On and On (FEAR KEEPS ON) Deca Dance Italo Disco Holy Grail

DecaDance was my favorite record store in Downtown N.Y.C.  It was small but Dennis always catered to my needs.  He always made me feel special and listened to.  And I loved that walk down Christopher Street.

But did he name his store after one of my favorite Italo Disco Songs of all time?  I never had a chance to ask him that.  Maybe because my obsession with Italo Disco hadn't even started yet.

You see I spent a lot of time back and forth to Italy in the 80's and I got to dance to a lot of great Italo Disco and I heard other great Italo on the radio, on mix shows and even on the RAI in live performances.

But when I was in Europe I wasn't collecting vinyl.  I sort of would put that hobby on hold.  It just didn't make sense carrying records around while I was dragging all that luggage and staying in super cheap places just to make my money hold out.  And you really could back then, Ibiza, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Vienna, etc. all on a couple hundred dollars and a dream.

I mean granted I do remember buying I want You by Gary Low at El Corte Ingles in Barcelona but that song was under my skin.  It wasn't just coming at me at 4 AM on some dance floor but it had permeated my whole being.
DON'T FEAR MY DOWNLOAD

So in the past 20 years through other friends who were actually spinning in those years before I started to in the early 90's I have been introduced to so much incredible music that I regularly lose my mind over some song or another.

And well On and On (Fear Keeps On) is simply on of those tunes.  To me it's full-on Italo Disco perfection.  It has it all.  It isn't so super spacey but the lyrics might as well be out of 1984 (the book).  That delivery which is so much more new wave then disco, that instrumentation that is as if Joy Division were meant to be a dance band.  All put together to me it's both ominous and infectious and a pure Italo Disco joy.  1983 as I've mentioned before in other posts is the peak of this sound.  One after another of the best all time Italo Disco records came out that year.  Which also happened to coincide with the longest period of time in the 80's that I spent out dancing in the Roman clubs.  So the music and the sound and the feeling are my everything even now.

I'd have to assume that the period means a lot to the guys of Italo Connection because their interpretation of On and On is both futuristic and respectful at the same time.

Bobby O is the man! Pet Shop Boys, Divine, The Flirts, Waterfront Home, Oh Romeo and more

What can be said about Bobby Orlando, (Robert Phillip Orlando), the king of Hi NRG.  I've heard he was a homophobe who clearly made a lot of his money from the gay scene.  I've heard he was idolized by the Pet Shop Boys and are the reason why they decided to make that kind of music (and of course collaborated with him until they got a better offer).  I've heard many things but don't really know much factually.  make it on my own free enterprise

He certainly had a prolific career and some of his stuff is a lot better then others.  The sound is clearly repetitive.  But it was a winning sound and he just kept repeating it over and over in different ways.  The disco era was over but people still really wanted to dance, so why not?  Especially in Europe where the dance music never really stopped charting after the disco era.
Divine who is truly one of my idols worked with Bobby Orlando for a lot of his earlier releases.  Some of which even became pop hits in Europe.  A fate that eluded him in his American homeland. SOME DIVINE

The 1983 release Waterfront Home Take a Chance on Me was the perfect straddling of italo disco and hi nrg.  This is one of the acts that Bobby was actually in himself along with Tony Caso and Christina Criscione.  In this zip there is a marvelous edit done by my friend the illustrious DJ Paul Goodyear.
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

 GREAT BIG BOBBY ZIP

I'm not even going to tell you what's in the zip.  I will say that it's got a great combination of things.  Some better known and some less.  But all in high quality mp3.  Bobby Orlando, the definitive sound of club music in the 80's.  White NRG club music.  WHO'S YOUR BOYFRIEND by ERIC

Bright Nothing World was a 2010 release.  Nice to see he is still embracing dance.  Question is, is anybody listening?

Aliases:

Babby, The, C. Shore, Cha Cha Garcia, John "Gumball" Gonzales,Klaus Voegel, Mein

In Groups:

1 Plus 1, Barbie The Kens, Beachfront, Beat Box Boys, The,Bobby "O" & His Banana Republic, Boyd Brothers, The, Bubba ; The Jack Attack, Charlene Davis, Claus V., College Boys, The,Condo, Darlene Down, Dressed To Kill, Fascination (3), Fem-Spies, The, Flirts, The, Focus 1, Free Enterprise, Gina Desire, Girls Have Fun, Girly, Gomez Presley, Gringo Lopez, Hippies With Haircuts,Hotline (2), House Of 'O', I-Spies, The, Ian Darby, Johnny Bankcheck, Joy Toy, Lifestyle, Lilly & the Pink, Lola (31), Malibu (2), Mandarine, MC Fritz  The P-Rockers, Miss Tammi Dee, Nancy Dean, New Breed, New York Models, The, Oh Romeo, One & Two Teenies, One-Two-Three, Patty Phillipe, Sandra Ford, Something Anything, Spooge Boy, Teen-Rock, Vision 1, Waterfront Home,Wow, Zwei Maenner