For homegrown innovation in collaborative performing arts, one can turn with confidence to Seattle’s Degenerate Art Ensemble. Their latest, Silvering Path is up through this weekend at the intriguing experiment in urban reclamation, Free Sheep Foundation.

Ninjas attack the Weeble Wobble - a dreamer (as vividly expressed in the video work of Leo Mayberry) wearing a fantastic musical dress (made by Anna Lange and Circus Contraption’s Colin Ernst). The foes have a wonderfully percussive battle. See below for a glimpse of the dress being tested out.

Next we watch the beautiful, seemingly circuitous relationship between the sower and the slug princess in a film by Ian Lucero featuring the fiber work of Mandy Greer (whose work was shown this summer at the Bellevue Art Museum).

And finally we meet the slug princess in person (donning Greer’s impressive work) and learn a bit more about her in a dance solo by Haruko Nishimura with live music by Jeffrey Huston and Joshua Kohl.

The show was unique and wonderful, so hurry out to see it. Pick up your tickets before hand, too, as it has sold out every night so far. Finally, be prepared to imbibe as there are very distinctive cocktails to be experienced as well.

Here’s that weeble wobble dress test footage:

Weeble Wobble 4 from joshua kohl on Vimeo.

WOW, WOW, WOW. What a weekend. What a swirling mess of art, what an epic adventure in electronica, what a bad-ass dance festival, what an fantastic experience to have shared with friends. I had one of the best weekends of my life, and yall know I have a hell of a lot of great weekends.

Seattle has just been injected with a reinvigorating shot of electronic adrenaline. I keep hearing the word “inspired” roll off the tongues of the many friends who came out. DJs are talking about taking their art in new directions and dancers got their groove back. All the local performers that I saw really threw down, bringing up their game and refusing to have anything but a killer time. The visiting artists I have spoken with since this weekend had a blast in our city as well and loved the Seattle crowds that showed up; it was really neat for me to see all the different performers out and about checking out other artists and their work. The sound everywhere was excellent (why can’t we have this all the time?) and I discovered new music from around the world as well as from locals which has changed the way I see the world, as good art should. Score.

And I TOLD YOU dB in the Park with the Glitch Mob was going to be insane- and the freaks and robots definitely showed up! Thank you my friends!

It seems like I should be tired or hungover or something, but right now I feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and ready to go. Which is a good thing, since I leave for Thailand tomorrow morning- but before I leave, I want to share with you my impressions and adventures of the past weekend. I made it to nineteen showcases, one conference, and three unofficial afterhours, two official afterhours, hung out with Jahcoozi until 8AM, had fun messing around with Deadmau5’s head, ate crab wontons with edIT and Boreta, and I am still standing. And glowing. And ready for next year.

DAY 1:

My Decibel began officially at Grey Gallery on Thursday night where the Oi Vay boys were warming up the lounge with their sexy beats; Struggle was up top spinning and Eddie was dancing around like the lovable soul he is. This was not to be the last time I ran into this Seattle legend shaking his ass during the weekend- that boy gets down, for real.

I hung out at Sole Repair for a bit where Team Peloton was tearing it up; I tried bouncing back and forth into Neumos but the opening acts were all a bit too slow for me/not my cup of tea/kill me now and I kept finding myself back in Sole Repair where the dancing was goo-od mmm mmm. Those boys know how to make the people DANCE!

I like being able to see the DJ and so hung out upstairs which had more room for the freaky dancers with flailing arms, like me. Around 1AM when INCITE! aka Sean Horton went on we all donned mustaches to wish him a happy birthday (not sure where the mustaches fit in- though I do know a lot of French bicyclists with beards). I am a big fan of Sean’s new moniker and hope to see more of his more aggressive and visceral style soon in the future. I really enjoyed Stewart Walker as well, he was sweating and dancing to his beats almost as much as the wild crowd was.

Then I RAN back over to Neumos where Jahcoozi was running slightly late but noshing on snacks downtstairs in great spirits; I have been a big fan of theirs for a while and this was one of the acts I was really stoked about experiencing. Sasha and Oren took the stage and proceeded to turn the club on its head- what started as a half-full room of looky-loos ended in an all-out dance brawl. MC and rapper Sasha kept jumping down into the crowd and we all gathered around her like we were third-graders on a playground and she was the cool girl, dancing in a circle and getting down and getting dirty. She WAS the cool girl, and with her I-don’t-give-a-shit dance moves, heavy crowd interaction, sharp lyrics and mad trumpet skills she won over everyone there as did Oren, backing her up with his keen beats and electric bass.

