What a great night! I will pull the strings of memories out of my head and try to convey the energy and vibe going on at Re-bar last Friday night for Produkt’s eleventh installment of Analog: Everything But the Kitchen Sink. I tend to not review the really good parties because I dance my ass off and pretty much just go into a DJ-induced trance and live in the energy of the dance floor. I lose track of everything around except the DJ and the beats, and a slap-happy gang of purple monkeys could run in behind me and go berserk and I would not notice. This is why there is no BreakBeatBuddha or Glitch Mob reviews, and I am a few days late on this one but I know you want it, so here it goes:

I was really looking forward to the night of breaks, dubstep, minimal techno and a little crazy rat bastard shit thrown in; the lineup was tight and the word was out. Analog has been getting better and better every month; May’s I Like Orange and Techno night was a freaky fun orange-a-thon complete with naked chicks, flying beer bottles, and a guy in his underwear jumping on the decks. 

But the theme for Analog XI was not citrus-laced hoohah; no, the mood was dark and dirty on the dance floor, starting out with the Milkman’s wobbly grime-laden dubstep. The beautiful Produkt dancers were all in black, a nice complement to the atmosphere. Asifa showed up in a big blond wig, and I didn’t even recognize her for about half an hour even though she was dancing right in front of me. By the time Noisemaker and Naha came on for their two-hour set, the scene was straight gritty and ready for some filthy bass, which the two poured over the crowd like a midnight waterfall. At some point an actual kitchen sink was paraded in, much to my delight (mad props for the sinkage to NickyJee, yet another of my bad-ass-up-and-coming DJ friends). Noisemaker effing kills it and the dance floor absolutely loves him; Naha threw down as well with the redonkulous rock star MC Anton Bomb doing his thing over the beats- the best that I had ever seen him.

So this is about where I put on my dance-trance-pants, so you are not going to get a lot of specifics on tracks or what-have-you. Rest assured it was a “YEAH” night for me- on the dance floor often all I can say is “YEAH” or “MORE”. It was “YEAH” all night long. After the crazy bass set, DJ Goner hit it thick like always with his wicked brand of minimal techno. GONER ROCKS. It was also my pleasure to hear him a little later in the weekend for several more hours, and I must inform you that Goner will be taking the Seattle techno scene by storm. He kills, always; he is as intense as his music which HELL! gets you moving. On Friday night the Night Train (Seattle superstar extraordinaire) played some mad harmonica over the deep techno beats. Think harmonicas belong on the range at home with the buffalos? Well then, you need to come out more. The Night Train always gives a twisted take over the electronic music, and with a smile no less.

So it should have been the end of the night, 2AM, last call and all, but wait- we were in for a exclusive appearance as Schlage hit the decks and the bar decided to stay open until 3AM. I really really love Re-bar; it is a dancing club FIRST with a giant floor and the crowd always comes to get down, which is a nice change from the usual Pioneer Square drivel. And to end the night in the sickest fashion, Noisemaker jumped back on the decks and fed us a little more sticky bass, of which we can never get enough. After closing down my fourth dance floor of the week, I went straight home to bed. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

What makes the Analog parties so consistently ON are the people who come out: the Produkt family always supports their people like mad, and those cats party like it’s the eve of the Armageddon. The dark and bass-thick music gave the dance floor what we wanted, and Analog XI was the best one yet.

This month is Analog XII: Meeting of the Minds (July 25th) where the big boys of four Seattle music collectives will be throwing down to another dance floor full of crazy dancing girls and boys. Jisaan, Ramiro, Mikey Tello, Michael Manahan and J-Sun will be out REPRESENTIN’ their respective crews and you can come out assured the night will go off with deep-house, tech-house, techno, and God only knows what else.

OK everybody- It is HOT, it is a HOLIDAY WEEKEND, and everyone will be out celebrating like fools that we live in an awesome, free country where the right to the pursuit of happiness is one of our nation’s founding principles. So do your civic duty and GET OUT THERE, GET INTO IT, and pursue your happiness, kids, unless he has a girlfriend. Don’t know what to do this weekend? Confused by all the choices? Go where I’m going- ‘cuz that’s always where the party’s at.

Like drum and bass? Tonight (Wednesday) at Pulse at Trinity there is a cherry-sweet lineup with no cover: DJs Jason Curtis, Aaron Simpson, The Dowlz, The Dub What, Contents, and Sonic MC will be giving you all the DRUM AND BASS! DRUM AND BASS! that you could ever want. Brad will be pourin’ ‘em strong.

Like minimal techno? BONKERS goes off this Thursday July 3 at Re-bar; you know you don’t have to work the next day so come out and get crazy with the techno-heads. With the deep, dark, penetrating, throbbing, beats you can’t go wrong. Ever.

Like art and music and want to go to the best party of the weekend? Want to see Noisemaker along with about 5 billion other mad DJs like PrEssHa, Theory, Von Dewey, Ben Shelton, Jisaan, Lovevirus, and B.Fly? See you Saturday night at the Columbia City Theatre for the much-antici…pated Collective Art Project. You will dance your pretty little face off- and oh yeah, there will be art and handmade clothes and HOLOGRAMS to buy, so bring cash.

Like freakish experimental nerdy brain-beat music from the future? Want to catch a glimpse into the evolutionary course of electronic music? Matmos hits the Triple Door on Monday July 7.

