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| With the release of the movie "Saturday Night Fever" and the soundtrack album of the same name featuring the Bee Gees in 1978, Discomania was sweeping across the nation. And in the Midwest, nearly every nightclub, bar, and bowling alley changed musical formats, quit using live entertainment, and spent millions of dollars remodeling every beer hall, hotel lounge, and VFW in the Twin Cities into a "Disco" with an overabundance of mirror balls, rain lights, fog, and elaborate D.J. booths and sound systems, featuring multicolored flashing dance floors complete with strobe lights and smoke effects, all attempting to cash in on a fad that would ultimately only last about a year and a half. In the meantime, most local bands became unemployable and there were no places to work, unless you could replicate the sounds of Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, and Deney Terrio. |
1978 - 1980
Gangbusters
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Many of the venues in which Spangle and other top Twin Cities groups had done so well quickly abandoned live entertainment and changed to the discotheque format, including Mr. Nibs/Duffy's, Pudges, the Chain Link, and the Maplewood, Burnsville, and Hopkins Bowls. Only one band in the Midwest was ideally suited for the disco onslaught - and they also had an open-ended contract with Phil Eder at the popular Leaning Post and the Iron Horse nightclubs.
For the next couple of years, "Gangbusters" brought disco music to the masses, with Kent Appeldoorn (as the Bee Gees) on guitar, Claire Weiland (as Donna Summer) on lead vocals, Dallas Janes (as Rod "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Stewart) on drums, Lenny Litchie (as the Village People) on bass, Larry Ankrum (as Don Kirshner) on keys and sax, and Bob Burtis (as Deney Terrio) on keyboards and trumpet.
Their original all disco show "Sunday Morning Fever (Where Did the Disco?)" featured a tribute to Donna Summer, a medley of the greatest hits from the Bee Gees including their early music from the sixties, the best (and worst) of the Village People, and a "Dance Fever" style disco dance competition. This show is believed to be the only live entertainment ever performed at the legendary "Oz Nightclub" discotheque in downtown St. Paul. Gangbusters survived and thrived during the disco years by playing disco music better than any other band in town.
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Gangbusters took nightclub entertainment to the next level, featuring several one set shows highlighting contemporary pop rock, cutting-edge punk rock, the Blues Brothers, and their biggest production of all-
"Sunday Morning Fever (Where Did the Disco?)"
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1980
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