Jahcoozi’s performance was definitely one of the highlights of the festival for me and I have heard the same from several people. And for the love of God can people stop comparing Sasha to MIA? The only thing they have in common is that they both rap and neither one of them are white- and there it ends. Sasha’s intelligent lyrics blow MIA’s out of the water- open your ears and listen and you will see the cliched comparisons are just the work of lazy music journalists.

After the Jahcoozi show we all went and kicked it in the Green Room where we talked to them about their trip up the West Coast (Seattle was their favorite show, ahem), Berlin (the scene there is as great as you think it is) and tried on Sasha’s sweet fur hat. I made the bands.tv guys and my coworker Cedric wait until about 3AM for the live streamed interview, but finally Jahcoozi was ready and we had a quick chat for the camera before all heading off to Sean’s birthday party in the loft above Grey Gallery which was rockin’ and hot and sweaty, just like a good afterhours should be.

Then we left with Jahcoozi and partied all night until breakfast hour back at the Best Western Executive Inn. The food sucked.

DAY 2:

On Friday I was up for the lunchtime dB Conference on (duh) music journalism where I got insights from writers from XLR8R, Resident Advisor, the Stranger and more. One striking fact of the panel for me was that in a room of about thirty artists, only two were female, myself included. Where the ladies at? Next year, how about a panel on the dearth of female artists in the electronic arts?

Making my Friday was a delicious French-toast crepe and Wasabi Bloody Mary from Grey Gallery; highly recommended if you like your hangover with pickled okra and a very, very clear head.

That night I returned to Grey to catch a little of the Kulturszene DJ lounge before heading over to Neumos for the Dirty Dancing showcase where Let’s Go Outside was tearing it up. I love this DJ for his music and for this. I wanted to stay but my heady bass-freak self propelled me all the way over to the Baltic Room for the Native State Showcase; this venue is the perfect match for the Dark Lords of Native State. Welder was keeping the crowd wobbling and soon KiloWatts was shaking the whole earth with his structured and driving brand of crunky bass- this sound pioneer gave one of the best performances of Decibel, for sure. The people were lapping it up like kittens. Evil little kittens.

It was hard to pull away but I had to head back over to Neumos for Deadmau5. I lost track of how many times I went back and forth between the Baltic and the Pike Street area; I walked it at least four times, took a cab twice, drove at least once and bummed a ride a couple of times. Once I took a hoola hoop.

I really didn’t know what to think of Deadmau5- I am familiar with his music and had done some research for a pre-Decibel article but had never seen him live and really didn’t know what to think of Mr. Joel Zimmerman. Downstairs at Neumos he was chilling and connecting the mad wireage inside his now-blue Mau5head, whose ears are a lovely velour, fun to rub, and insured. He was feeling a little pain from the night before in Edmonton where he and his manager had tied one on, but there was no hint of that at all when the Mau5 took the stage, because-

Deadmau5 completely blew me away. His performance was my biggest surprise of the festival. Dance-floor transcendence, and you know what I mean. I tend to fall into the brainwaves of “oh, everyone in the world likes this artist, so he must really suck”- but Deadmau5 simply wrecked mad destruction; the dance floor was so freaking packed you hardly even had to dance- all the people around you just moved your body around for you, and all you had to do was give yourself to it. I really don’t think Joel knows how good he is, despite all the Beatport awards and accolades; all he cares about is getting back into his studio and making music. No really, that is all he cares about.

However we did convince him to head over to the Church of Bass for the Subsequence afterhours and arrived just in time for the very last of Kris Moon’s set and then proceeded to get sticky with Phidelity whose psychedelic robotty-bass grooved perfectly with the dark dance church, all decked out for the festival with sweet black light art. We then got a second dose of Brendan Angelides aka Welder who performed this time as Eskmo, who is a dreamy poet of electronic intensity- I don’t know what world he comes from, but I want to buy a ticket.

DAY 3:

Saturday morning started with a trip to the airport to pick up my very favorite producers in all of the universe- edIT and Boreta of the Glitch Mob. Sadly I missed a lot of Decibel in the Park but I heard that Noisemaker laid it down proper, as usual. I rolled up in style with my precious cargo around 4PM just as Jacob London was finishing up and Truckasauras were getting set up with their Americanakitsch: gold Zelda cartridge, Uncle Sam hats and all. Who wants to bet that was Maker’s Mark in that plastic cup?