Like dubstep? Of course you do, you stoner. UK MASTER of dubstep Kode9 is at Chop Suey Tuesday July 8. Kid Hops and Struggle will be getting the party started; if you are a bass slut, your presence is required. We will be taking names.

Signing off,

DF5K.

If you would like to post this on your myspace profile or blog, please post the link back to this page rather than copy-and-pasting it. That will make Shilo smile.

If you would like to post a comment, please do so below.

If you enjoyed my review and would like to buy me a drink this weekend, that would be a vodka and soda with a lime.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

I am a super French art nerd. I have Chagall on my bedroom door, I made my students research a French artist when I was a high school teacher, I have eaten at the cafe that Van Gogh painted in Cafe Du Nuit. If you travel with me, we are going to the art museum, the big one and the little ones. I can tell you in which crappy little studio Cubism was invented, which train station in Paris inspired Monet with it’s steamy environment, which Impressionist was a momma’s boy, which floor in the Musee d’Orsay you should hit first, and all about the students who died in the streets of Paris for the right to artistic nudity back in the day. I will shut up now.

So predictably I was very excited to visit the new exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, Inspiring Impressionism, which promises to highlight the roots of the Avant-garde artistic movement as the school of painters evolved from being laughed off the streets of Paris in the 1860’s to today’s current insanely popular status of the genre: come on, even your grandma has a picture of Monet’s waterlillies. 

Back in the day, however, the tawdry gang of Bazille, Monet, Manet, Morisot, Cassatt, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley were freaking rock stars; rebels in the structured French art world who painted what no one dared paint before. They painted scenes of daily life, not posing nobles. They worked spontaneously outside, not in the studio with a plan. They emphasized light over darkness, shunning the color black. They used bright, unmixed color with bold brush strokes, eschewing the traditional goal of trying to achieve reality with their pictures. They favored generalized form over specific detail and focused on the setting of the painting, not the subject. The Impressionists represented a complete break from the the progression of the history of art.

Or did they? The current exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum explores this idea to illuminate the true origins of the Impressionist movement. Inspiring Impressionism looks not at the painters’ childhoods or where they spent their adolescence, but rather it reveals what artists inspired the new school of the Impressionists. And Impressionism is there, lurking in 18th century paintings of the Dutch Masters and peeking out from the walls of the Louvre. You can see the seeds of this revolutionary Impressionist movement beginning to sprout long before Manet painted a naked lady on the grass and scandalized the masses (Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, 1863).

Monet may have stated that he was “never influenced by the art of the past”, but that is just the ego of an artist talking. Of course all of the Impressionists were influenced by the works of Michaelangelo, by unearthed Greek Kouros statues, of Spanish works brought to France after Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. You have been influenced by this art as well, whether you know it or not. Art effects culture which effects identity and that’s you. The Impressionists as well were not isolated from the history of art culture; rather they took their inspiration from it.

Many of the group studied classical paintings in the Louvre; Manet and Degas met there while copying Spanish artist Velasquez’ Infanta Margarita (1656). Some attended the hoity-toity Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) on the Left Bank which still churns out annoying art students today. Living in Paris it is impossible not to be inspired by the art of the past; the city is saturated in beauty and art that soon gets inside of you. This was just as true in the 1860’s when the Impressionists were coming of age. The evolution of art is a continual process, a connected and holistic animal whose parts cannot be severed. The exhibit plays this out beautifully, with an easy and compelling story-line along with additional artist info at particular paintings from your cell phone if you so desire. 

The absolute most amazing room of the exhibition is the last one, a small space hung with four paintings from some of the top-name Impressionists: Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Cezanne. The works continue the story of art in your mind and show you without a doubt that the circle of inspiration is still rolling. From Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire (1906), Cubism jumps out and punches you in the face. Renoir’s The Wave (1882) leans fully into abstraction with red and golden pieces of water swirling up into the sky, as does a close-up of Monet’s Waterlillies which seem to be floating not in his tranquil garden in Giverny, but somewhere in the ethereal consciousness of a flower fairy. Manet’s Gypsy Woman with a Cigarette intensely blends his earlier romantic world view with a forward-looking modernist approach. These four paintings do a brilliant job of showcasing the continual evolution of arts culture, a powerful ending point to the well laid-out exhibit that truly drives the point home. We are all connected; we are inspired by and inspire our fellow human beings. At least that is what we are going for.

This point was made even clearer to me while I was thinking about the exhibit as I was dancing Thursday night at Club Pop at Chop Suey. For the first time in my life, I truly appreciated the decade I was born in: the 70’s. Say what you want about white polyester jump suits, feathered hair, and All in the Family, but the disco movement completely paved the way for the electronic music and hip-hop of today that I love so much. You can hear it in the beats, just as you can see the beginnings of Impressionism decades before the movement had a name. And disco in turn was influenced by Latin rhythms like the Samba, which was itself inspired by beats from the African Congo…it is this continuous flow of ideas which create and evolve not only the arts but human culture in general. We cannot escape the past, nor should we want to; it is a fundamental part of our identity. And besides, I really like disco balls.

Good art makes you think. Great art changes the way you see the world. Inspiring Impressionism makes a profound statement not only about the world of the French Impressionists, but on the connected nature of human existence, which is so important at a time when we must work together to ensure our species’ survival. No human is an island, not even Monet.

Inspiring Impressionism runs at the Seattle Art Museum through September 21; tickets are $20 and there are special discounts for students and seniors. It is highly recommended; even super French art nerds can learn a thing or two. 

