10 venues where genres were invented

Through the 70s, disco music ruled the clubs of New York, and The Gallery resident Nicky Siano emerged as king of the scene. During one of his sets in the club in the summer of 1977, Mark Paul Simon, head of promotion at Casablanca Records, arrived at the booth and handed him an unreleased slab of wax. Nicky had a listen through his headphones, liked what he heard, and mixed the record into his set. That record was Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s ‘I Feel Love’, and the club erupted. “Rarely a crowd dances to a record so enthusiastically on the first listen. The room exploded and I experienced a sound that would change club songs forever,” remembers Siano, who had Simon thrown out of the club when he refused to let him keep the acetate. The record marked the birth of a new style of uptempo disco, defined by staccato synth lines and hi-hats, that became known as Hi-NRG.

Mar 2, 2023 - 02:12 Updated: Mar 2, 2023 - 02:14

Through the 70s, disco music ruled the clubs of New York, and The Gallery resident Nicky Siano emerged as king of the scene. During one of his sets in the club in the summer of 1977, Mark Paul Simon, head of promotion at Casablanca Records, arrived at the booth and handed him an unreleased slab of wax. Nicky had a listen through his headphones, liked what he heard, and mixed the record into his set. That record was Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder’s ‘I Feel Love’, and the club erupted. “Rarely a crowd dances to a record so enthusiastically on the first listen. The room exploded and I experienced a sound that would change club songs forever,” remembers Siano, who had Simon thrown out of the club when he refused to let him keep the acetate. The record marked the birth of a new style of uptempo disco, defined by staccato synth lines and hi-hats, that became known as Hi-NRG.