Reminiscing

I am so fed up with the public's bad taste. TV is a cross between American Idol, a half naked Survivor, and Lou Throbs Tonight. Please. Those giant muscles look like Arnold on meth. Even worse, Dancing With The Stars is too mechanical and a total disappointment for anyone who's seen the real thing.

I should know. I was there. The seventies disco scene made choreographed moves look like a barn dance for androids. Of course I'm talking about the Trocadero Transfer, the hottest gay disco this side of anywhere. And I saw them all: The City, Mine Shaft, End Up, Ibeam, Stud, Saint, Zenon, and Paradise Garage. (Studio was a tad before my time, although I heard it was tired. And the LA scene is disqualified for having inflicted Saturday Night Fever upon us.)

This was all before the anti disco backlash, which was really homophobia in disguise. It did serious damage and the Universe has never recovered. The circuit scene is a pale comparison, a hard drug pit with hopeless music, mindless techno pop, and spastic air humping.

Disco was so fine. The best places were off the beaten track. And the music never got the credit it deserved. It was beautifully written and performed by the best writers and musicians in the world, a combination of African rhythms, computer syncopation, and sex moaning. Every note was polished to a blinding brilliance by Hollywood technicians with diapers soaked in tarnoff. What could be better?

The dancing, as previously mentioned, made Hollywood look like holly wouldn't. It was tribal, for one thing. And it was originally ours, until John Travolta put his claws all over it. White polyester. Please. The real uniform was jeans and a T-shirt, which usually came off sometime after midnight. Before that, before the clone movement that is, there was a well dressed contingent. But they were seriously dressed, with silk jackets and ties, collarless shirts, decco slacks, you name it. You couldn't find a thread of polyester to save your life. And no one was waving his arms around like Richard Simons on meth. Travolta was animatronic. How he ever got a reputation for dancing is beyond my comprehension. Gay dance was more subdued, and beat driven, and sexy, and graceful, and spontaneous, and real.

The top of the scene was Trocadero, of course. It started with the best DJ ever: Bobby Viteritti. Other people have written enough about him. Let me just say that he was a great artist, a perfect genius of the craft. While others mixed the bass line at the ends of songs like a chore, Viteritti was everywhere, at the start, middle, end, on the bass or acoustic line, up, down, back and forth, and always seamless. And his taste in music. Forget about it. There's no accounting for taste. But his was perfect. He had three other skills, technical skills that could be copied, so I won't say what they were.

I'm not sure if the fan dancers were paid by the club, or if they were fan fanatics who spent hours practicing every day. But they added a ton. They whooshed the air and cooled things down. Think of them as air conditioners made of meat. They recreated the San Francisco winds, non stop and ever changing. And they brought a visual dimension that was hard to beat: weaving, waving, flashing, and circling for hours.

I was told at the time that people were doing drugs, and the favorite was MDA. They said it was a strong type of speed to help them stay up all night. Lately someone told me it was really Ecstasy. Who knew? But no one ODed in those days. The music was too precious to miss by being wasted.

The sound system was top shelf. Big deal. The mirror ball cluster was more distinctive. It gave the space a personality. You knew no one else had it. And if they got it, it would be a unoriginal and tired.

Then there were the live shows. I saw Taka Boom, Chaka Kan's sister. She was great. I also saw Grace Jones in NY, maybe at Paradise Garage, maybe at the place on the Hudson. Who can remember. But she was phenom. Having the top artists do shows in our humble dance clubs made us feel special and vulnerable and loved, a feeling we still don't get from the bitch queen public.

The Troc also started the red, white, and black parties long before the circuit scene. 'Nuff said.

For me, though, it was all about the dance. Not that I was any good. But I hung out with people seriously into the movement. They're mostly gone now, and the best eye candy ever has gone with them. The big dance was The Rock, which was inspired from the earthquakes. It started with a simple foot tap, but progressed into a million moves, perfectly timed to the music, but always changing and always surprising. It was by far the coolest dance before or since. There's no describing the perfect hamony of it.

The scene is gone now. But wonder of wonders, it's on its way back. I'll say no more, lest Hollywood dump another imitation on us, this time starring Vin Deisel as a Brooklyn wrestler who stumbles around the dance floor like Arnold on Ecstasy.