Disco Karaoke for Square Dance calling!
September 10, 2013 11:19 AM
I'm trying to learn square dance calling. Friend is doing a disco themed fundraiser, and would like me to call a demo square. I need a ~130BPM singable without a super-trained voice karaoke track that's disco, but not over-played.
My original hope was to find a more modern song that sounded disco to call to, something that everyone had heard but took a moment associate with wide collars and sequins. First things that came to mind were Scissor Sisters' "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" and Daft Punk's "Get Lucky", but both of those are a little bit slow (~108BPM), and I don't have the voice to carry off Scissor Sisters (and instrumentally they're actually pretty mundane).
The crowd will be mixed with a lot of older lesbians, some gay guys, they are most amused when I, presenting as a fairly normal het guy, tweak the "token straight guy" image. Gay or gender bending would be appreciated, but let's not get tacky. Singing something originally done by a female vocalist about boyfriends would be awesome, me doing Saturday Night Band's "Touch Me Baby, On My Hot Spot" is a little on-the-[cough]-nose.
Paul Van Dyk is a little too much modern electronica, much of the stuff I can come up with that's actually from the '70s or early '80s is either going to get played otherwise (greatest hits of the Village People, ABBA, Bee Gees) or are long mostly instrumental rambles (much of Saturday Night Band).
So: Something for which I can find a good karaoke track that says "that's disco!" and vaguely familiar, but not "the easy listening cover of that is so overplayed at Whole Foods", gender bending, slightly suggestive, gay references awesome, with lots of energy.
My original hope was to find a more modern song that sounded disco to call to, something that everyone had heard but took a moment associate with wide collars and sequins. First things that came to mind were Scissor Sisters' "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" and Daft Punk's "Get Lucky", but both of those are a little bit slow (~108BPM), and I don't have the voice to carry off Scissor Sisters (and instrumentally they're actually pretty mundane).
The crowd will be mixed with a lot of older lesbians, some gay guys, they are most amused when I, presenting as a fairly normal het guy, tweak the "token straight guy" image. Gay or gender bending would be appreciated, but let's not get tacky. Singing something originally done by a female vocalist about boyfriends would be awesome, me doing Saturday Night Band's "Touch Me Baby, On My Hot Spot" is a little on-the-[cough]-nose.
Paul Van Dyk is a little too much modern electronica, much of the stuff I can come up with that's actually from the '70s or early '80s is either going to get played otherwise (greatest hits of the Village People, ABBA, Bee Gees) or are long mostly instrumental rambles (much of Saturday Night Band).
So: Something for which I can find a good karaoke track that says "that's disco!" and vaguely familiar, but not "the easy listening cover of that is so overplayed at Whole Foods", gender bending, slightly suggestive, gay references awesome, with lots of energy.
Cotton Eye Joe? Also not exactly disco... (lyrics)
posted by juliplease at 11:49 AM on September 10, 2013
posted by juliplease at 11:49 AM on September 10, 2013
I've square danced to the disco version of the Star Wars theme.
posted by nonane at 12:05 PM on September 10, 2013
posted by nonane at 12:05 PM on September 10, 2013
So you want a karaoke version because it has no vocals to clash with your calling (squaredance newb here)?
I was going to say to browse youtube for "disco edits" and find a good one of a known track, but going through my favorites it's really hard to find something without vocals!
Same with the loopy French filter house - I thought for sure I had some winners, but then 2/3 through the track a little vocal loop gets mixed in.
I can think of a few things:
Ian Pooley's 'Higgeldy Piggeldy!' takes First Choice's well known 'Love Thang' and just devastates the loop.
Move D's 'Theo' is a good disco/funk house track with a chunky bassline and sonically would stay out of the way (though there is a little vocal 'heeyyyy' back in there)
The Detroit Experiment's 'Think Twice' is a cover of the Donald Byrd tune minus the vocals and grooves along nicely.
Herb Alpert's 'Rise' was one of my first thoughts for a instrumental disco track, but especially on the LP version there's a lot of trumpet noodling, so I'd suggest an edit that gets you to the good part.
