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