Come hang out with the Culture Mobsters and get your happy hour on and your weekend kicked off right this Thursday at Moe Bar from 4:30-7PM. You can also check out the new Pike Street Fish Fry which is smooshed between Nuemos and Moe Bar; this little seafood shack has been getting stellar reviews all over town and serves fried catfish, fish balls, grilled octopus, and deep-fried lemon slices. 

I will be enjoying the deliciousness that is fried catfish with a tall, cold Manny’s (or two).

Read more about this event here.

Two hours east of Seattle this weekend a mountain of energy was created deep in the woods, far away from civilization, far away from everything except what really matters. Photosynthesis 1.0, presented by Collective Flow, brought together old friends and new, a stupid number of local DJs that we all know and love, along with a copious amount of hula-hooping, fire-twirling, bubbles in the breeze, giggling children, hours and hours of music and dancing, silly dogs, a deep indigo sky bursting with stars and framed by evergreens, legions of mimosas, body paint galore, and a naked guy. Now this was a party. Up on top of the ridge it was sunny and warm in the day, windy and cold as hell at night. I arrived in a sheer sundress and hours later had on not one but two pair of wool socks, June be damned, living the wisdom that there is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. Good thing I brought some.

Beats, beeps, scratches, and whomps found a temporary home in the forest and were sent out into the trees from three stages. The combination of the great outdoors and electronic music generates an incredible sense of enchantment; what should be an odd match of opposites instead creates an all-encompassing feeling of happiness, of wholeness, of everything being right in the world. I pitched my tent by the Main Stage, the Nama Stage, which gave me easy access to the art dome, the big heart-shaped campfire, and to the festival kitchen to whom I must give mad, mad props. A huge amount of time and effort went into the food preparation; nobody at the festival went hungry because heaps of people worked very hard to make sure of it. Every time I passed by the kitchen there was a flipping buffet of healthy food, made with love. Pho the first night, then veggie gumbo, a van-load of tamales, A ROAST PIG, fresh fruit, homemade breakfast muffins; everything I tried was absolutely fantastic. Mad, mad, props to the Sweet Peeps kitchen for their hard work and delicious chow.

The Main Stage rocked consistently for two nights with sick DJs from all over the Pacific Northwest. Novatron laid it down in the middle of the dance floor, his dog Ziggy running around like an idiot and the rest of us shaking our souls and asses for the artist. I never ever miss one of Novatron’s live sets, he is a master. My favorite player of the festival though (do I have to say it?) was the brilliantly original Noisemaker who played two random time slots around 5AM and 5PM. Come on now yall, this DJ belongs in the middle of the fire and frenzy and madness of the night. That is his home. Noisemaker had the freshest and most unique sets of the party; I really loved watching people stroll up who had never before heard his brand of crunk. They first look a little confused by the frog noises and Big Band music, then they start smiling, and then they start dancing. Curious DJs wandered up to check out his set as well, and one of my friends laid out the reason he loves Noisemaker: “It’s just like, ‘I’m Noisemaker. I’ll do what I want. I spin Britney Spears, bitch, and you’re gonna love it and you’re going to dance.” And dance we did.

The second stage out in the woods was Vex Village, where I spent the least amount of time, though I did catch the unbelievable KJ Sawka set on Friday night; could he possibly be a more bad-ass drummer? No. He couldn’t. And do the ladies love him or what! “Blah blah blah I love Kevin Sawka” is all I heard that night. I was also lucky to catch Von Dewey on the second stage as well who laid down quite a fat set of beats for the crowd.

The three stages were a nice walk apart from each other, but traveling the cold path between them birthed ample opportunities for random social encounters. I love being a nomad, wondering around in the dark woods by myself (sorry Mom), meeting strangers and strange friends in the night. On the liminal path, that dirt space between worlds and stages and social circles, anything can happen- there are no rules.

My favorite home of Photosynthesis 1.0 was the rock-strewn dance floor of the third stage, the Orca Sound Lab. When I came upon the area the first evening, it was nothing but three speakers on the grass by some trees. The following day however the wooded area was transformed into a sacred circle of dance. The beats started out strong there Saturday afternoon with Awggie and the Mendicants, and then HOLY FREAKING TECHNO! Can I say it again? HOLY FREAKING TECHNO.

What had been just three speakers in the forest became a temple of unrelenting beats that continued deep and deeper into the night as one DJ after another ripped it in half, a blazing lineup that spiraled through the forest into a incessant explosion, a rampage, a frenzy. The stage was on fire the whole night; this is the reason I don’t mention any of the headliners of the festival in my review. I was possessed by the techno. Nordic Soul ignited the madness with quite the ridiculous set; he cannot hide the fact that he thoroughly enjoys what he does to the dance floor as much as we do. I am in love with this DJ. The techno continued its unabated aural penetration as the evening continued; the one-hour sets went quickly and we were treated to a succession of gifted electronic artists. Manos was laying down straight crazy, dubby shit; Panty Control, Milkplant, Brian S., Jesse, and to all the DJs that night who I met and can’t remember your name, you guys destroyed us there in the middle of the forest. The sloped and rocky dance floor did not stop the party from giving it up to the Dance.

