From Issue 3.4 - May 1997

Music from a Bygone Era

The Catacombs on 21st Street was San Francisco's major fistfucking club from 1975, when it was opened by Steve McEachern until 1981, when it closed following Steve's sudden death from a heart attack. Steve's surviving lover Fred reopened the Catacombs on Shotwell Street, where it enjoyed another run from 1982-1984.

My first encounter with the "music of the baths," or music programmed to enhance S/M or fistfucking, was at the 21st Street Catacombs, where Steve and friends put together a series of brilliant tapes. The party tapes relied primarily on disco and electronic space music, although there were also rock, soul, funk, and other genres. Upbeat and driving songs dominated the prime time party soundtrack, while slow, spacey stuff came on in the early hours of the morning. The following annotated list is drawn from memory, fragmentary documentation, and records obtained when Fred sold some of Steve's personal effects.

• Skatt Brothers, "Walk the Night/Fear of Flying/Life on the Outpost." "Walk the Night" was a particular anthem of late '70s gay male S/M. The Skatt Brothers were similar to the Village People, but with lyrics that were darker and more explicit, for example: "He's got a rod beneath his coat/gonna ram right down your throat/make you grovel on the floor/spit, bump, and scream and beg for more."
• Bette Midler, "Knight in Black Leather." This send up of gay leather was another Catacombs greatest hit. Midler was backed up by a male chorus. At one point, the chorus is singing, "we're in control," when they trail off in a descending scale, as if their poppers had just hit.
• Hot Chocolate, "Heaven"
• Rick James, "Love Gun"
• Grace Jones, "I need a Man"
• Kiss, "I Was Made for Loving You"
• Kraftwerk, "The Man Machine" album, "Radioactivity"
• The Village People, especially "Macho Man," "San Francisco," "In the Navy," "YMCA," and "My Roommate"
• Donna Summer, especially "Queen for a Day" and "Sunset People"
• Jean Michel Jarre, "Oxygene" and "Equinoxe" (played late night and early morning)
• Klaus Schulze, "Timewind" (late night and early morning)
• Space, "Just Blue," "Save Your Love for Me," and "Deliverance"
• Elton John, "Love Lies Bleeding" and "Candle in the Wind"
• Amanda Lear, "Follow Me"
• Cindy and Roy, "Can You Feel It?" This was an obscure disco single with the lyric, "can you feel it in your body?/let your body move"
• Joel Diamond Experience, "Music Machine." Another obscure disco song with a repeated refrain of "in and out," which seemed utterly in keeping with all the arms pumping away.
• the disco versions of Ravel's "Bolero"
• Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, "Electricity"
• Giorgio Morodor, "The Chase" (theme from the movie Midnight Express) and the B side of "Theme from Battlestar Galactica and Other Compositions" (Steve used the other compositions)
• Music from "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Star Wars," and "The Wizard of Oz"

There were other Catacombs songs I remember well but do not know the names or the artists. One featured a male vocalist who sang, "you need a strong love...a man's love." Another spoke of needing to be "changing jobs" after staying out at too many all-night parties. If anyone knows of these or recalls other songs from the Catacombs, please contact me in care of Cuir Underground.

Gayle Rubin has been chronicling the history of the local leather community for nearly two decades.