Truckasauras was good but I live for the Glitch Mob and now my dear children, you can see why. I think I personally called every single one of my friends and told them to go to this performance or I would kill them. And over a dozen of them came up and thanked me afterwards for the mind-blowing experience. edIT and Boreta (and Kraddy and OOah, the missing mobsters) create something new with each live show; you either get it or you don’t, and something tells me the mass of people dancing their asses off for an hour and a half GOT IT. Burner breaks, glitch hop, laser bass, Crunkedouthyphyfunkadelicpsybrokenwhomphopmusicforbasssluts or whatever you want to call it; the Glitch Mob pushes through boundaries like they aren’t even there (like the spoon) and they have a hell of a time doing it.

Great success! Decibel in the Park was mad fun, just like you knew it would be. The fact that the showcase was free added to the aesthetic and I know of at least one person who asserted that the Glitch Mob changed his life (me too). I hope to see more outdoor shows at Volunteer Park and of course, more freaks.

After a nap and a shower I headed over to Grey Gallery quickly to say hi to the Sweatbox and Knight Riders kids (I LOVE TECHNO) and then got myself to the Baltic Room where I made yet another exciting artist discovery at the Ghostly Showcase: Deru, who was taking things on a dark and twisty turn there on the dance floor. The dirty sounds got me all worked up which was just perfect because I hopped a cab up to Chop Suey where things were CRACK-EN’ in mad firecracker style. In the hot-as-hell side room Swank was ripping it up like a pirate and Sean Majors followed suite, keeping the energy ramped up, and over in the main room LA Riots started laying crazy on the crowd who flipping loved it.

Once again I was forced to pull myself away from the bRave New World Showcase and head to Neumos for Carl Craig; the end of Audion’s set had the people bursting in bubbles and then THE DETROIT LEGEND stepped up- and this is where I should stop writing. I danced for his entire set like a raving madwoman, like a lunatic with no lunch, like the insane devotee of the cult of dance that I am. I don’t know what tracks he played, I don’t know what he mixed in or how he did it, I don’t know his no-doubt long list of props, awards, and accolades. I was dripping, dripping with sweat, it was in my fat eyes and stupid smile which did not wear off all night (and is in fact still there right now).

This is what I live for, why I stay hours late at my office writing for you, why I go out all the time in search of it- it is why I do what I do- so that I can have this divine experience, and it is no less than that. My brain stops working completely and the music takes me over and I experience something that I cannot find elsewhere- not from a person, not from a drug, not from anything else on earth. THIS IS WHY WE DANCE. THANK YOU CARL CRAIG. No really, I love techno.

After three days of dancing of course I wanted to dance more and headed to a friend’s afterparty first; the dubstep was icky-icky but just not what I was searching for so I trolled down to the Church of Bass once again for yet another WOW experience and discovered yet another new favorite performer of the festival: Dixon. Oh. My. God. You would think the people on his dance floor had been sleeping for a thousand years instead of going for three days of Decibel. Taimur Agha kept it bangin’ as well and I left after several more hours of epic dance trance- a very very great day in the life, right?

DAY 4:

After a respectable amount of sleep I was up on Sunday I made it to Havana’s just in time to catch Sun Tzu Sound, though not so for the barbeque from Austin which was long gone. This Texas girl was very sad, although the bartender had stashed some chicken back so I did get a little fix of homefood. I wasn’t expecting to dance, just to relax, but the warm, tribal sounds echoing out of the parking lot had a different idea, and soon I was getting down with a few others in the shady pink parking lot- so perfect for a city barbeque. Jeremy Ellis was out chillin’ in his sweet yellow suit and red ponytail and jumped in for a minute to play along with SunTzu. People kept strolling by the gates, watching us dance and listening to the beats and wondering where they took a wrong turn in life. (Yeah it was at the intersection of Mainstream Avenue and Live-For-Art Street).

Still hungry from my teaser barbeque experience, I drove over to the Triple Door to the Ambient Showcase for a little Deaf Center and a cheese plate. At the second door I ran into Akira Rabelais and we had quite the lovely wine experience all backed up with some creepy-ass music that would chill my bones right off if I played it late at night at my house and would no doubt inspire me to turn on every single light that I could. I think they call this kind of music “haunting”.