I danced in the forest all night and into the morning, not a creature of my own volition but a slave to the music. The beats go inside of my body and move it for me, I have no choice in the matter. The incongruent blend of electronic music and campfires puts something in your soul that cannot be explained, it can only be felt. And can I shout out to the DJs who dance? I absolutely love to see you guys on the floor getting down. I love it. I nourish myself with the symbiotic relationship between the DJ and the dancers and the energy it creates. Music changed my life, music saved my life, music is my life. There is no one in existence who can say that music has not contributed positively to their world, and most of you probably even agree with my three hippie-face declarations above.

However at any festival or party there always seems to be one DJ who completely destroys the dance floor and whose name is on everyone’s hungover lips the next morning around campfires and smoke circles. At Photosynthesis 1.0 it was Ctrl_Alt_Del. This boy absolutely rocked the minds and bodies of everyone who heard his set late Saturday night, his own as well if I am not mistaken. I don’t know crack about minimal techno, but my body does. I feel the energy trapped in the pulsing beats, the intense throbbing that stays just below the surface, rising and falling and threatening to bubble uncontrollably to the top of our minds. Ctrl_Alt_Del kept us on that threshold; speaking to our subconscious desires and the nethermost chasms of our very beings with the pulsing undercurrent. Techno rouses the ID, the animal inside of us all who just wants to grab the person dancing next to us and run off into the woods naked and screaming, social-circle cohesion be damned. Ctrl_Alt_Del woke up this beast on his dance floor, and short of going raving mad and frothing at the mouth and howling at the moon, we danced. We danced all night in the woods like our ancestors did for hundreds of thousands of years, warming ourselves with the fire and our feet.

Which, of course, is why we go to festivals; to dance on the earth with bare feet, to experience the feeling of walking up on a campfire encircled by strangers in the middle of the night, to see children playing free in the forest, to wear feathers in our hair, to walk paths drenched in falling light alone. Time returns to it’s true and undefined nature and exists only as a DJ lineup. For a few days, we commune with the earth and each other as humans have done long, long before the time of texting and Myspace and traffic. We share food, and water, and energy, and life. The weekend was almost perfect.

Sunday morning I woke up and found out that a boy had died. His name was Shawn-e. I met him the night before, he was fishing for ravers with a pole and a glow stick. He caught one; it was me. We said our hellos-my-name-is and went along our separate ways in the dark forest. I really wish I could leave this out, that I could skip this unpleasant part of my annoyingly positive review, that I could keep the weekend lingering in your minds as singularly and wickedly beautiful. But I can’t. That morning as I sat at a friend’s campsite with a circle of strangers sharing a bottle of warm Champagne, a sound met our ears, the echoes of a girl weeping in the woods. The small circle of humans froze. Our eyes locked; we were strangers bound together by the sound of the absolute despair of one of our own. Once again this weekend we were reminded that we are all connected. We all live together and we will all die.

But you are alive, right now, reading this. So guess what? You have to live for Shawn-e now. All of you. You have to dance a little harder, you have to sing a little louder, you have to live a little more. You have to devour every new experience that presents itself to you and is good. You have to suck out the marrow of life just a little more now, not just for Shawn-e but for all of your friends who drop away from this world. Add Shawn-e to the long list of reasons why you refuse to have anything but an absolutely incredible life, rich with experience and human connections. My heart aches for the friends and family who knew Shawn-e well; know that I met him but a few tiny moments on this earth and in that brief encounter, he made me smile and laugh.

The music was turned off, the campers slowly left, and the energy dissipated, carried away bit by bit in each of us to be dispersed around the Pacific Northwest. I packed up the car and went to pay my respects to the dance floors, finding once again that the third stage was just a few speakers sitting in the middle of the woods. The only evidence of the party mania and techno fever the night before was a charred campfire and grass stomped away by dancing feet. Ashes to ashes. I made a huge trash sweep over the forest campground and found only one gum wrapper on the grounds; this place had been well-loved and taken care of. I walked away from Photosynthesis 1.0 filled up, with renewed inspiration to live every single day as fully as I possibly can.

Heading home over a rock path with a few wrong turns and a late lunch at random cafe #3 in Cle Elum (complete with deer chandeliers and a bear skin rug on the wall), my carload was salivating for more electronic music. Seriously. Drool was dripping off our chins. Thankfully I had a downloaded CD of Ctrl_Alt_Del in my car- however it only plays when my navigator has not jammed a second disc into my car’s stereo system. Alas, for the two-hour ride home, we were stuck in radio hell, which is no mild exaggeration after a weekend of such mind-melting music; going back to Top 40 was pure aural torture. I have a bad habit of screaming at DJs to drop the beat when they hold out too long, which is what I was yelling at my radio by the time we reached North Bend. Jazzy-F Lips on KE-whatever didn’t seem to hear me, but somehow I made it back to my favorite home-of-the-moment, Seattle.

I am satiated with positive energy from this weekend. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who shared this time in the woods with me, every single one of you: the people who worked hard to give us a party, the new friends I made, the people whose names I’ve already forgotten, the ones of you I didn’t get to meet and the one of you who will not dance again. To the girl in the woods, I wept with you. Thank you for sharing your energy, all of you, and in exchange I give you my words and will share my filled-up spirit to everyone I meet.

Damn I sound like a hippie.

So what is this techno music I keep going on about? Pulsing? The ID? The undercurrents of penetrating electronic beats that moves your body and fills up your head and will not goes away? Find out this Tuesday at Vito’s when Oi Vay gets MADE: Struggle, DJ Eddie, and Jeromino will be spinning a lovely evening of techno in an Italian mobster cafe; come out and dance and live a bit more than your normal weekday night. Who knows? It just might change your life.

