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Others went for Orientalist or all-American fitness club themes, while many more were simply anonymous, wet hole-in-the-walls. (On their first visit together in 1973, Knuckles and Levan reportedly spent two weeks there.) San Francisco’s Ritch Street Health Club modeled itself more after ancient Greek baths, keeping things classical and casual. The Baths also launched the careers of Frankie Knuckles and Larry Levan, and were frequented by future disco legends like Nicky Siano of the Gallery, creating the musical mixing grounds that gave rise to New York’s disco and house scenes. The legendary Continental Baths in New York City, for instance, was considered grand, and hosted live, well-produced cabaret acts, including Patti LaBelle, Melba Moore and Bette Midler with Barry Manilow on piano. Almost every major city in America and Europe had them, meaning gay men could rely on meeting others during their travels. Dimly lit and with a convivial atmosphere, many were open 24 hours and featured live DJs at peak time. In their 1970s heyday, bathhouses were spots for gay men to hook up, dally around communal hot tubs or saunas and rent small rooms if they felt like some privacy. And gay bathhouse-themed parties like DJ Bus Station John’s The Tubesteak Connection party in San Francisco and the intrepid musical archeology of gay DJ collectives like Honey Soundsystem have helped keep original bathhouse music from slipping into obscurity.
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The free-spirited transcendence and sexually charged imagery of retro homo sex clubs and dancefloors have penetrated the world of straight dance music producers, popping up recently in DJ Hell’s muscle-bulging “I Want U” video, a collaboration with the Tom of Finland Foundation, and director Pete Fowler’s ecstacy-engulfed clip for Joe Goddard’s “ Home.” Before he died, George Michael was working with Australian bathhouse DJ duo Stereogamous on bringing that spirit to a new record. When gay men steamed up, society’s shackles slid off. Dropping its little terrycloth towel at the intersection of classic disco, extended funk jams, smooth vocal R&B, spacey jazz and early electronic experimentation, and now streaked with the nostalgic gleam of outlaw sexual liberation, the cruising culture of the post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS gay era has become a free-floating metaphor of sorts for unfettered physical communion, subcultural freedom and wild, wild nights. Sex usually comes with its own soundtrack, natural or synthesized, but the music of gay bathhouses, saunas and sex clubs in the 1970s has had an uncommon pull on contemporary dance music.