A
discothèque, , is an
entertainment venue or
club with
recorded music played by
Disc jockeys through a
PA system, rather than an
on-stage band.
Prior to the discothèque, most bars and nightclubs used live bands as entertainment.
Etymology
The word is a
portmanteau coined in the radio business for the storage of (grammophone) records (Greek:
discos) and storage (Greek:
theke, or
thèque in French spelling).
History
1960s and early 1970s
The first dancing hall that was turned into a discothèque was the
Scotch-Club in
Aachen, when on October 19th, 1959, the usual band was unable to play and a record player had to be used. Klaus Quirini took over the record player, and his new format became quickly popular outside town. The name
disc jockey had been coined by Walter Winchell in 1935.
By the late 1960s, soldiers stationed in West Germany had taken the discothèque format home. American versions of the discothèque started to catch on, and with these clubs, the demand for new dance steps such as the
Frug, the
Merengue, and the
Mule skyrocketed.
Record labels feverishly rushed out whole albums of music to
monkey or
limbo by, or else mimicked the discothèque effect by assembling compilations of everything from the
foxtrot to the
boogaloo. Dance instructors got in on the act, releasing LPs such "
Killer Joe's International Discotheque."
In the 1966
Batman TV series, episode 16, "
He Meets His Match, The Grisly Ghoul", the school playing against Robin's school in the basketball game is named "Disko Tech".
1970s and early 1980s
Le Tub discothèque club in
Calais.
By the late 1970s many major US cities had thriving disco club scenes which were centered around discothèques, nightclubs, and private loft parties where
DJs would play disco hits through powerful
PA systems for the dancers. The DJs played "... a smooth mix of long single records to keep people “dancing all night long” " Some of the prestigious clubs had elaborate
light organs, which converted audio signals into colored lights that throbbed to the beat of the music or even glass dance floors with colored lights.
Some cities had disco dance instructors or dance schools which taught people how to do popular disco dances such as "touch dancing", the "hustle" and the "cha cha." There were also disco fashions that discothèque-goers wore for nights out at their local disco, such as sheer, flowing
Halston dresses for women and shiny polyester
Qiana shirts for men with pointy collars, preferably open at the chest, often worn with double-knit suit jackets.
In addition to the dance and fashion aspects of the disco club scene, there was also a thriving drug subculture, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as
cocaine (nicknamed "blow"), amyl nitrite "
poppers" , and the "...other quintessential 1970s club drug
Quaalude, which suspended motor coordination and turned one’s arms and legs to Jell-O." The massive quantities of drugs ingested in discothèques by newly liberated gay men produced the next cultural phenomenon of the disco era: rampant promiscuity and
public sex. While the dance floor was the central arena of seduction, actual sex usually took place in the nether regions of the disco: bathroom stalls, exit stairwells, and so on. In other cases the disco became a kind of “main course” in a
hedonist’s menu for a night out."
Famous 1970s discotheques included "...cocaine-filled
celeb hangouts such as
Manhattan's
Studio 54 ", which was operated by
Steve Rubell and
Ian Schrager. Studio 54 was notorious for the hedonism that went on within; the balconies were known for sexual encounters, and drug use was rampant. Its dance floor was decorated with an image of the "Man in the Moon" that included an animated cocaine spoon. Other famous discothèques included the
Loft, the
Paradise Garage, and
Aux Puces, one of the first gay disco bars.
2000s
Today the term discothèque is now considered dated in the United States, having largely been replaced with
nightclub since the mid-1980s, though the term is still used frequently in many other parts of the world. The word "
disco" was originally an abbreviation of
discothèque, a French word for a club where recorded, rather than live, music was played.
In Britain, a 'disco' is usually now a one-off night of dancing and music organised by a non-professional (or semi-professional) DJ at an institution such as a school or workplace.
See also