If you would like to comment on Photosynthesis 1.0, or my review, or on some of the amazing DJ sets I missed because there are not two of me, please comment below. I would love it.

Click here to read more of my show reviews; click here to read all of my random blog posts.

I went to see Moby’s DJ set at the Showbox at the Market last night for a few reasons: sheer curiosity regarding his DJ skills, a $20 ticket price, and an insatiable desire for new musical experiences. I figured I would just chill out at a smooth Sunday night show, grab a beer and a seat in the back, perhaps even take a few notes.

Yeah, right. Like Moby was going to allow me to maintain any illusion that didn’t involve me being front and center and dancing my face off. I had a much better time than I expected to, and the music went straight inside of my body and moved it for me; I had no choice in the matter. The DJ brought out a very diverse group of Seattleites; I adore the random swirling currents of people at a show like this where you see a few regulars from every scene you hang out with in addition to a thousand other people that you have never seen on a dance floor before in your life. Where do they go every other night of the month? It’s a Seattle mystery.

I arrived around 11:30PM, too late to catch any but a couple of songs from the openers. Sadly I missed my favorite opening DJ Nordic Soul’s set completely; Colby B seemed to really light up the masses though, and I responded most to Bret Law’s energy- he really loved the what he was throwing down, hand gesturing and even putting his headphones on to the beat. Ah, unbridled enthusiasm! Passion is what humans respond to. DJs, take note: we love it when the you get into it! If you do, so will we. There is nothing less inspiring than a DJ who is so intent on twisting knobs and pressing buttons that he or she rarely looks up or smiles or interacts with the audience.

Moby did not disappoint in this area, or any other. For this first-timer, I somehow had the impression from his music and videos that he would be a serious-faced DJ, concentrating emphatically on his equipment. Maybe it was because Moby reminds me of that nerdy bald kid in we all knew in high school who was very artistically talented but socially inept. This is not the case. Moby was all smiles last night, clearly enjoying the effect of his beats on the crowd. He came out to touch the hands of the audience three times, driving the girls around me on the front row wild. I do want to state one truth regarding the front row at any show: if you get pissy because people are jumping and dancing and screaming around you, guess what? You don’t belong on the front row. Sorry to break it to you. I don’t go back to the bar area and go nuts, so don’t come to the front and go lame. The girl beside me actually sat down on the stage at one point during his set. Party foul, yo. Par-ty foul.

Moby’s eclectic set definitely represented his appeal to a wide variety of people, all present in their multitude of music personalities. A little dirty bass, a little more house, and a lot of techno; at various points in the show you would see different members of the audience going slightly nuts. Just a little bit though, as the crowd was mainstream-heavy, which I measure by the amount of “crazy girl” looks I get in a night. At hard core electronic music parties people on the dance floor understand and appreciate my unmitigated enthusiasm for the music, my raging dance fever, because they have it too.

Moby did sample some Moby, and of course we loved it; he laid down a choppy version of Porcelain, my favorite song off the album Play. With the beats parsed in, the song wasn’t quite so damn sad and heart-breaky. At the end of his set he walked up to the screaming crowd, soaking in the energy we were giving him, arms raised and eyes closed, for almost a minute before leaving the stage.

But the definite highlight of the night (besides getting to shake his hand three times) was the encore; Moby took us home. Home, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. That’s right, Moby slung some good old G&R much to the delight of the crowd which was in just the right age bracket for Axl’s guitar riffs to stir up some potent coming-of-age verve. The beats started and Moby gave the hand signal: the cue to get-your-ass-up-on-stage-and-dance. He was waving us in! Without hesitation I jumped up onto the stage first, thinking for a split second I might be alone for the get-down, only to be joined a moment later by a mass of people who knocked to oblivion any drinks left on stage in the rush to get closer to the DJ.

We all rocked it like no one’s business mere feet away from the electronic superstar, and Moby was loving it. I was crammed against the DJ set-up at the very front of the mass of people pushing onto the stage, and thought during the heights of the encore frenzy that I might be crushed into the oblivion of the decks and merge forever with the music. However all 5′4″ of me has experience getting down (I’ll show you my scars from Rage Against the Machine’s moshpits later) and I held my ground. Usually my dance motions are upwardly oriented, of the bouncy sort, but during the last of Moby’s set I was completely leaning back, using the weight of the pushing crowd to support me as I grooved. It was absolutely thrilling to be in the epicenter of such deliriously positive energy.

Over a thousand people turned out for Moby’s DJ set; selling out the Showbox at the Market and prompting those outside without tickets to declare loudly on the streets, a là Eminem, “Moby, you’re too old, let go, NOBODY LISTENS TO TECHNO!”

The white boy is right. We don’t listen to techno; we live it, and Moby does too- with a big fat smile on his face the whole time.

Do you know someone who went to Moby’s DJ set at the Showbox? Might they help me figure out the mystery of the disappearing Seattle dance maniacs and where they hide out the rest of the year? Please forward a link for this post to them. United, we can ignite the Seattle electronic music scene and conquer the world, one beat at a time.