And last, since someone said Star Wars, this crazy cover is pretty funny, though it's clocking around 140bpm.
posted by drwelby at 8:32 PM on September 10, 2013
I was going to say to browse youtube for "disco edits" and find a good one of a known track, but going through my favorites it's really hard to find something without vocals!
Same with the loopy French filter house - I thought for sure I had some winners, but then 2/3 through the track a little vocal loop gets mixed in.
I can think of a few things:
Ian Pooley's 'Higgeldy Piggeldy!' takes First Choice's well known 'Love Thang' and just devastates the loop.
Move D's 'Theo' is a good disco/funk house track with a chunky bassline and sonically would stay out of the way (though there is a little vocal 'heeyyyy' back in there)
The Detroit Experiment's 'Think Twice' is a cover of the Donald Byrd tune minus the vocals and grooves along nicely.
Herb Alpert's 'Rise' was one of my first thoughts for a instrumental disco track, but especially on the LP version there's a lot of trumpet noodling, so I'd suggest an edit that gets you to the good part.
And last, since someone said Star Wars, this crazy cover is pretty funny, though it's clocking around 140bpm.
posted by drwelby at 8:32 PM on September 10, 2013
Square dance calls come in two types: "Patter calls", which are largely about teaching new calls or new combinations of calls and for which I'd want an instrumental only track, but this one will be a "singing call", in which I'll be mixing calls with singing the lead vocal part. Which is part of why I'm looking for something with relatively simple vocals: I'm neither Freddy Mercury nor Jake Shears.
But I'm probably also up to something more than Sylvester's "Do You Wanna Funk".
So I'm filing away drwelby's suggestions for when I'm up to teaching with patter calls.
I went through Ask Mefi: Disco Inferno yesterday and found a couple of things. For the patter call music there's Saturday Night Band's "Come on Dance, Dance" and Bobby O's "How To Pick Up Girls" might work for patter calls. Hues Corporation's "Rock The Boat" is the closest I've come yet to something that hits the singing calls.
Still digging, though. Thanks for the suggestions thus far!
posted by straw at 8:33 AM on September 11, 2013
But I'm probably also up to something more than Sylvester's "Do You Wanna Funk".
So I'm filing away drwelby's suggestions for when I'm up to teaching with patter calls.
I went through Ask Mefi: Disco Inferno yesterday and found a couple of things. For the patter call music there's Saturday Night Band's "Come on Dance, Dance" and Bobby O's "How To Pick Up Girls" might work for patter calls. Hues Corporation's "Rock The Boat" is the closest I've come yet to something that hits the singing calls.
Still digging, though. Thanks for the suggestions thus far!
posted by straw at 8:33 AM on September 11, 2013
Ahh, I get it. Easy to sing but outside of top-50 wedding disco.
Grace Jone's 'Pull Up To The Bumper" would be easy to sing.
Same thing with Loose Joints' 'Is It All Over My Face'
posted by drwelby at 9:32 AM on September 11, 2013
Grace Jone's 'Pull Up To The Bumper" would be easy to sing.
Same thing with Loose Joints' 'Is It All Over My Face'
posted by drwelby at 9:32 AM on September 11, 2013
So after all sorts of meandering through back catalogs and trying to figure out how I could reasonably get karaoke lyrics along with the karaoke MP3, I eventually broke down and bought a set of Disco karaoke CDs to test out what would and wouldn't play on my various devices, and from that the best candidate was Anita Ward's Ring My Bell.
Undeniably disco, a little cheesey, and, surprisingly the hardest part to fulfill, fast enough tempo to work for square dancing.
Thanks, y'all! I really liked Pull Up To The Bumper, but I think this works pretty well.
posted by straw at 8:33 AM on October 11, 2013
Undeniably disco, a little cheesey, and, surprisingly the hardest part to fulfill, fast enough tempo to work for square dancing.
Thanks, y'all! I really liked Pull Up To The Bumper, but I think this works pretty well.
posted by straw at 8:33 AM on October 11, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by 4ster at 11:38 AM on September 10, 2013