by Thomas Matich
In London, the Juan MacLean is behind the turntables commanding a room full of sweaty bears gyrating to the wax he weaves at Horse Meat Disco. In Detroit, after a Dorkwave dance party, MacLean lugs his vinyl down the street to a leather bar and stimulates the after-hours crowd.
In New York, MacLean finds a home on DFA Records, where dance music was ushered into the indie-rock scene during the last decade. In New Hampshire, secluded from the berserk creativity of urban life, MacLean drafts future vinyl classics like "Happy House," from his recent album "The Future Will Come," which gave a modern twist to Yazoo meshed with classic house and techno (the Juan in MacLean stems from a joke comparing him to Detroit techno legend Juan Atkins).
Wherever Juan is, he's a straight man with the cojones to gay it up – because as he sees it, disco and house music were pioneered by the gay subculture of yesterday. But MacLean and his peers are restoring the musical exhilaration of the post-Stonewall era gay bar in underground parties across the globe. There's a civil war occurring in gay nightlife, those who want to dance to "Single Ladies" versus those who "wanna freak" to Sylvester.
"That's the way it has been for a while I think," MacLean says. "Some of my friends have a big disco night in London called Horse Meat Disco. The whole idea of it was that it was supposed to be a throwback to when all this stuff was only happening in gay clubs.
"I feel like a lot of cities now have hipster-gay nights because I think it's just the same complaining with a lot of my gay friends who are into this music – they go to the gay clubs and it's bad remixes of Top 40 songs. There is an incredible disconnect now between any kind of gay influence in dance music, and it seems like a very odd thing because that's exclusively where it started."
Similar to the Horse Meat Disco parties in London, Detroit has seen its recent surge of fringe nights catering to the hipster crowd – from the Cruising-inspired retro disco wonderland of Macho City to the erotic electronic hodge-podge of Fierce Hot Mess. These are places where the gays would rather hear Hercules and Love Affair than Lady Gaga.
"It goes beyond the music," MacLean says. "But there's also the whole other world of fashion, grooming and going to the gym for what must be five hours a day or something. You might as well be at a frat party or something. Then it just becomes a cultural thing, and there's just people that aren't going to be into disco or what's alternative music now."
In 2003, the Rapture, a post-punk band signed to DFA Records, the future home of MacLean, released a single, "House of Jealous Lovers," powered by a bold disco bassline accentuated by cowbells. With this track and bands such as the Faint and LCD Soundsystem (formed by DFA label head and Rapture producer James Murphy) a genre christened "dance-punk" began to take shape as Joy Division revival bands such as Interpol were replaced by more electronic-infused acts such as the Killers who took cues from gay icons like Morrissey. By the time Justice emerged in 2007 with their smash hit "D.A.N.C.E.," a sudden explosion of "blog house," disco and electronic dance music had exploded onto hipster culture, even crossing over with Kanye West co-opting Daft Punk.
"I feel like indie rock wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with dance music; in the '90s there was such an incredible divide between the two scenes, and now obviously they've come together quite a bit," MacLean says. "I think there's an incredible unspoken homophobia that runs through the entire scene and I feel like it plays itself out in ways of people doing disco edits; that's a really big thing. I always point out that all people are really doing is taking out the gay parts."
Rewinding dance music back to its roots, MacLean recently released a new mix through the long-running DJ Kicks compilation series. MacLean, an old-school purest in the truest sense, recorded the entire set on two turntables in one take. Singled out from the mix is "Feels So Good," an original composition that juices up MacLean's signature happy house sound. He will be in Detroit during the July 4 weekend to get anyone with good taste in music – gay or straight – on the dance floor with a solo DJ set.
"When I play, I feel like I'm constantly playing stuff that I would say is easy," MacLean says. "There are songs that, even if you haven't hard them before, are a bit obvious in terms of their effectiveness; they're not hard to get and they just make people dance. A lot of people DJing have lost sight of that idea.
"They're turning it into this whole thing that's about finding the rarest disco records possible that no one else has and all this stuff that just goes back to straight dudes' music nonsense – competitive crap that I just don't care about. Like, maybe they're so rare because no one cared!"
The Juan MacLean
8 p.m. July 3, Magic Stick
4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit
$10
http://majesticdetroit.com
