"52 pages of unbelievably well-researched information that manages to provide the disco-loving reader with a comprehensive history and analysis of the movement without harshing his (or her) mellow."
— Printed Matter NYC, 2009
Visit the Dsico website or download PDF or go back to overview. Best before – A Dsico Fanzine is a project by Leo Merz, Konrad Kuhn, Manuel Buerger and myself, presented by Upitup Records and Shake Your Tree. Above: influential cities in the history of disco, New York, Chicago, San Francisco.
Chief Editor, 2008
Details:
Best before – A Dsico Fanzine is both: a critical examination but also a playful homage to disco music and culture.
In late 2008 our network of designers, illustrators, musicians, and writers joined forces to collect everything a true "dsico" fanzine needs: instructions for building your own mirror ball (from old CDs), insights and anecdotes to dsico history, all sorts of statistics, quotes and lyrics, a dictionary of terms and expressions, cartoons and drawings, a disco boardgame, a fold-out poster, playing cards, a map of New York city indicating significant disco spots, a list of our top 69 favorite disco tracks, and of course lots of shiny balls.
The zine was screenprinted by hand and accompanied by a disco-map inlay. It was limited to 250 copies and shipped in a polypropylene comic bag. It is now sold out but can be downloaded as a PDF from the Upitup website.
As chief editor I worked closely together with Manuel Buerger who was responsible for the art direction and who delivered the unmistakeable DIY fanzine look. He also did a lot of research for the visualization for his disco statistics and had endless great ideas (such as his playing cards).
The title Best before refers to the short-lived trends of pop culture and the expiration date of disco music which has been passed and extended numerous times now (from the disco sucks movement to revivals in 90s club music to the retro lifestyle of the past couple of years).
Among contributing guests were Bureau Baraque, Daniel von Bernstorff, Seecoy, Florian Bayer, Christian Schiller, Martin Gossner, and Sebastian Haslauer.
We've also setup a website featuring DJ mixes (by SoulPhiction aka Jackmate, Jonas Natterer, and more) a YouTube playlist of muppet disco videos, and links to our top 69 disco tracks. I took the results of Manuel's disco statistics and created a track with all the average values and characteristics (tempo, key/tonality, instrumentation, most common words in lyrics, etc.) which can also be found on the Dsico website. "Scroll down and fly through the futuristic past of dance music!"