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The late seventies. What are our collective, semisubconscious, memories of that post-hippy/utopian, pre punk/dystopian, pivotal era? And what would Thomas More have thought of us? Would he have been in mourning for the death of hippy hope? Would he be celebrating the birth of punk pragmatism? In 1977, would he have sunk into a funk, or would he have donned a white suit and learned how to dance?

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Boom Boom Boom Boom! Conn tried to go to discos. He really tried. The furthest he got was at the Royal Oak Lodge, a flat stone and wooden beam motel-resort beside the highway to the ferry. He parked at the top end of the rain-black parking lot, and followed the quaking 4/4 beat towards the Utopia Disco basement dance club. There was something in this mechanical beat that for him was so purely heartless, so precise, unvarying, inhuman and relentless, it seemed to physically push him in the opposite direction. But he kept walking, he wanted to at least try to spend time where the people were. Maybe he could finally learn to dance, to that music.

He opened the club door and was engulfed in sound. And the beat just got louder as he descended the ramped hallway through red and yellow pulsing lights. He rounded the corner by the edge of the dance floor as the strobe came on – he was blinded so he froze – he could just make out people dancing in the room, it was lit with a hundred flashbulbs. He noticed his glowing runners and the lint on his sweater. The strobe stopped and he could see better, the Hawaiian bar, revolving Christmas lights, brown polyester clothes and high stepping platform shoes on the lit-up dance floor. He stood there for a couple of minutes, then turned and left. Boom Boom Boom Boom!

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Utopia Disco is part of U BEND.

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Utopia Hall of Fame

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Photobooklet  .pdf, 7.6 Mb, image series, text, Utopian Hall of Fame members index