Thursday night on Capitol Hill class was in session and the bumpin’ crowd at Neumos got schooled proper-like by two professors of pimpin’, ?uestlove and Black Thought of The Roots. Hot off the opening stage for Erykah Badu at Marymoor Park, the two hip-hop superstars laid down the lessons of life for an eclectic crowd. The show drew people from all different scenes in Seattle- the electronic music kids, hipsters, hip-hopsters, dance freaks, nerds, curious skateboarders, innocent bystanders, and Blake Lewis, who is everywhere. They all came to enroll in Hip-Hop High; you might want to take notes because there will be a test. And get out your history textbooks because what went down last night was Old School, straight up and down like six o’clock.

Lesson 1: Give the ladies Biggie. During the opening DJ’s set, a gorgeous woman who could have been mistaken for Ms. Badu herself came up and asked me if there was any way to get the DJ to spin some Biggie; she was hungry for some East Coast flavor in her Thursday night soup. “Aks him,” I replied, and helped her out doing the deed myself (I have no fear of DJs; they only rarely bite). “Can you play some Biggie? This beautiful woman wants to hear him.” The DJ seemed to acquiesce to my request only to fail to drop said Biggie beats. DENIED! The hot chick was quite disappointed until the real show started and ?uestlove proceeded to show quite a bit of love to the East Coast and Mr. Smalls himself. And we didn’t even have to aks.

Lesson 2: Session Lager comes in really big bottles. Forty ounces for eight dollars. Drink it fast or you will find yourself in warm beer city.

Lesson 3. Black Thought is the quintessential MC; he brings meaning back to the two letters. This man had the crowd going nuts, reaching out over the front of the dance floor and dusting the fingertips of his fans with magical MC power.

Lesson 4: ?uestlove CAN SPIN, even when he is really, really, stoned.

Lesson 5: You cannot bring bottles of wine into Neumos.

Lesson 6: Everybody still really loves that Biz Markie song; just sing it to yourself to get the full effect: “OH BABY YOU, YOU GOT WHAT I NE-ED…” (and now it will be stuck in your head all day).

Lesson 7: The front of the dance floor is where it is at. This holds true at every show but in particular at this one; the sing-along effect was in full force, championed by the ladies with big smiles on their faces and arms waving in the air. Only happy people put their arms above their head; this is a well-documented cross-cultural human trait. Also only happy people sing along to Old School anthems by Eazy-E, the Beastie Boys, and even a classic anthem from E.U. (Google it; this is a family website). You can take the kids out of the 80’s but you can’t take the 80’s out of the kids.

Lesson 8: The source of all of ?uestlove’s power is THE PICK.

Lesson 9: Neumos’ capacity has recently been drastically lowered, thank you Mayor I-Hate-Rock-and-Roll Nichols. Although it was nice to be able to leave the front of the dance floor and find a little space in the back of the room to cool off (impossible at many previous shows), I worry about the implication of this recent development and what it means for the future of not only Neumos but other venues and dance floors (my home) around Seattle.

Lesson 10: CultureMob.com freakin’ rocks, and not just because we got to hang out with ?uestlove and Black Thought. CultureMob is now open in the San Diego, Phoenix, and Boston markets in addition to our existing sites in Portland, Denver, and Seattle. CultureMob.com is the next generation of online social networking. We take it one much better step further than Myspace or Facebook by giving you information that gets your network OUT, a place that is far spicier, louder, more colorful, more fun, and most importantly more real than the internet; it is a place where you can touch and smell and hear and actually engage the people you have been stalking online. Welcome back to reality.

CultureMob.com thanks ?uestlove and Black Thought for the killer mixes and raps, and we thank you, the people out there enjoying life last night.

Did I say there was going to be a test? Here it is: Get out there this weekend, Seattle. Get out there, and get down.

(AND YES, I DID MEAN TO SPELL ‘ASK’ LIKE ‘AKS’ . For more information please refer to the album “Doggystyle” by Snoop Doggy Dogg. Thank you.

Most guys out there probably think that Sex in the City is all about sex.

Most guys are wrong. (I know, it’s a shocking revelation).

Sex and the City is about relationships.

The HBO series definitely had heaps of humping, scorching hot love affairs and brunch conversations about randy nights spent with multitude of men, no doubt about it. Like the Mary Tyler Moore show before it, Sex in the City stared in the face the prevailing stereotypes and conceptions about single women and what they want, although the Paris-studded finale did end up with all four of the ladies happily attached to their man of the moment. Sure, Sex in the City is about sex. But the most important theme of the movie is also the most important part of a female’s life, and that is the story of relationships, the undulating aspects of our connections with other human beings, be they children or mothers or friends or sweaty lovers.

I went to the Sunday matinee at the Guild 45th Landmark Theatre along with a crowd that was over 95% females from about their 20’s to 50’s; a few were accompanied by men hoping to earn points with the female and catch a glimpse of T & A (it’s a win-win, boys). A few cheers went down as the curtain went up, and as soon as the story began we were wrapped in attention, right back in New York City with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. Judging from the estrogen-fueled crowd’s sighs, belly laughs, chuckles, gasps, and tears, I know that women will love this movie. We may not all buy $525 shoes and have assistants and strut like peacocks down 5th avenue, but we have lived the same relationship themes as these women. We have loved wildly and unreasonably. We have been hurt tortuously. We have found good friends and have lost them. You might think that women are loud as hell in big groups (true) and can never be quiet, but you could hear a pin drop in the theatre when one of the character’s men admitted an affair with another woman.

