Dirty Decks

Seymour Butz is seeing more butts these days. Heaps of ’em. Hairy, smooth, tanned, untanned, rounded, potato-shaped -¦ butts in all shapes and sizes.

It’s to be expected, really, given that his new gig is at legendary gay men’s sauna, Ken’s at Kensington. On Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, Seymour is spicing up the venue with a distinctive blend of what he calls sleazy fuck music.

It started out as just a Sunday thing, but has proved so successful the formula has been extended to Friday and Saturday nights.

[Ken’s boss] Reiner came up with the idea of taking an extra element into the sauna; not making it like a dance party, but adding some sonic wallpaper, Seymour explains. There are so many people jerking off over the net these days, that he wanted to bring in something unique that people couldn’t get at home.

Spending 15 hours a week DJing at a gay sauna may seem like an unusual way to spend time, but it’s not as though Seymour is a stranger to kooky gigs. Among other dates, he’s played at a bear party in Brazil, a fisting party in France and, memorably, a skinhead lounge in Berlin.

At first it all looked completely intimidating, because they had the bovver boots and shaved heads and braces and so on, he says of the Berlin experience. But taking a second look, most of the guys were smoking like Bette Davis. So it was a juxtaposition of fear and fluffiness.

Fluffy is a term that is rarely used to describe Seymour’s music tastes -“ especially given what he serves up at Ken’s.

Everyone’s been in the situation in a sex club, when there’s a heaving sweaty mess going on and over the loudspeaker a Thunderpuss remix of Dannii Minogue comes on. It’s an instant soft-on, he says.

I play the music that I picture myself having sex to. I’m inspired by 70s Colt porn; those soundtracks were really down’n’dirty, sleazy and funky. That’s generally the genre where we fit in, but we can go Jamaican-style dub through to weird ambient-style music, and lots of global music in between, he says.

Seymour’s sauna sessions have also featured some exclusive previews of new material by bands such as Coda and artists like Paul Mac.

Paul’s putting his headspace into writing tracks for the sauna, and I’ve been playing Paul’s new album out there at the moment. It ain’t just Dusty Springfield remixes, it’s about spreading a new sound, he says.

That’s also partly the objective behind Seymour’s other DJing venture at the moment, Rock Suckin’ Hoes, the alternative Thursday night downstairs at the Imperial Hotel.

Rock Suckin’ Hoes is a project that [DJ] Gemma and I have been running for four months now, he says. We play freaky electro, weird hip-hop, freaky post-glam rock, and every week there’s a different guest, he says.

In between his gigs at the Imperial and Ken’s, Seymour is also putting together a sauna sessions CD.

I don’t want to go into it too much now, but it’ll be homosexual songs by homosexuals about homosexual acts -“ mixed in with some soundbites from around the sauna, he says. We’ve had the cheesy, bangin’ hi-energy glad-to-be-gay CDs forced down our throats for the past 10 years, and this is to redress that; to say, we are funky, sexy beings, and this will be like a new soundtrack for rooting.

Every gay man should have a dirty fuck CD in his house; something that will impress the pants off anyone, Seymour says. Who could argue with that?

Seymour Butz plays Ken’s 8pm-1am on Friday and Saturday nights, and 5pm-10pm Sunday.
Rock Suckin’ Hoes takes place at the Imperial Hotel on Thursday nights from 9pm to 3am.