A s the sun was rising over the legendary San Francisco dance club Trocadero Transfer in the late 1970s, resident DJ Bobby Viteritti had a morning ritual. By that point he’d been playing for hours, but many of the 1,500 dancers who packed the club weren’t prepared to go home until 8 a.m. Light flooded into the space from the eight skylights, pinging off a massive cluster of disco balls. The morning music, dubbed “sleaze,” was slower and sultrier — think Candi Station’s “Young Hearts Run Free,” Booker T Jones’ “We Could Stay Together” or anything by Ashford & Simpson.
A team of staffers holding tarps perched on the roof of the building, surrounding the skylights. Into a walkie-talkie, Viteritti would say “1, 2, 3, blackout,” and the tarps would unfurl, blanketing the club in darkness as songs like Vicki Sue Robinson’s “Turn The Beat Around” or Dan Hartman’s “Relight My Fire” blared out of the club’s 240 speakers.
In disco history, certain names have developed legendary status — New York’s Studio 54 and Paradise Garage are likely the first to come to mind, a pair of venues that highlight both the opulent and underground sides of the disco spectrum. When it comes to the early days of clubbing in San Francisco, venues like the I-Beam and Dreamland are still spoken of in revered tones, but there was no spot quite like the Troc, which launched in 1977, at a pivotal time…