Bathhouse DJ safari -
Gay guys hear her sounds in their steamiest moments. She’s DJ:TK, and her sexy beats are the soundtrack to sex at Spa Excess. For all her work when we’re hard, fab lent TK the latest turntable from Technics, the Direct Drive Digital Turntable. It wrings from CDs those scratchity-scratch sounds that were heretofore confined to vinyl. But will it satisfy TK’s itch to scratch?

We caught TK after her punishing Pride as a coproducer of the Prism weekend (she shared responsibilities with her gal pal of four years, Shanna). Her exhaustion dissipates when she sees the turntable. “Gear!” she hollers. She slips in the first CD she grabs, Soul Mekanik, and slides the platter like a record. “It even has grooves in it!” she says, delighted, as the sound grinds back and forth. “This is looking and acting just like a record. I haven’t had to do anything.”

Now is the time for a turntable revolution, in TK’s opinion. “You hear more breakbeat DJs, more house DJs playing now. The Pride stage this weekend, all they did was…” – she scratches with her hand – “…BRRR!” TK learned her turntable talents by shadowing her sis, who had a community radio show in the ’80s. She’s now spun at Spa Excess for nearly three years. At first she was shocked at the socializing that goes on in her wing of the spa, the downstairs bar. “In my imagination, I just thought it was Sodom and Gomorrah,” she says. “But it’s a really chatty place.”

The DJ felt a little out of place during her first few gigs at the bathhouse. Groups of guys would stare at her like they were at African Lion Safari. She recalls one keen observation: “It’s a woman!” Now she’s as much a part of Saturday nights as the sauna. The guys treat her like gold, aside from one oddball who tried to weird her out with his willy. He stood next to her naked as he confided his fetish – being naked around uncomfortable women. “That must be difficult for him to indulge,” TK sympathizes.

Before finishing her test spin, TK has every light on the deck flashing. She’s already scheming to get one of her own. “It’s $1700, so I’ll have to get an awesome gig,” she reckons (she’d require two turntables to blend her tracks together). “All DJs would love this. Unless they’re vinyl purists, and then that’s fine. That’s one less person getting these out of stock.”

TK plays Spa Excess (105 Carlton St.) every Saturday from midnight to 4am. The Panasonic Technics Direct Drive Digital Turntable is $1695.95.