“DISCO INFERNO – Episode 3: I Will Survive” – by Doug Greco

When a famous jazz-rock band and a Coal Region disco owner clashed over the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown

In May 1980, one year after the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown Pennsylvania, the famous jazz-rock band Blood Sweat, and Tears released its final album, “Nuclear Blues”. Its title song, written by lead singer and anti-nuke activist David Clayton Thomas, was an angst-written ballad about the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown just over a year earlier. In that year between the meltdown and the album’s release, my dad and David Clayton-Thomas were engaged in a steel-cage grudge match over whether the band would play a concert at my dad’s discotheque “Movements” in the Eastern Pennsylvania coal town of Mt. Carmel, less than one hour from Three Mile Island. This story charts how Coal-Region ambition, celebrity activism, and an environmental crises created a David and Goliath battle at the end of the disco-age.

EPISODE 3: “THE LAST DANCE” (links to Episodes 1 and 2 are at the bottom of this post)

Contracts are sacrosanct in our country, and my dad was right to try to hold Clayton-Thomas to his word and signature.  Contracts are crisp, clear, and enforceable. 

Artistic performances, on the other hand, are something altogether different.  Good ones require that the artist inspire, or breath life into their performance.   Sometimes a band accomplishes this, and sometimes they don’t.

“Dad what’s wrong?” I asked.

I could tell he was fuming, since my dad always got silent when angry. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARt9HV9T0w8

He sat in the second row of the retractable bleachers near the entrance to the boys locker room.  I stood next to him in the narrow passageway between the bleachers and the wall.  The Mt. Carmel High School gym held 500 people on one side, and about 250 on the other. It had plenty of room for a concert stage on one end, with requisite sound and lighting. 

This was my first concert, and I found it exciting.  The darkened lights, the thrill of loud music.  But for my dad, it was a different story.

“They’re not playing their good songs.” my dad snarled, then went silent again.  

The contract dictated the band had to play, but was silent about what songs they did play. For a small town which generally just got “top 40” or syndicated songs on the radio, this was especially tough.  A few local music junkies might have relished in the B-side hits played that night.  But for most folks, hearing the band’s famous hits would have opened the doorway to this second wave of lesser known material.

On this night, however, that door was never opened.  My dad must have felt it shone badly on him.  He could deliver a band, but not the knockout punch.  They did the worst thing a famous band could do: they failed to inspire.  And he knew it was very, very intentional. 

My dad’s only recompense was the “after-party” to be held at Movements following the show. Comfortably back at the club, he could shine on his home turf as host to the local gentry, club regulars, out of town guests, and the band.  Champagne, fine cuts of Italian meat and cheese, sandwiches, and Swedish meatballs. The Infinity Mirror shone brightly, and the liquor shelves were stocked, ready to supply highballs well into the night. 

The festivities were held on the club’s upper level near the entrance, where there was one large bar which wrapped around three sides of a small interior kitchen.  My trigonometry teacher and my uncle were among the bartenders, clad in black pants and white button down shirts.  Waifish cocktail waitresses in clingy dresses served drinks around plush red couches and chairs that ran along the long lounge on the far side of the bar.  

Directly across from the bar built into the corner of the room was my dad’s office, protected with one-way mirrors, behind which he monitored operations from his comfortable perch.

While the guests were beginning to eat and get lubricated, he sat back with feet upon his desk, putting himself into a positive mindset as he waited for the band to arrive. 

When the tour bus finally pulled up, he hopped up to greet them.  But instead of Clayton-Thomas and the band, the bus spat out one lone roadie, a young dude dressed in tight faded jeans and a ringed tee-shirt.

“Uh, the guys aren’t going to be able to come in,” he nervously told my dad at the front door of Movements. “They gotta’ hit the road.”

“Are you kidding me?” barked my dad in disbelief and anger.  Though underneath, you could tell he wasn’t surprised at all.

“Yeah, but they are asking for some food.” He pulled out a crumpled list from his front pocket and cleared his throat: “Ahem…they want three sandwich trays.  A case of champagne.  Five cases of beer.  Lots of chips.  And whatever desserts you have.  They don’t care what kind.”

My dad was aghast.  In the bus sat a group of spoiled, arrogant, and literally starving artists.  Waiting in the club behind him was Mt. Carmel, in all its shapes, sizes, personalities and stations.  He took a breath to assess his options.  It wasn’t in my dad’s nature to overreact and he had to sense what fight was winnable.  He then instructed his team to deliver all the desired grog and gruel to the bus. 

If this was the band’s attitude, he didn’t want them at the party anyway.

But my dad had a parting shot of his own to deliver.  Before releasing the food, he presented the band’s grungy messenger with a handwritten bill for $2,500, about a fourth of the band’s overall take for the night. 

The roadie disappeared into the bus for an awkwardly long time, but then reemerged with the money, and no complaint. Clayton-Thomas must have been just as weary as my dad from fighting.  The food was loaded, and the band headed off to more prosperous lands.  My dad walked back into Movements, with his head held high and the visage of a hero, and proclaimed to the gathering: “Let’s drink!”  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ

CLICK HERE FOR “EPISODE 1 OF DISCO INFERNO: MT. CARMEL IN THE DISCO AGE”

CLICK HERE FOR “EPISODE 2 OF DISCO INFERNO: THE DISASTER”