I went to this Ambient Showcase on the recommendation of everyone who has ever told me in my life to slow down- which is like 8000 people. I did, and it was as lovely as the wine I shared with Akira. I hung on for a little of Eluvium and then took my leave to go get down for one lovely last night of Decibel- it was time to dance!

Over at Sole Repair my favorite people in the world, Innerflight, were getting things started with J-Sun and then Kadeejah Streets up on the decks and swinging hard and low with their music- I don’t know who loved it more, the DJs or the crowd below. Upstairs once again in the gallery the dance freaks were rocking it; the crowd wasn’t as thick as it had been for the weekend nights but for those of us there it just meant more dance floor, because the music was definitely right up there with the best of the weekend.

Again- tough choices- I left to catch Flying Lotus who was incredibly entertaining and a gentleman to boot. He has to be one of the most talented and critically-acclaimed artists of the weekend, and for good reason. The Bug and the Warrior Queen didn’t so much do it for me, I loved the heavy vibrating bass but couldn’t seem to get into it and found myself outside socializing more than dancing- which shouldn’t happen in Shilo World (see Carl Craig above).

Supermayer brought it back for me though with their adorably clever musical attitude and I would have rocked out until the sugar-sweet ending- but m.0 was on fire next door and I wanted to blaze with him. I walked in to Sole Repair to see him in the middle of the dance floor with his trademark giant smile and seriously talented beat-mastery. Fantastic, beautiful, and epic. m.0 is the shit in this town plain and simple and is only going up, up, up, and Seattle will be right behind him with a big “Hell Yeah.”

After two I headed out for my fourth afterhours of the weekend where once again the music was top notch, the crowd was off their heads with excitement, Flying Lotus was chilling on the windowsill and I danced until I was wringing out my shirt AND JEANS. Wringing out my jeans, people. I was in bed by 6:30AM which didn’t quite give me the sleep I needed to be all perky and Shilo-like by my office meeting at 10AM- but I sure as hell was still dancing on the inside, as I will be for a while, thanks to Decibel Festival.

And thanks to you, everyone involved which is about a billion people, from the director down to the kids who shucked out money to see a show and over to the bouncer sweeping up cigarette butts. The electronic music community here in Seattle is alive and well, full of passion and smiling faces, exploding with talent and gaining more adherents every day. We must harness the excitement and enthusiasm for our music that you are all feeling right now and use it promote the talented artists among us, to work for more and bigger music venues in Seattle, to support newcomers to our scene, and to share with others what electronic music has meant to us, which more than can be put into words.

I too am inspired not only by all the new music and art in my head but by the fact that one person with a little help from friends can make a huge impact on the international electronic arts community which we are part of; mad mad props to Sean Horton. Thanks to everyone who handed out a flyer, reposted a Myspace bulletin, told a friend about the festival or simply showed up and danced. Rest assured that people returned home with respect for the Seattle electronic music community in their hearts, and I am honored to have been able to contribute to this epic electronic arts mania riot love dance fever weekend we like to call the Decibel Festival. Thanks you.

And now I ask you a favor- I would usually go back and add in links back to CultureMob.com for all of the artists, venues, and events as well as going back and editing the hell out of this write up at least three times, adding clever remarks and innuendos.

However I seriously have a flight to Thailand in less than twelve hours and should probably go home and start packing.

So if you would, my friends, check out CultureMob.com- register if you haven’t already, make a comment, and find out about local events coming up in Seattle and all over the country. CultureMob is all about promoting artists and venues and you will no doubt find some sweet events you didn’t know about, not only live music events but art, comedy, movies, sports, theater, and more. Sign up and make Shilo happy- well, happier. ‘Cuz I’m floating on beats right now.

Click here to go to CultureMob’s listing of upcoming Seattle electronic music events.

That’s it! I am off to Thailand. Catch you on the flip-flop. And one last time until next year, Happy Decibel.

I returned to Seattle Sunday night around 8PM from three days of camping, dancing, partying in tents and jamming out to sick electronic music like next week was Armageddon, going on about three hours of sleep with a car and a face full of sand, sunburned shoulders, river hair, a pack full of wet clothes and muddy shoes. There was only one thing I was up for-

Sunset Seattle: the Decibel Festival prefunk by Innerflight at Golden Gardens, of course!

