Books
My first book, "Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture,
1970-79" was published by Duke in 2004. I am currently working on two
more books: a biography of Arthur Russell and a history of American dance music culture in the 1980s. Scroll down for more.
Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79
Opening with David Mancuso's seminal "Love Saves the Day" Valentine's
party, Tim Lawrence tells the definitive story of American dance music
culture in the 1970s - from its subterranean roots in NoHo and Hell's
Kitchen to its gaudy blossoming in midtown Manhattan to its wildfire
transmission through America's suburbs and urban hotspots such as Chicago,
Boston, San Francisco
Read more »
Nota dell
“Love Saves The Day”, uscito in prima edizione nel 2003 per la Duke University Press, e’ un libro secondo noi importante, giunto a colmare una lacuna evidente nella critica musicale e piu’ in genere nella critica del costume. Infatti, sebbene non manchino i libri e le pubblicazioni sugli “anni della disco” - quasi tutti elencati nell’ampia bibliografia, la pi Read more »
[Last updated: 14.12.2005]From the back cover of Love Saves the Day
"At long last, a candid, detailed, and authoritative look back on one of dance music's most seminal moments in time. This book on the genesis of the movement in 1970s New York will delight anyone, from the researcher wanting some serious unbiased fact-checking all the way to the casual music lover curious for juicy anecdotes. It's about time!" Fran Read more »
[Last updated: 07.06.2005]Reviews of Love Saves the Day
"Tim Lawrence's disco culture tome is one of the sharpest books on dance music to date, striking a balance between you-are-there club descriptions, socioeconomic analysis, and musical critique. The U.K. author conducted over 300 interviews with early DJs like Francis Grasso, label owners like Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records, and journalists (including the Voice's Vince Aletti), for insight into the world he was not a part of, but nevertheless makes vivid." Tricia Romano, Village Voice Read more »
[Last updated: 14.06.2005]Extract from Love Saves the Day
David Mancuso was born into an unhappy family on 20 October 1944. Ten days later he was whisked away and placed into a children's home in Utica where a nun called Sister Alicia looked after him. Mancuso's memory of the period is hazy but he recalls one aspect of the orphanage with absolute clarity: Sister Alicia's party room. "It had balloons, crepe paper, a refrigerator, a piano and a record player with records lying on top," he says. Read more »
[Last updated: 07.06.2005]Swine interview with Tim Lawrence (July 2005)
Disco has been a much maligned and misunderstood musical genre, what gave you the impetus to write LSD? The initial plan was to write a book that focused on the late eighties and nineties. Then I was introduced to David Mancuso ⎯ who nobody had really heard of at the time ⎯ and he introduced me to this whole world of underground parties that I'd never heard of. Initially I was reluctant to get into the 1970s. Like so many early UK house heads, I just equated disco with cheese... Read more »
[Last updated: 04.10.2005]Keep On interview with Tim Lawrence (December 2003)
Why did you decide to write the book? Well I was going to write a book about 90s dance culture, which is what I was experiencing at the time. I'd started going out dancing in the early 90s and this was the era of the Criminal Justice Bill, a time when dance culture was being criminalized. In the process of researching that book I started to go back to New York and Chicago in the mid-1980s, which supposedly formed the roots of 90s dance culture. The name David Mancuso popped up... Read more »
[Last updated: 07.06.2005]Arthur Russell biography [forthcoming]
In the spring of 2003 I travelled to Seattle for the first time to
deliver a paper at the Experience Music Project. I had worked as a
consultant for EMP's Disco Exhibit, which has subsequently travelled to
the Lincoln Centre in New York, and was keen to seen the exhibition in
full flow, as well as attend the organisation's second conference,
which brings together journalists and academics.
Read more »
A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1980-92 [forthcoming]
Initially Love Saves the Day was going to be a history of dance music culture in the United States and Britain from the middle of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s. It didn't take me long to work that the I needed to drag my start date back by a good fifteen years: as Michael Cappello, Steve D'Acquisto, Francis Grasso, David Mancuso and others made clear, 1970 was year zero for dance culture as we know it today... Read more »
[Last updated: 07.06.2005]Arthur Russell interview (Blow Up, January 2007)
The
following interview between Daniela Cascella and Tim Lawrence was
conducted on 25 January 2007. It will appear in an article Cascella is
writing for Blow Up (Italy). Tim Lawrence's biography of Arthur Russell
for Duke University Press is due to be published in 2008.
Read more »