Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1979)
Weeknight specials help clubs survive Area disco business beginning to lag By LOUIE ARTHUR Battalion Staff Une-two, one-two, one-two.... The dancers’ feet, the pulsating lights, even the movements of the bartenders seem synchronized to the endlessly pounding beat. The entire place lives and breathes a continuing rhythm — you could al most believe the building itself sways in time. The mirrored walls and shining chrome accents catch the lights and reflect them on the dance floor, the bar, the ceiling, everywhere — filling the room with a visual rhythm as well. This is the soul, the spirit of disco. People of all ages (a suprising number of them middle-aged) come out to play in this world of make-believe, where they can leave their unremarkable lives for a few hours. They dress in expensive, well- made clothes that are as dramatic as the disco’s atmosphere. The style of dress is closely copied from the clothes worn by the “beautiful people” in the Hollywood-New York-Paris discotheques — places they’ve seen only in magazines, on television and in the movies. “A guy could be a grocery clerk during the week. On the weekend he can put on a vest and patent leather shoes and be somebody to tally different,” a local disco man ager said. “People come in and buy one drink and then suck on ice cubes the rest of the night just to be at the ‘in’ place.” Residents of Bryan and College Station are not immune to the disco-mania that has swept the country since the release of “Saturday Night Fever”, but the at traction is not as great today as it was in the past. ‘There are two reasons why people go to discos,” Sports Club manager Billy Howard said. “They want to be seen, to show off in front of their friends and their peers. The second reason is the dancing. “Rock and roll is not that easy to dance to,” he explained. “Disco brought back ‘touch-dancing’. These people don’t listen to disco music at home. Their record collec tions look like everyone else’s. They just like to dance, and disco is easy to dance to.” Gary Seaback, manager of Studio 2818, agreed that dancing is the main attraction of the discos. “The music just grabs you,” Seaback said. “Dancing these days...you can do anything you Skate business really rolling United Press International NEW YORK — The roller skating craze among young people in America which spawned the skateboard industry now is taking off - on its own. Business is so good that both manufacturers and retailers of skates and boots are having trouble meeting demand, said George Pickard of the Roller-Skating Rink Operators Association in Lincoln, Neb. Pickard discounted some reports that sales of quality skates are running at 300,000 pairs a month. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, “but I’m sure it’s upwards of 150,000. Most of the manufacturers are not public companies and don’t publish their sales and output figures.” But Donald Tattenbaum of the Herman Sporting goods storey; chain owned by W. R. Grace & Co. said Herman's retail roller skate sales are likely to be up around 440 percent for all of this year. They were up 379 percent in the first half. Ed Jamos, vice president of Hyde Athletic Footwear, which makes skateboot sets, said “sales are going crazy, we have been backordering skates for the past four months with no slowdown in sight.” People, young and old, are seen skating everywhere — on the streets, in parks and indoor rinks. Many younger people skate to disco music. The modern roller skate is a far cry though from the metal hardware skates kids used to clamp and strap on ordinary street shoes, ft is bolted or riveted to a high grade nylon or leather shoe and the skate has the wide polyurethane wheels of the skate board. “Actually, the skate manufacturers adopted these plastic wheels before the skateboard came along," Pickard said. Tattenbaum said stock model skates with boots self for any where from $16 to $75 a pair but some aficianados go in for custom-built jobs costing several hundred dollars, “with hand painted designs on the boots.” Su p e rSoda&3^WH»tr ) SWEDEN'S CULPEPPER PLAZA Value $4.00 Open 1130 Mon.-Sat. Noon on Sunday Closed 10:30 . Mon.-Thurs. T 11 pm. Fri. & Sat. 693-6948 . l didn’t like disco at all at ,ir st intimidated by most ot me doing these dance 3 were a lot of r ® a| y„ en so I kept going back .. os though several new d opened in the past few y > is haven’t been so rosy financially lately, usiness is down 40 percent loct year,” Howard said. 'Sis starting to level o«. rday Night Fever made busi qo crazy; there was a big a push on discos. Now, even jiscos in Houston are having 3 trouble. Business has been n for them in the last two s.” )mpetition and money seem to he two main reasons local ; are having trouble. College ants are generally on a limited 3et and don’t have a lot of ey to spend on entertainment, os are more expensive than popular local beer joints. Most i cover charges and higher- priced mi* ed *' n a k r e spending the P “The peep* s p abac l< said. money elee«here u . chcompetl ,on “There is ,f ° uq h disco-ers to f iH There K re ex?ept on weekends. the c ClU h S ack sa^d disco-goers do SeabacK v Since he spend rfed 0t his°dub to a disco, he converted h g money in . has found tha v b t ] six t j me s the take ^rused tom^eoff the samenumber of people as a regu- ' ar Although this statement would make the disco business seem out- rageously profitable, this is not the case. “Disco people dont go out as much,” Howard said. “The people that would go to the (Dixie) Chicken four times a week only go to the disco once a week.” Howard said when he used to work for a company that owned and operated 12-15 nightclubs, he discovered that people are starting to build bigger, more luxurious clubs. areovecTe^T^r 0 $750000°’ ab ° Ut ^“.oVto Mn 50,0 *? 0 was s P ent to build a club from$1 h 25miir Pen , di 1 9 an y where SLok . mil . l| on to $3 million.” Seaback said although the trend Hou<?tn er C ' tieS like Da,las and Houston was towards fanciei clubs, the people in Bryan-College Station don’t like it. y I hate to say it, but everybody’s saymg disco is going down’ and il is, he said. Despite continued popularity ir big cities, the fate of the disco ir this area is a little uncertain. Live antertainment, country anc western nights, contests, disc joc keys all are gimmicks currents used by local discos in an attemp to pull in the somewhat reluctan college crowd during the week. If these tactics are successful discos will continue to survive anc prosper in this area. If they fail, the clubs will have to make enougf money on their weekend crowds tc pull them through. BOOKSELLER “Selling good books and atmosphere” STUDENT/FACULTY DISCOUNT (excluding short discount books) Erratic Sunday ffew York Times NO TEXTBOOKS “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” Reg. $18.50 On Sale for $13.00. OPEN 10-6 MON.-SAT. Jim King - Proprietor Woodstone Commerce Center (Hwy. 30) 1-5 SUNDAYS