How Important Were Gay Clubs To Disco Music?

[DiscoMan]

Jeez I always thought that Disco had more of it's roots in the Northeast urban experience. Sure blacks and gays were a big part of it but so to were hetero working class white kids. We all lived in the same shit neighborhoods and Disco was our response to the soooo smoooth R&B and Soul of the day.

And don't underestimate the importance of the Hustle.

[Rab]

Once again this tired topic has reared its ugly head. Now, the only way someone could even begin to be qualified to answer this question would be someone that attended both gay & straight clubs on a regular basis. Usually, there is almost always a bias against gays to begin with, so being objective is usually out the window especially if your one of these rare straight boys that loves disco that is determined to challenge this topic.

To begin with.....How can someone listen to a lot of this "gay" disco and think this music is somehow "mainstream??" If you hear "Touch Me Baby" by Ultimate for example and you don't associate this as being "gay disco", take it a step further and imagine some big straight guy, perhaps a guy from the Boston Red Sox or the New England Patriots shaking his ass off to this type of music...would you think he would look completely straight? Whe're not even talking about some average straight boy; whe're talking about some big macho hero with a lot of that he-man machismo and charisma (that we gay boys really dig by the way). The gay community back then and is still in many ways underground.

The gay clubs were where a lot of the true artistry of mixing was developed, and it was competitive; it was a place where people loved to show it off. Fashion, hairstyles and looking classy were big...and straight boys back in the 70's weren't into that. There was no Abercrombie & Fitch or grunge look. Straight boys were still not into shopping...only girls and gay guys did that. The only guys I knew that went to hairstylists were gay guys or guys that were "questioning" their sexuality--many often married...add a few guidos. Coming out of the closet is not easy, even today, the struggle many guys go through is often lifelong and the discos were the escape of choice.

I remember seeing "straight" guys that wouldn't dare enter a lot of these discos riding around the block for hours sometimes waiting for just the right guy to leave so he could mysteriously ask for directions on how to get somewhere or ask for a match, or what the time was. Usually, it was always for directions because an explanation would take longer.

Gay clubs were a place where people could go, and just "let go". Why do you see girls dance with each other? Because the majority of straight boys don't dance...unless, maybe...maybe its to Jethro Tull, or the Who and they were stoned.

[DiscoMan]

I disagree. The clubs I went to were full of straight guys who had a sense of style and class, though many of 'em couldn't dance for shit, but then again many could. And this all right down the road from you Rab.

[QUINNY]

Gawd!!! I must have played to closet gays for all those years. :roll:

Are all you Gay guys honestly trying to say that Disco music wouldn't have happened without gay discos, or that it wouldn't have been as much of a movement? I can understand why you'd like to think that gay discos had such a huge effect on Disco (it's called megalomania), but logic stops me from actually believing it. Proof of the pudding being that much of the music so loved and hijacked as exclusively Gay music by the majority of the Gay posters on this site was relatively overlooked by almost everyone else at the time. Many of us found other disco things to dance to and had just as much fun.

Just look at what us Europeans have written and you'll surely realise that the North American experience was almost totally at odds with the rest of the World. Dancing to Black (sounding) music wasn't a new experience for us, hetero or Gay.
USA 255 million...rest of World 5.5 billion....ummmm.
Pretty compelling figures that obviously show that the 3%? Gay community (of which only X% went clubbing) had such a huge overall effect on Disco culture. Yeahhhhh. :roll:


As for white hetero males not going to discos and dancing.................
how utterly absurd. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Dream on....... and then some.

[DISCODISK]

WOW :o all these world gay facts and figures brought to us by quinny you know the guy who wasnt even aware of any gay clubs in his OWN city in the 70s :lol:

[QUINNY]

DD: Maybe 'cos there was only one and even that was on a very part time basis, especially in the mid - late '70s. Why would I want to know about Gay clubs per se, unless I was Gay? Heteros had no need of them, did they and to hang out in them would have been virtually unthinkable back then?

Even without my 'facts' (3%? is a fact???), the odds gainst Gay discos being the absolute 'torch' that they're made out to be by some folks here, are mighty, mighty slim based on pure demographics and the fact that dancing to Soul/Funk/black music was already well established, even in the U.S.A. (except it was a mainly black audience there?). I would have thought that was more than obvious.

Your comments were really uncalled for and show how hopelessly you're fixated on causing me some sort of harm. Please desist, for the good of everybody here and just concentrate more on making money out of those records that you buy short and sell extra long.

[nrgbeat]

I think the gay community gave a lot of support (in the USA) to artists like Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, etc. Not to say these weren't played in straight clubs, but the gay patrons made these artists icons. I think the gay community also played the more underground disco sounds Sylvester, Voyage, Three Degrees as opposed to the Bee Gees, Commodores, Heatwave top 40 stuff that you would hear in your typical surburban disco.

After the demise of disco, the gay community continued to embrace the disco sound and it eventually transformed into what came to be known as Hi-NRG.

