Drag queens mugging. © Peter Hujar
In 1973, Vince Aletti was living in a two-room apartment in New York’s East Village that cost just $125 a month – a fee he could afford as a freelance music journalist for magazines like Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy. Aletti’s beat was covering black pop music like R&B, Motown, and Philly International. Then one night, a friend took him to The Loft, the private party hosted by DJ David Mancuso, where he got his first taste of disco – before the genre even had a name.
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Aletti became the first person to write about the emerging disco scene, chronicling its rise from the underground to the top of the charts, introducing Black and Latinx gay culture to the world. In his weekly column for Record World magazine, Aletti showcased the latest breaking records, top ten playlists from DJs like Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons, and Nicky Siano, scoops and reviews.
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Aletti’s impressive archive is available to the public once more in The Disco Files 1973–78: New York’s Underground, Week by Week (D.A.P.). Here, Aletti shares some memories of those disco nights so long ago.
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The men’s room at G.G. Barnums. © Toby Old
Refreshments at New York. © Toby Old