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The Disco Files 1973-78: New York's Underground, Week By Week – Vince Aletti (2009)

With reviews of every disco record worth knowing about, weekly reports from New York’s club scene, classic magazine articles and 800 contemporary club charts, this is the definitive chronicle of disco. It's the personal memoir of Vince Aletti, the very first writer to cover the emerging scene, bringing to life the clubs, the characters, and above all the music. The first book from DJhistory.com
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And Party Every Day, The Inside Story Of Casablanca - Larry Harris (2009)

Those expecting salacious stories à la Hit Men by Frederic Dannen will be disappointed (Harris challenges this version of events). Despite this, it's still an energetic story of the rise of Neil Bogart, documented by his Casablanca lieutenant (and cousin), from the last great era of the music industry. However, it would have been enhanced by a lot more Donna Summer and Gloria Scott and less Kiss.
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DJ Culture – Ulf Poschardt (1998)

I was a wanker when I was a student; this book has much the same faults: it believes everything that it’s read on the subject, adds nothing new, regurgitates it with the best pseudo-intellectual vocabulary it can lay its hands on, and expects you to admire it for being original. Anyone who references Hegel and Descartes to explain DJing is not really at the same party as everyone else.
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The Last Party: Studio 54 Disco and the Culture of the Night – Anthony Haden-Guest, 1997

Debonair Vanity Fair hack Haden-Guest details the monied world of upper-crust New York clubbing in a history that climaxes the day Bianca Jagger rode a horse into Studio 54. It's the full saga of Studio itself, populated largely by people with titles, racehorses and Truman Capote’s phone number; then Palladium, Limelight and other gossipy spots. Best picture caption: “Andy Warhol is in the rear.”
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Kenny Carpenter

Kenny Carpenter is a survivor. He’s a DJ who has gone through from every part of nightlife from doing the lights with Walter Gibbons to DJing at Studio 54 and, finally, addiction to crack cocaine and has come out the other side grinning. He’s an old-fashioned entertainer who knows to have a good time, is as dapper as they come (he does a great line in fur-trimmed coats) and can still rock a party. We love him.

 

Where did you grow up?

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