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The first time I ever stepped foot onto a gay dance floor...


Starchild
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  • Starchild changed the title to The first time I ever stepped foot onto a gay dance floor...

For me the first time I stepped on that dance floor i was home! I am a straight woman but the gay clubs are my home, cause its fucking awsome, best music ever, i dont need to stress about being touched or hassled, I can just be in my happy place and dance. When I was in high school it was not a place where straight people would dare to go unless you were nu wave, thats where u were not judged, nobody cared if you had crazy colored hair etc.  I will go untill I die!!!

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The first time I went to a gay bar was a great experience. 2012 in Berlin when Madge was in town, can't remember the name of the hole-in-the-wall drinking establishment. A small dance floor, nice comfy seats for us just enjoying our drinks, lots of boys but only a few girls. Great selection of dance tracks. :heart:

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I’ve always been a dance music snob. I had “Best of Rave” commercialized underground cassettes in middle school my first real DJ mixtape was on Tribal, Danny Tenaglia’s “Mix This Pussy”.
 

Shit blew my 14 year old mind.

I’ll add a little Madonna context, around this time I had also joined an internet mailing list MLVC.org and even met a friend on there that lived a few towns away. He would mail me stacks of customized cassettes with rare Madonna stuff like Razormaid and Hot Tracks and crazy weird stuff like Tiny Little Circles Mix. He introduced me to a lot of the DJs and remixers of that era like Love To Infinity, Tony Moran, etc. I still have them one day I’ll retrieve them from storage and show you the creative covers he would make for them just for me.

Anyway I used to pick up Mixmag at Borders bookstore (I even later worked at the magazine stand in a Borders, it was ideal as I’d get the best access). Mixmag was unique as it was full of names (producers, remixers, DJs, singers, even bootleg Madonna stuff like “Music Sounds Better on Holiday” were featured) and the mag even came with a mixed CD or compilation of often exclusive stuff. Borders music section also had imports like Renaissance, Fabric, Gatecrasher, all rare compilations in easy access.

The year was about 98/99 and Armand Van Helden had remixed Tori Amos and Sneaker Pimps both getting US airplay, in Philly there were weekend mix shows on college radio and pop radio, there was a chance an Armand version could appear on either.  I had both the “U Don’t Know Me” single and the “2 Future 4 U” album on CD. 
 

Anyway long story short I met a girl in high school that went to rave parties, we bonded over a mutual love for our tragically-broken-up-to-never-reee-unite Deee-Lite. She was lucky enough to have seen their live shows and some of their solo DJ work at local raves. I looked up to her party experiences. She showed me her flyer collection one day and then showed me an upcoming show and damned if Armand Van Helden wasn’t the headliner. She was more into Goldie and DJ Hype and that drum n bass sound, which was tertiary but essential to the rave scene. 
 

We went to this ridiculously huge, poorly secured warehouse for this later tragic (people like overdosed and/or crashed their cars and and stuff it was baaad) yet amazing rave party and I was stone cold 16 years young sober and really overwhelmed by it all until through the crowd walks that now famous Ali G. look it was Armand Van Helden with the bright tracksuit and the goggles and skull cap I had been waiting to see all night. Thankfully Sasha Baron Cohen hadn’t made the look into parody yet as it was so helpful to know I was at the right place. I got up from the corner wall cuddle puddle of drugged up kids I was sitting in and danced my freedom for over an hour to his set. If you want to see the flyer click on this ancient Angelfire page: https://www.angelfire.com/ny2/joejetta/party.html

My rave friend had gay friend that she had given MY copy of Dimitri From Paris House of Funk CD to and she forced me to meet him to retrieve it as she had asked and he refused.
 

We hit it off as he had some CDs he let me borrow and later we all went to what was my first gay club as a closeted teen. I went because they knew the DJ and knew the music was dope. No Madonna that night but I do vividly remember getting on a platform and dancing to Barry Harris & Pepper Mashay’s “Dive Into The Pool” with a local drag queen.

We went almost weekly to those bars in Philly, Woody’s and 24 for several years often after or before the local rave and rave clubs. It was such a diverse, creative scene, you’d see other party kids at either or places and we would meet up and swap stories and meet new friends. I’m forever thankful for the memories. Thanks for the opportunity to share my little memory, it always makes me smile. 

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