“It didn’t mean anything,” he pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you.” Dead silence. These women in the theatre had heard it before, perhaps even the exact same words. You could taste the deep silence, broken only in several moments by sniffles. Women were crying; not because of the made-up characters but for the true stories those characters were living.

Although parts of Sex in the City are tear-provoking, it is also a very funny movie, and there was peals of high-pitched laughter to offset those sniffles. One particular scene proves that women think toilet humor is absolutely hilarious, just as we all know men do. And yes, there’s lots of sex and raunchy talk and gratuitous scenes of male anatomy.

But the main point of the movie, the reason the TV series was so popular, and the dominant theme of our female lives is that of relationships: building them, nurturing them, living them, and being rendered to absolute, flat-line silence when those relationships are destroyed. For 99% of human existence, broken human relationships could mean death for a female and her offspring. That is why we go to the bathroom in groups, chat loudly with our friends in the ticket line, obsess about minor details of our relationships and look over often to make sure we are being accepted and loved by our peers. We have Stone Age female brains, even if our feet are wearing Manolos and our head is wearing a bird. And those female brains are as different from male brains as are our bodies and our taste in movies.

Sex in the City is a total chick flick. Do you have two X chromosomes? You will love it, just as sure as you wish you could be as ballsy as Samantha, as quick-witted as Miranda, as persistently optimistic as Charlotte and as good of a friend as Carrie. Bring some girlfriends and do what you do best: nurture your relationships.

Stuck with a Y chromosome along with a male brain? You just might enjoy the movie anyway- after all, it’s all about sex.

Find theaters and show times for Sex and the City here.

What if Sex and the City was set in Seattle? It might be a little like this.

Get some buttered popcorn and a large blue Slurpee and make sure you have arrived at the theatre early for good seats and in time see the coming attractions, because Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the ultimate movie experience. The movie is best seen at a ridiculous theatre like the AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16 which has all the pomp of a Roman arena along with the glitz and glamour that represented La-La Land before Hollywood surrendered to the leagues of talentless poster-children for nepotism with no panties on.

First of all I will tell you I am a huge Indiana Jones fan. HUGE. I know every single line of the first three movies, a standard characteristic brought about by a childhood with an older brother. If I wanted a playmate I had my choice: Legos or Super Mario Brothers. Even as a young girl I was aware that knowing is half the battle, that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, and that anything is possible by the power of Grayskull. But my favorite boy-toy was Indiana Jones; I wanted to be an archaeologist until I realized that they spent far more time painstakingly digging through dirt than romping the world in hot pursuit of fortune and glory.

That said, I LOVED Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You know who is in it, you know who directed it, you know it will start off with the fade from the Paramount Logo to a real “mountain” of some sort. And you will love this movie too. Of course there are always the whiners who complain that it is no fun to watch an old guy romp around in a fedora and that the movie is cheesy and unrealistic; however I don’t subscribe to the Church of Worshipped Youth and I also realize that OF COURSE it’s unrealistic- it’s a movie! We don’t want to watch the admirable Dr. Jones sorting his laundry, we want to watch him crawling around in haunted tombs, searching for hidden treasure while avoiding snakes, curses, booby traps and Commies- all of which he does in the latest epic adventure. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is non-stop action.

Do you want quicksand and motorcycle chases and jungle ruins and ancient secrets? Do you like fast-paced stories which combine coming-of-age themes with world travel and a romantic edge? How about waterfalls, dark paths through thick trees, dangerous car chases, secret codes, kidnapped professors, crazy monkeys, bad guys who are so evil they look it, carnivorous ants and a hero who can take punch after punch and ends up getting the girl in a happy ending? Of course you do. These archetypal stories have been told as long as humans could tell them. 

Just like our ancestors we live in a world where there are no pure heroes or totally bad guys, where you don’t always get what you want and there is seldom a happy, sunset-drenched ending. Modern Americans wouldn’t know an adventure if it hit them in the face like a giant rolling boulder, and if they did they would certainly run back to their couches and frozen pizza. Hollywood knows us. You can try to insist that you like deep dramas with twisted characters and sordid finales, and I might believe you there, but everybody likes stories about booby-trapped tombs and quicksand.

And carnivorous ants go so well with popcorn.

For theaters near you and showtimes for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, click here.

CultureMob.com likes to cover unusual events like pillow fights and power tool races, so how about a fashion show that promises to plunge into the world of Seattle fashion, oxymoron which that might be?

The Fashion Group International and Seattle Pacific University’s Fashion Group have joined together for Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans: A Story of Fashion and Our Lives. This fundraising event, taking place Saturday May 31 at 6PM, will take a look at the role that fashion plays in each of our lives along with music, food, shopping, and raffle prizes. Culturally determined and identity confirming, the clothes we wear are much more than the sum of their threads. 

Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans will illuminate the role that fashion plays in our lives through four themes: fashion as military power and oppression, fashion as environment, fashion as religion, and fashion as social justice. Put on by a zealous group of student fashionistas, this event will surely raise more questions than it answers- but questions are more fun anyway, right?

I have never owned a pair of designer jeans and the only gas mask experience I’ve had was certainly not of the chemical warfare variety, but I am guilty (as my feet attest) of subjecting myself to the torture device that are stilettos. I am not sure how exactly fashion can be social justice- but this is exactly why I should hit up this event, held at Seattle Pacific University.

Find out all the information about Gas Masks, Stilettos, and Designer Jeans here.

Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha strut onto big screens this Friday not just in New York City but in metropoli all over the country. All of you Sex and the City fans know that the fifth character in the HBO series was not Aidan or Stanford or Steve or even Mr. Big- no, that most important player was the Big Apple itself. There is no sex without The City.

Or is there? What if you took away the character of Manhattan and replaced it with, say, Seattle? Would the show have been so different? Pour yourself a cosmopolitan (or better yet, have your man-toy do it) and relax into the world of Sex and the City: Seattle Style:

• Miranda is a lawyer for Boeing who lives in Belltown and regularly bitches to the city about the crackheads and prostitutes on her street. Luckily for Miss Smarty-Pants there are plenty of well-read men with frayed library cards in this town to keep up with her in conversation- though no one on earth can match her knifelike wit, propelled by the fine forces of cynicism and sarcasm. Miranda’s favorite club? The see-and-be-seen venue of conspicuous consumption Club Venom, of course.
• Charlotte arranges exhibits at the Seattle Art Museum and does charity work for singles’ group Space City Mixer, a group who she considers in need of charity indeed. This unapologetic yuppie lives on uppity Mercer Island and spends her evenings online ordering designer clothes and hanging out with metrosexuals at The Last Supper Club in Pioneer Square.
• Samantha handles PR for Microsoft, giving her plenty of opportunities to play with rich men. Though she works in Redmond, she would never live in a place as sterile and un-hip as the Eastside and instead has purchased a new and fancy condo in the grittiest, most interesting neighborhood in Seattle: Capitol Hill. Samantha fits in well with the flavor and color of the quarter and gives as good as she gets with the street kids, buskers, and bums. She relaxes with her favorite bunch of people at The Cuff Complex.
• Carrie writes a sex column for the Seattle Weekly which is giving Savage Love a run for its money for the naughtiest, dirtiest, and best love and sex column in the country; ‘Date Girl” now writes for a more appropriate publication, Teen Magazine. Carrie lives in Fremont and shops at all the annoying chi-chi boutiques, somehow buying $200 teeshirts and $500 purses on a writer’s salary. She hangs out where all the hot guys in Fremont are: the Nectar Lounge, of course.

The four women meet for Sunday brunch at Julia’s in Wallingford, wearing not Manolo Blahniks but Tevas with rolled-up jeans (acceptable fashion in the rainy city- admit it, you’ve done it); drinking double espressos and diving into plates of Eggs Benedict (they don’t have to starve themselves quite so much outside of NYC).

For a long weekend the girls vacation not in the Hamptons but in Hawaii, which is the closest and most accessible beach to Seattle (and by most accessible I mean you can actually swim in the water, not that our four heroines would dream of doing so). There is no strolling with beaus in Central Park for Carrie, only walking around Green Lake- and she’d better walk, not meander, or the rollerbladers/runners/multi-tasking women jogging with a double stroller and two large dogs while talking on the phone will run her ass over.

So who do these alpha-women date? It’s a little harder in the Emerald City where most men hale from the Land of Passive-Aggressiva; there are no eager stockbrokers here, no modelizers, no models, and no tycoons of any sort, save the software brains and Boeing boys. Our girls are left with:

Mr. Bike-to-Work Guy: With skin-tight duds and shaved legs, he often gets asked the question, “Do you really need an all-spandex outfit to ride from Wallingford to Queen Anne?” The answer is always NO, people, and Miranda lets him know it, before rolling her eyes and moving on.
The Outdoorsman: Bad news for Carrie and her hatred of squirrels which are “just rats in cuter outfits,” because all over Seattle you find this R.E.I. gear-wearing, head-to-Tiger-Mountain-after-work, long weekend on the Peninsula, boat-loving guy who rarely brushes his hair, and despite herself, Carrie can’t get enough. Hope she has waterproof gear for the spring nights spent in the Cascades.
The Rocker: Found all over the streets of Seattle, the musician is passionate, a little dirty, preoccupied with his band but prone to grand romantic gestures. Charlotte is a goner for this type, until she realizes he has gestured romantically for half the females in the city.
Mr. No-Balls: He epitomizes the saying, “He’s just not that into you,” because he’s just not into anything- living is a bit risky, after all. He is eaten alive by Samantha before he opens his mouth. One lost, 200,000 to go. Good thing she is hungry.
The DJ: A species almost as numerous as The Rocker in Seattle, the spin-master lives the conundrum which Carrie must use all of her journalistic training and wicked flirting skills to figure out: all the DJs are man-whores, yet all the DJs have girlfriends. Carrie susses the mystery out, and the answer is not pretty.
The Hipster: Recognizable by his tight black jeans, chunky silver jewelry, perfectly beaten-up skate shoes and hair mussed just so over the right eye, the hipster is too cool to care about anything really, except himself. Is it possible that the hipster is just an emo who is too old to be an emo anymore? Discuss amongst yourselves, at brunch.

So there you have it; Sex in the City Seattle Style is a little bit the same, and a whole lot different. To really understand the women we must walk a block in their Choos; don’t miss the movie Sex and the City, opening all over the area on Friday, and on Thursday at midnight at select venues like the Regal Meridian 16 in downtown Seattle, Lincoln Square Cinema in Bellevue, and AMC Loews Alderwood Mall 16 up north.

Will the movie be any good? Abso-F*cking-Lutely.

Read my review of Sex and the City the Movie here.