Why? Because Innerflight can party, and I KNOW THIS.

So I raced out to my favorite Seattle park just in time for the beginning of Novatron’s set as well as for the onslaught of pouring rain, which in fact seemed to be having precious little effect on the dancing crowd who had obviously been living it up all day long. Nova was laying it down fat and bassy like the people like it and having quite a bit of fun himself, and dancers were straight getting down in the downpour, rocking it hard right out in front of the sound master. Dancing in the rain on a beach to Novatron was the perfect cap to an excellent weekend, especially as the experience included recognizing friend after friend in the darkness next to me smiling, grooving, shaking the wet right from them and reveling in the warm cozy feeling that is the Seattle electronic music community.

And we are a community, which today is no longer defined by tradition or geography or family but by interest- and we love the beats, baby. Whether you are a househead, a techno freak, a drum and bass fanatic, a wonky dubstep lover, a breaks ninja, electro warrior, a spirit dancer or just a total bass slut like me, we all share a great passion for electronic music and the community created around it, and we should not take it for granted. We understand how very important creative expression is to human beings. Dancing is my religion, and it is all the promoters, DJs, dancers, producers, party-throwers and guys who haul heavy-ass speakers that enable me to indulge in the most important thing in life, having fun. Thank you.

And you can thank them by showing up at the Decibel Festival, not only for the big names like Deadmau5 and Carl Craig but for all the locals involved in the festival as well. Go to the free DJ lounges going on each night at Grey Gallery, indulge in a little more of the freaky beat goodness that is Novatron at the Sensory Effect Showcase, and check out all the other local performances including the Innerflight Showcase taking place Sunday night at Sole Repair. Get a pass so you can hop around the whole weekend to all the venues and not miss anything, and let’s show ‘em how we roll in the 206. And tell the musicians who make your life better just that; your words feed their souls and you know those starving artists need a burger now and then.

If Innerflight’s prefunk was any indication of what will ensue at Decibel, get ready and load up on the morning-after Emergen-C, because all those freaks were going wild in the rain, and I was proud to be one of them.

For more information including the full lineup and artist information for the 2008 Decibel Festival of Electronic Music Performance, Visual Art and New Media taking place THIS WEEK in Seattle, click here.

To read my guide and showcase picks for the Decibel Festival, click here.

To visit the official Decibel Festival website with all the juicy goods, click here.

See you on the dance floor.

Deadmau5 is the reigning monarch of the Land of Electronic Music and his kingdom is the international dance floor of Right Now. In less than a year a certain young Canadian by the name of Joel Zimmerman has gone from a relatively unknown music nerd to a music nerd who is the most lauded and in-demand producer in the world. If you haven’t heard the music of Deadmau5, you’re wrong- you have heard it, and you just didn’t know it because at the time you were dancing too hard to ask somebody who made the music that was rocking your world.

Deadmau5 produces almost everything and he does it all very, very well. He dabbles in techno, winks at minimal, dips his toes in trance, plays footsie with progressive, makes overtly amorous glances at electro, and screws house’s brains out. Versatility and quality are rare bed partners in the music world, but Deadmau5 proves the stereotypes wrong like a good artist should- and he does it while wearing an enormous strobing red and white mau5 head with LED eyes and a goofy, open smile. Somebody fax Berlin.

The diversity and depth of the talent of the Mau5 King is confirmed by the ridiculously long list of awards he has received in the last year. From Beatport he claimed Producer of the Year, Best Electro House Artist, Best Progressive House Artist, Best Single (“Not Exactly”), 3rd Place for Best Remix (“Burufunk’ Carbon Community ‘Community Funk”), as well as earning the kick-ass title of Most “Influential, Forward-Thinking, and Relevant” Person of the Year. Deadmau5 was also nominated this past May for two Juno awards (akin to the Canadian Grammies), was included on no less than fifteen compilation albums, and had more downloads, number one hits, and held the number one spot longer than any other artist on Beatport. Ever.

