it's almost 15 years, 13 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, alright? So Nixon is president as well at the time. Like, Cuba and all that shit and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Fidel Castro, the Caribbean was a pretty fucking hot place politically, okay? And Cuba would have been at the utter height of US fucking sanctions.

Cuba was run by Fidel Castro, communist country, relationship with Russia. relationship with Russia so the Yanks were basically crushing Cuba with huge economic sanctions and punishing any Central American, Caribbean South American nation that would appear to be even remotely sympathetic

towards Cuba because the Yanks were terrified of we can't have any more communist countries in the Caribbean in South America because communism means a relationship with Russia and then Russia will put strategic missiles there and that creates an imbalance in the Cold War. So it was hot as fuck politically in Jamaica. So Andrea True goes to Jamaica to film her commercial and as she's there this new prime minister gets elected called Michael Manley and Michael Manley was

I think he was a very left leaning very left leaning socialist prime minister he was he was a white man Jamaicans are mostly mostly black country but he was a white man he was seen as a real fucking, real cool dude,

young prime minister, left-leaning, but he was a friend of Fidel Castro and he was a supporter of Fidel Castro. So America's like, what the fuck? So Michael Manley is now democratically elected as the president of Jamaica, but he's a friend of Castro's and he's left-leaning. Well, we can't have that.

So America's like, well, fuck you, Jamaica. How dare you elect the socialist? We're going to come down hard. So to punish Michael Manley and to punish Jamaica for electing someone who's left-wing and supports Fidel Castro, the US just go, OK, sanctions, there you go, Jamaica, we're going to introduce some strict economic sanctions that make it difficult for your country to be prosperous

not as bad as what we've done to cuba but how dare you elect a socialist here's some fucking sanctions so then jamaica get a bit pissed off that the u.s u.s have introduced sanctions so jamaica in order to show that it's not that it's been abused essentially that's not fair like you would democratically elect a socialist and then you go well fuck you you can't trade fuck that that's US imperialism so Jamaica go alright US fuck you

so Jamaica 1975 just as Andrea True Andrea True is an American citizen she enters Jamaica and then Jamaica introduced sanctions on the US that basically stop the transfer of assets

by US citizens from Jamaica to America which meant Andrea True now is stuck in Jamaica she's doing this commercial for a Jamaican company making a nice bit of cash but she now can't take her cash and send it back to the US.

So she's like, fuck, I'm stuck in Jamaica with a lot of money and I can only spend it here. What the fuck am I going to do? What am I going to do? So she decides, I'm going to use the money that I've made in Jamaica, because Jamaica, you have to realise too

there was reggae music lads Jamaica is world famous and important for its contributions to the fidelity of music because of Jamaican sound systems

that's where hip hop comes from there was a lot of recording studios in Jamaica a lot of music was being made and some of the best music in the world so Andrea True has the brilliant idea of I'm going to write a fucking song, I'm going to write a song

and I'm going to use the money that I can only spend in Jamaica to record a fucking song in Jamaica, that's what I'm going to do, right and it sounded that sounds mad, it's like you're a porn star you're a porn star, what are you doing? But she's obviously the type of person that's very forward thinking,

very brave, very courageous, incredibly smart. Instead of panicking, she goes, I'm going to make some fucking hay while the sun is shining. Great. Like, she could have fucking drank it. She could have partied with it. No, I'm writing a song. So she writes the lyrics to More, More, More,

which is a celebration. It's an unapologetic celebration of sex work and her job in the pornographic industry. It's her taking ownership. This is what I do. Get the camera rolling. Turn me on. More, More, More.

How do you like it? How do you like it? That's her speaking to the director. That's her speaking to the person watching it unapologetic celebration of sex work now one of the fucking podcasts i did before i tried to make the case about how disco is the real punk rock because disco gave a voice to the most marginalized members members of society. The gay population, African-American, Latino, transgender people, and now sex workers. So this song that I thought was a fucking crazy frog,

novelty song, is now punk rock as fuck. Punk, you've got a porn star taking ownership, celebrating, no shame. Here's my fucking song about sex work, here's my song about my job, my legitimate industry that I work in, this is what I do, more, more, more, how do you like it, turn on the cameras, get me horny, this is what I fucking do,

that's your shame, this is what I do, and she writes this in Jamaica, because fucking Michael Manley is after getting elected, and she can't put the money back up to New York. She wrote the lyrics. The music, I believe, was written by her boyfriend at the time, who was a producer called Greg Diamond. The demo was recorded in Jamaica. That's how she's invested her money. She's a porn star so in the late 70s the likelihood

like one of the historically toughest things ever is porn stars crossing over into what's seen as legitimate entertainment there's not a lot of those stories exist often because of the shame that's attached around

sex work once someone is a porn star they can't then find themselves in in legitimate entertainment especially in america you're talking late 70s here it's about to turn into reagan the absolute moral panic of the 1980s and the end of the sexual liberalization of the 70s so even though she's recorded this incredible demo in Jamaica the chances of her having a hit with it are quite slim so Greg Diamond happens to know Tom Moulton

so they go up to New York with the fucking demo and then it's like right give it to Tom Moulton Tom fucking Moulton the genius inventor of the 12 inch record the master of fidelity re-records this demo with Andrea singing. Tom Moulton himself said he didn't even know what the fucking song was

about. He didn't know she was a porn star. He said that when he was listening to the song, he thought more, more, more just meant like more music. Do you want more music? Do you want more dancing? And that's what I always thought it was until I listened to the fucking song and I'm like shit this is a punk rock fucking song about sex work this is someone celebrating their sexuality this is someone saying this is not why would I be ashamed this is what I do I'm going to talk about it you know and understanding that makes the song art. It's art now. Now it's a piece of vital fucking art. And what it reminds me of too,

right now in the charts, there's this song by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion called WAP, Wet Ass Pussy, which is an incredibly sexually explicit rap song. Everyone went fucking apeshit over it, giving out about it. You can't do this, you can't do that, I fucking love it I think it's fantastic it's two women rapping about

