Page 481 - Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer - Vol. 1

Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer 461
was a French-Canadian who thought he had to enforce the
dress code to the nth degree. He wouldn’t let him that night
because he wouldn’t leave his fur at our coat check. Rudy
never came back. I fired the French-Canadian kid. I know
that Rock Hudson came in. Pacino came in. I let him in one
night just so he could research his role in Cruising. The music
was low. So you could hear the person next to you.
Jack Fritscher: Who did your music tapes?
Wally Wallace: Jerry Rice. . .
Jack Fritscher: Mon amour, and house guest for years [since
1967].
Wally Wallace: . . .and Michael Fesco who ran the Flamingo
disco. . .
Jack Fritscher: Michael and I spent the Jonestown weekend
together. [November 17-19, 1978] Luckily, we were in San
Francisco, not Jonestown, drinking beer, not Kool-Aid.
Wally Wallace: . . .and a guy named Ashland, and myself. I asked
all kinds of people to make new tapes to fit our scene. We
played anything in the world, from western to classics. A lot of
classics actually. Electronic variations on classic themes. Ella
Fitzgerald, jazz. Tomita, new wave.
Jack Fritscher: I remember hearing Kitaro, and Kraftwerk’s
Trans-Europe Express, and Tim Buckley. His “Sweet Surren-
der” was more seductive than poppers for fisting.
Wally Wallace: We tried to avoid basic disco, references to
females, references to “let’s dance,” things like that. Our
music became famous because we didn’t follow the main-
stream. We were about kink. Mineshaft members knew what
kink was. They weren’t out to blind date, nor to emulate the
straight world in terms of sexuality, lovers, dogs, and family.
Single guys.
Jack Fritscher: Every detail. Your main bar had sawdust on the
floor. Inside the Mineshaft you created an alternative uni-
verse.
Wally Wallace: Most people don’t know. Art, business, politics
were conducted. Sex at the Mineshaft was like going to the
gym to work out. An exercise. But also spiritual, like going to
church. The Mineshaft was a form of recreation for people in
high-pressure jobs whose stress came out as sexual intensity. It
was not just a business; it was a labor of love. Other businesses
tried to copy the Mineshaft but didn’t succeed because they
did it for money.

©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved—posted 05-05-2017
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