Steve Fabus is an American disco, hi-NRG and house music disc jockey from Chicago, known for popularizing the 1970s version of the tea dance style of Sunday disco dancing, as well as the gay bathhouse sound of San Francisco, emphasizing emotional R&B vocals and slower tempos.
[1] Fabus has served residencies at the San Francisco nightclubs the I-Beam, the Trocadero Transfer and The EndUp, at the New York City River Club and Tracks, and in Los Angeles at Probe, Axis and Asylum.
[6][7] Fabus relocated to San Francisco in 1975 and kept mixing house parties; at one of these, he met the Cockettes, led by the effervescent Sylvester.
[8] Fabus felt that the bathhouse scene was more relaxed and freeform, allowing him to play music with a tempo around 90–100 beats per minute (BPM).
His bathhouse contacts led to a residency at the I-Beam, newly opened by Bob Wharton and Sanford Kellman as San Francisco's biggest disco.
Fabus deejayed there during 1977–1978, emphasizing the R&B and soul side of disco music, with vinyl releases from Salsoul, Prelude, Casablanca and West End Records.
"The Troc" was the first San Francisco discotheque to be allowed to stay open all night, bringing Manhattan-style dance parties lasting many hours.
More men died of the disease, shocking the gay community, and Fabus observed that the disco scene had lost its "psychedelic, laidback vibe".
[9] This was replaced by a sense of fatalistic desperation, the dancers pushing to enjoy whatever remaining time before the mysterious disease might attack.
Sylvester was emaciated by AIDS, and had last been seen in public in a wheelchair at San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade in June.
[2] Unusually, he played a silent disco in 2017 at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, presenting a New York house set ranging from The Loft to Paradise Garage.
[12] He mixes regularly for Comfort & Joy, a queer-themed Burning Man organization hosting activities in San Francisco.