I wanna fuck and I love fucking and I've been listening to dirty songs my whole life through rap music, I've been listening to rappers singing about sexually explicit fucking their entire careers. So to me it's

not a shock but what I loved about Wet Ass Pussy the song was it's the first time I heard a fucking explicit rap song where the person isn't being absolutely selfish. All the male rap songs that I've heard about sex over the years it's all about pleasure me, pleasure me, pleasure me. Wet Ass Pussy all the male rap songs that I've heard about sex over the years,

it's all about pleasure me, pleasure me, pleasure me. Wet ass pussy. It's like, how about it goes both ways? How about I enjoy pleasure in you as well? Fucking fantastic song. Celebrates sex, celebrates explicit sex, removes stigma, doesn't say that conversations about explicit sex are exclusively male

fantastic song but more more more is the same shit it's the same fucking shit I don't think people knew it at the time like with the Cardi B song

it's about a celebration of mutual pleasure mutual pleasure sex for the act of sex. For relaxation. More, more, more. It's sex as a service.

And it's an unapologetic celebration. And acknowledgement of it. It opens with. Oh, how do you like your love? But if you want to know how I really feel. Get the cameras rolling. Get the action going. Baby, you know my love for you is real take me where you want to take my then my heart you'll steal more more more how do you like it this is my job this is the service that I'm doing

it's it's sex work. It's celebrating sex work. And that to me is phenomenal. So she ends up getting nominated for two Grammys for more, more, more. It becomes a huge hit, a huge fucking international hit. But then it breaks. She's a porn star. So now this incredible piece of songwriting is overshadowed and this is it becomes crazy frog like disco by 76 was already in danger of being novelty music but now all people care about is

it's a catchy song and she's a porn star it's it's it stops being about empowerment and it becomes about boldness and novelty and cheekiness and urban myth and the audience then strip the value and importance from a piece of punk rock art and make it kitsch they make it camp they make it bold and every interview that Andrea True

does about the song the interviews at the start she's saying I'm a porn star I'm not doing it anymore but that's what

this song is about then because the interviewers every interviewer was just asking about porn just asking about porn ignoring the fact that she'd just written

a good song not paying attention to it what's the story with the porn then like the song was being played everywhere but even when she tried to do a tour of america because she released an album then afterwards with with greg diamond i don't know if tom moten produced it but she went to release an album and then a tour with it and it became really difficult for her to tour because whatever about New York being sexually liberal and Los Angeles and San Francisco like small town America was not sexually liberal in the 70s that wasn't happening right so when she tried to tour with her song what would just happen is the news gets in advance that the porn star is here

to do her song then the local church or baptists or whatever the fuck go apeshit it's reported about in the paper there's a moral panic whenever she's to do a gig and the gig usually then gets shut down and she's not doing it so she didn't have

a huge fucking career after that but anyone who can write those lyrics that are about her they're about her authentic experience as a sex worker they're they saddle the line between being authentic while also being fun they have a cheeky ambiguity which means that they're not in your face you have to search for it and the more more more can mean anything it's pure and utter fucking desire like i said i wonder that when i was a child and i heard that song all the time on the radio for fucking argos or whatever shit it was that they know what what that song was about they know that this song was actually about more more more shoot more fucking porn give more pleasure to the audience no they didn't

because what it gets to is human fucking desire and if you're dancing to it it can mean more and more dance if you're in a disco in 1976 it can mean more and more coke more and more poppers more and more fucking sex in studio 52 it means everything and anything at the same time it's a work of genius and that is fucking genius that is fucking genius a songwriting terms to have something that is ambiguous and fun and also authentic and empowering to exist alongside each other perfectly is fucking genius and if someone can do that once they can do it several times over but i don't think she was really given that opportunity. The world wasn't ready. The world wasn't ready for empowering punk rock about sex work. The world wasn't ready for it.

And I don't think she had much of a career into the 80s. So, how did that start from Crazy Frog? Novelty songs, Crazy Frog's dick. It's a tenuous connection lads, it's a tenuous connection. But I'm just being honest with you. It led to that train of thought which led to this podcast. I enjoyed doing that. Four in the morning here.

This is what happens all the time. I'd spend three, four days researching a podcast podcast i'd be researching five or six different podcasts not knowing what's it going to be about and then just when it gets to tuesday night a beam of light comes into me and it's like i know what it's going to be about it has arrived the idea has arrived so i don't care that i'm up late i don't care anytime i get to speak about something where i'm deeply passionate about it and i care about it and i'm really really excited to share that passion with g anytime i do that i'm a happy camper all right so there you go the story of of More More More by Andrea True and why it's quite an important piece of art. Uncompromising fucking art. Go and listen to it properly. Go and listen to it properly. Be born again with fresh ears to that great, great song. Yart. I'll catch you next week. Don't know what it's going to be about, but I'll catch you next week. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock host the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre

in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play come along for the ride and punch your ticket to rock city at torontorock.com Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.