DJ PROFILE: BUS STATION JOHN
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Direct Inquiries to
EARL DAX
earldax at mac dot com
For close to a decade, San Francisco's pioneer rare-disco revivalist DJ Bus Station John has been 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 "lost disco"---including such early dance genres as hi-NRG, euro/italo disco, "boogie," and electrofunk---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 to Manhattan's legendary Paradise Garage---and beyond....
BSJ currently helms the decks at his popular Tenderloin alterna-queer night Tubesteak Connection (Thursdays @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge, now in its sixth year), featuring xeroxed flyers & vintage visuals incorporating a mixture of antique 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). Other successful nitelife endeavours have included The ROD, a sleazy night of "heavy cruising & hard cocktails," complete with a rowdy-'n-ribald Wet Jockstrap Contest as the evening's centerpiece; Double Dutch Disco, an old-school disco-funk marathon celebrating the sweet, soulful sound of early-80's black Manhattan; Manquake!, renowned for its only-in-San-Francisco mix of "trickin' chicken, tourist meat, & sexy senior citizens;" and TRASH, a Sunday-night staple (living up to its name) for over three years at The Powerhouse on Folsom Street's fabled Miracle Mile.
"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 cock-gobblers from every walk of life: elder-queens & young stuff, hip-sters & hip-pies, slumming celebrities & local sub-lebrities---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."
WARM FUZZIES FROM THE PRESS:
"[Bus Station John] single-handedly launched the current vogue of retro-underground bathhouse disco....nothing can quench the fire in his disco-driven soul."
---"BEST OF THE BAY" / SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
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"His grooves are rarer than rare...and his sound combines yellow brick road-era gay bathhouse classics & early New York downtown-scene electro with disco tracks from Pluto (or a storage space in Berlin)---and right now he's hot with three t's."
---"SF'S TEN HOTTEST UNDERGROUND DJ's" / SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
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"Focusing on the early 80's underground NYC vibe, DJ Bus Station John reaches deep into the crates to lay down the rarest of disco anthems...."
---"San Francisco's Best Weekly Parties" / METROWIZE CITY CULTURE GUIDE
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"The king of vintage beats...with an astounding collection of rare groove vinyl."
---SF PRIDE GUIDE
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"...the scene calls to mind a revolutionary and storied era of gay San Francisco."
---BEST CLUB NIGHT NOMINEE / SF WEEKLY MUSIC AWARDS
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"A night spent dancing to Bus Station John's record collection is like a voluntary flashback to a time when disco was the soundtrack to a gay cultural revolution."
---SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
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"DJ Bus Station John has created a blast from the past called The Tubesteak Connection, a scene with a 70's/80's gay bar/bathhouse vibe so authentic, people were actually cruising!"
---BAY AREA REPORTER
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"...the most oddly beautiful disco and new-wave rarities this side of time-traveling capabilities."
---SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY
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"Insta-legend DJ Bus Station John draws a devoted following to divey Tenderloin drag bar Aunt Charlie's Lounge on Thursday nights for the Tubesteak Connection. Spinning an inventive mix of "bathhouse sleaze," disco rarities and electrofunk, Mr. Bus Station attracts an alterna-gay crowd that parties like it's 1981 (with a fair share of party-goers who were likely born around the same time)."
---"BEST OF SAN FRANCISCO: BEST GAY DANCE NIGHT / 7X7 MAGAZINE
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"...give[s] alt-queers an edgier alternative to the homogenized gay goings-on in The Castro and the now disappointingly tame South of Market cruise bars."
---SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
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"...serious early dance music without any sense of self-seriousness....showing the disco dorks and the disco-devoid a perfect place to hook-up: the dancefloor."
---STYLUS MAGAZINE
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"The [current queer club renaissance] began with a man-about-town by the name of Bus Station John. In 2004, he started a Thursday-night party named (brace yourself) Tube steak Connection at Aunt Charlie's Lounge, the creaky gay dive bar at Turk and Taylor. There, the bathhouse disco is loud, the dancing feverish, and the cruising reliably hot and heavy. Bus Station John [has] inspired a new generation of old-school party promoters...."
---"Best Impresarios of Queer Nightlife" / SAN FRANCISCO MAGAZINE
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"Bus Station John takes you cruising in a retro-warp of underground dance music you may have never heard before, mining the gay sweat-&-amyl-nitrate-flavored beginnings of
electronic dance music, delivering listeners to the Crisco-coated throb-n-bob decadence of the pre-AIDS bandana-flagging, drug-taking '70s. Surprisingly, this area of expertise and focus draws a very young crowd—so I sense there's not a ton of people re-living those days as much as discovering remnants and sounds of an era of gay subculture for the first time. That's beautiful...."
---SF BAY TIMES
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BLOGS:
"[DJ Bus Station John] brings wallflowers to the dance floor...."
---BROWNDOWNCROWN
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"Top 20 Movers & Shakers in the SF Music Scene"
---WORLD FAMOUS IN SAN FRANCISCO
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"Like I died and went to the Trocadero Transfer....If there is one DJ in San Francisco that keeps it real, it's surely him...."
---CHANTILLY BASS
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