A guest Listening Post by SamuraiFrog, revolving around Meco Monardo, the guy who disco-ized movie scores.
Meco – Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk – 1977 (Buy)
Meco’s career in theme disco starts with his most famous work, a disco take on John Williams’ theme from Star Wars. As an album, it makes a great single.
There are only two tracks on the album (and it really does sound better on vinyl), the first of which is a priceless relic of the much-maligned disco era. People are pretty familiar with the three and a half minute single version, but the “album” version of “Star Wars” runs nearly 16 minutes long, but it doesn’t waste any of that time on repetition. Meco basically takes you through the entire story of the movie, starting with the Main Title, going through instantly recognizable themes from the score, and ending with that iconic Throne Room music. But it’s not just a medley; he’s linked all the pieces dramatically and creatively, with a lot of interesting, enjoyable instrumentation and pretty well-replicated sound effects (to evoke laser blasts, R2-D2, lightsabers, etc.)
Apparently, Meco was impressed with the movie when it came out (he claims to have seen it 5 times in the first two days), but thought the score wasn’t commercial. What was commercial was setting the themes to a dance beat and cashing in on the disco craze. And why not, eh? The resulting music is pretty powerful. And surprisingly more funk than disco, I think.
Seriously, you need to hear the main Force theme played on electric guitars.
The B-side of the album is “Other Galactic Funk,” which is five high school kids Meco spotted in Central Park playing drums. It made me lose the will to live. What starts off as funk just becomes an endless series of drum exercises with occasional horn intrusions, and it insists on going on for 12 and a half minutes. You can live a longer, happier life if you never listen to it; it’s obviously just filler for the B-side. All of the creative work went to the real treasure.
The CD comes with a couple of extra tracks: a 7″ version of the single (the radio version, which I’ve decided is just too darn short), and a 12″ version that is indistinguishable from the “album” version.
Grade C+ (A- if you never, ever flip the record over)
A Side: “Star Wars”
BlindSide: none
DownSide: “Other Galactic Funk.” Just skip it.
I am SO pleased by this. I hope there are others that are reading.
I HAD this album. Who didn't? If it was Star Wars and it was 1978, we had it.
What I remember most about side 2 was that the songs were called:
Other.
Galactic.
&
Funk.
Am I mistaken? But i never, ever, ever listened to the other side. If it wasn't Star Wars I wasn't interested.
It should be noted that, even as a 13 year old I knew enough to be embarrassed that I owned this.
But I had no idea there were more.
Thank, Aaron!
I Still own the original Single and just ordered the CD from oldies.com. Hey, It's A nostalgia thing.
Aw come on, man, "Other Galactic Funk" was the JAM back in the day, probably THE most underrated disco AND funk classic out there. It was tunes like this and Ralph McDonald's Calypso Breakdown that showed that disco was more than just boom-ss-boom-ss-boom-ss.