[DiscoMan]

I think the gay community gave a lot of support (in the USA) to artists like Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, etc. Not to say these weren't played in straight clubs, but the gay patrons made these artists icons. I think the gay community also played the more underground disco sounds Sylvester, Voyage, Three Degrees as opposed to the Bee Gees, Commodores, Heatwave top 40 stuff that you would hear in your typical surburban disco.

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest (USA experience only) ; did you ever go into a straight Disco? If you had we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Certainly the gay community made it's contribution along with everyone else who was out looking for a good time. And I very distinctly remember seeing gay males in the straight clubs I went too. Worcester had two (2) gay clubs then - the Ports O' Call and the Male Box. The Ports O' Call closed fairly early during Disco and the Male Box opened later ('77?) and many gay guys went to the local straight clubs because they were the only game in town so to speak.

[nrgbeat]

Originally Posted by DiscoMan

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest (USA experience only) ; did you ever go into a straight Disco? If you had we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Certainly the gay community made it's contribution along with everyone else who was out looking for a good time. And I very distinctly remember seeing gay males in the straight clubs I went too. Worcester had two (2) gay clubs then - the Ports O' Call and the Male Box. The Ports O' Call closed fairly early during Disco and the Male Box opened later ('77?) and many gay guys went to the local straight clubs because they were the only game in town so to speak.

Yes, I have been to both and based on what I heard I stand by what I said.

Btw, plenty of straight women go to gay bars too. They're called fag hags.

[DiscoMan]

And straight guys went to the gay clubs too...
This is the deal; myself, my pals, my brothers-in-law were all married between the fall of '78 and summer '80. We were all good lookin' guys who still liked to go out dancing and have some fun. Some times the wives went with us and sometimes they wouldn't. To get around the problem of women hitting on us when we went out to bars and clubs we started going to one gay club. After everyone got to know one another we would dance with the lesbians. They didn't hit on us, we didn't hit on them and we all had a good time.

[Anonymous]

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[efunk_adelic]

Originally Posted by DiscoMan

but so to were hetero working class white kids. We all lived in the same shit neighborhoods and Disco was our response to the soooo smoooth R&B and Soul of the day.

And don't underestimate the importance of the Hustle.

you seemed to like both styles discoman..... your neighborhood must have liked r&b also.

[DiscoMan]

We did.
We got to a point that if we heard one more Carly Simon, Guess Who, James Taylor or Three Dog Night track we'da stabbed our ear drums with ice picks.

Soul was always popular where I lived (Doo Wop, Motown, Philly Soul) and with the early R&B (EW&F, Love Unlimited/Barry White, early Kool and The Gang) our musical tastes took a turn from the usual white boy rock 'n roll to black music. The Stylistics, Chi-Lites, Temptations, SalSoul Orchestra and MFSB (I could go on and on) got a lot of air play in Central Mass in the early '70s. Even Sylvia singing "Pillow Talk" ('71?) swamped the air waves up here!
At the same time some of the clubs and dive bars would hire a DJ to spin vinyl during slow weeknights, (nights when showbands were not cost effective), to bring people in (I remember my first DJ during summer '73). Our nightclubs were open 7 nights a week from 8:00 PM 'till 2:00 AM. Fairly quickly DJs became popular and with the rapid changes in music and DJs spinning danceable R&B and Soul, Disco arrived in Central Mass by the spring and summer of 1974. The Electric Slide and The Bus Stop went well with this music and then when the Hustle hit the clubs during the summer of '74...!

Much of the discussion on this forum centers around the later "Bona Fide" Disco music but to me Disco music will always be early Philly Soul, SalSoul Orchestra, and MFSB - TSOP if you will. :D I love the later stuff as well but I have very vivid memories of that NEW music from '71 to '74.

[Anonymous]

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[Rab]

Originally Posted by DiscoMan

I disagree. The clubs I went to were full of straight guys who had a sense of style and class, though many of 'em couldn't dance for shit, but then again many could. And this all right down the road from you Rab.

And how do you know who is gay and who is straight? I never said there weren't straight guys going to clubs. Collectively, I'm sure there were more straight guys, but the focus was how much influence did the gays or the gay clubs have on the disco era? Judging by your previous posts Discoman, you seem more focused on the the disco era as a whole, as far as the style and the wave of the culture rather than collecting or spinning music. I'm curious to know if you collected music? How many disco records, 12" single or LP do you have in your collection?

At the time, back in 1979 I wasn't planning on doing a thesis 26 years later. But you kind of proved my point when you stated that you went to gay clubs and danced with lesbians to hear the music that you wanted to hear. For straights, the disco era was fleeting to be sure, and by mid 1980 it was fading away fast, in the back of our minds I guess we thought there could be a potential problem with straights who were into disco entering our clubs. Gay clubs were always upbeat and pleasant, they had the most wonderful ambiance where you could just be yourself, and people treated you very well no matter who you were, or what you looked like, they were such a great escape. But some of us suspected straights would be determined to destroy all this if their clubs continued to fade; they were all about anger, hate and provoking fights. Their clubs were always so uptight to begin with. Fortunately, if any showed, they were always significantly outnumbered. We used to joke about it, stating that disco music was great straight repellant, since most hated disco anyway.