DJ Bus Station John is a Man on a Mission: To rescue from musical oblivion late 70's/early 80's bathhouse-era dance classics & curiosities -- the soundtrack to what he calls the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS "Golden Age of Gay." An incorrigible vinyl addict with a passion for such early dance genres as hi-NRG, eurodisco, electrofunk, new/no-wave and "lost" disco, Bus Station John aims to take older gay men on a trip down memory lane while inspiring a new generation of queer ears, specializing in sounds from San Francisco's famed cha-cha palace Trocadero Transfer, Manhattan's legendary Paradise Garage, and beyond. Named one of "SF's Ten Hottest Underground DJ's" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, BSJ has spun for such queer luminaries as Pierre et Gilles and Bruce La Bruce, as well members of Franz Ferdinand, The Rapture, Junior Senior and Dirty Sanchez (none of whose music he's actually familiar with, as he readily admits, "I kind of stopped paying attention around 1985.") Bus Station John has also shared the bill with numerous local performers of varying notoriety, including Bambi Lake, Malcolm Hamilton, The Soft Pink Truth, DJ Jefrodisiac, Pippi Lovestalking, and The Hott Boxxx Girls featuring "Bobby." Prematurely addled by years of Jäger/vodka/tequila consumption (usually not all at once), he can't recall most of the many venues he's played since he first hit the decks back in 2000, only that "Yerba Buena Center for the Arts was the biggest and The Men's Room was the smallest."
Where Can You Find Him?
BSJ currently DJs & promotes three regular club nights, including the popular alternaqueer "Tubesteak Connection" (Thursdays @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge), featuring flyers & visuals which incorporate a mixture of vintage gay erotica & old Hollywood camp in homage to such retro-homo icons as Divine, Grace Jones, Candy Darling, Amanda Lear, Peter Berlin, Joan Crawford, & Mae-West-circa-'78; "The ROD" (2nd Fridays @ Deco Lounge), a sleazy night of "heavy cruising & hard cocktails," complete with after-hours action and a rowdy-'n-ribald Wet Jockstrap Contest as the evening's centerpiece; and his latest creation, "Double Dutch Disco" (every last Sunday @ The Transfer), an old-school disco-funk marathon celebrating the sweet, soulful sound of sound of black New York.
"One thing I really love about doing these parties -- besides turning
people on to the music -- is the diversity of the queers that show up.
It's a great, open-minded, light-hearted, fun-loving, attitude-free,
very 'old San Francisco' mix of cockgobblers from every walk of
life -- old queens, young stuff, hippies, hipsters, trade -- with every
local sub-lebrity you can imagine popping by, as well as some of our
most stepped-upon Tenderloin trannies, whose presence, by the way, is
equally valued." Bus Station John steadfastly avoids including played-out Top-40
disco in his sets ("I'm more interested in the Bottom-60"), so new
recruits are advised to expect the unexpected. "There are literally
hundreds of amazing songs -- both beautiful and bizarre, born from the
creative imaginations of some very talented people -- many of which never
reached the charts. They're just waiting to be brought back to life." |