And it was ever since Pete Tong played the track “Faxing Berlin” on BBC’s Radio One that the music of the shy, 28 year-old Torontonian who sleeps on a futon has spread across the world like a colony of rabid mice, taking up residence in the brains of beat-freaks from Seattle to Sydney. His collaborations with Steve Duda (BSOD) and Kaskade have received widespread acclaim as has his work with Tommy Lee, resulting in a musical WTF? (Google it). Deadmau5 is rearranging the very idea of what a live electronic music performance should be, raising the standard and setting higher expectations of visual engagement. His inventive approach is welcomed by his subjects as are the driving melodies and powerful rhythms that characterize his productions. Deadmau5 headlined almost every major electronic music festival in 2008 from DEMF to Ultra Music Festival and began a fifty-city world tour September 1, with plans to destroy every giant dance floor along the way, including one at the upcoming 2008 Decibel Festival in Seattle.

But Deadmau5 is more than sweet beats with a fun delivery- his party music is set beyond the boundaries of easy name tags and is tinged with the dark breath of the absurd. His theatrical approach and even his rise to fame symbolize Right Now; Deadmau5 and his music exist on the very edge of the modern world, the place where the electronic arts community dances and pushes forward innovations in technology and creative expression. The high BPM at which Deadmau5 came to prominence in the international club scene is indicative of nature of the community behind the electronic arts, a group whose very existence owes itself to communication via computers. Creative expression has always been dependent on technology, ever since a Neanderthal picked up a stick to enhance the ooh-factor of her cave paintings. Our uber-modern community is a contemporary collective not defined by the traditional elements of geography or family, but by a shared interest in artistic production through electronic media. We share stories not around a campfire but through a monitor; we tell of our heroes not with sweeping gestures but in kilobytes per second. We create an ongoing wild frenzy of information trade that can result in the near insta-fame that Deadmau5 has enjoyed, impossible in any other time in human history.

Deadmau5 reminds us that Right Now is also the Age of the Nerd. Boys and girls alone in front of their computers pressing buttons are conquering the planet, and mad computer skills are trumping social skills as the go-to characteristics to possess in order to succeed in the world. Thankfully for the extroverts, Deadmau5 takes his magic OUT of the home studio and leaves the realm of the socially awkward. Armed only with a laptop, a Lemur touchpad, and a custom-made mau5 costume, he delivers a unique and forceful sound in a way that no one else is doing, convincing every soul on his dance floor that this isn’t just some rat fink shtick.

With so many awards, accolades, booty-moving hits and jam-packed dance floors around the world, the only thing that any one even to say against Mr. Mau5 is that his music is pure party music for fun times; his productions do not invoke any series of serious emotions. Damn straight. It seems that many people, artists in particular, give more value to the expression of negative emotions that positive ones; a movie or song that takes you on a head-trip through your last life-destroying experience always ranks higher with the critics than a happy ha-ha story. This is why you always see poets on the back of their book jackets looking so serious, hand to chin, furrowed brow. Well, this is 2008 and all bets are off. It is a post-post-post-everything life and bliss, euphoria, ecstasy, and joy are the most valuable emotions around. When you share them with another human being, whether beside you on the bed or the dance floor, you transcend together. Bliss inspires us; joy changes lives. And no one creates dance floor euphoria right now better than Deadmau5. Nothing says screw your somber brooding shit better than a twitchy music-maker wearing a big red mau5 head and clapping and jumping and laying down twisted beats.

Just below the surface of Deadmau5’ party music is, however, the slightest ribbon of black; underneath the stomping beats lays an almost imperceptible razor-sharp edge of disillusion. But the nihilism is there, and the uncertain tenor of the modern world slaps you in the face as you recall the absurdity of our present tenuous situation on this planet. Deadmau5 is party to the absurd, and like any good existentialist he laughs at it with a macabre smile. From behind the strobing eyes Deadmau5 is commanding you to live it up, to put on your happy fun-time hats and party because this could be it; in fact this is it. His music is a soundtrack to this liminal era and his beats bounce up and down on the thresholds of music genres, resisting all categorization. Deamau5 produces the music for Right Now, for a time when human beings are on the threshold too, up in the air between there and here, both on the brink of destruction and salvation. Nothing fits easily into categories anymore including us; the labels have all been used up and we exist now as random players in an unsorted world. There is only one thing left to do. Dance.

There is a time and place for evoking a serious series of emotions, and there is a time and place to get down, party, revel in the absurdity of modern life, and dance to the hottest producer in the world who performs dressed like a raver who went on the Magic Mountain roller coaster at Disneyworld with one too many glow sticks. Guess which time and place is in the realm of the Mau5 King?

Find the kingdom for yourself on Friday September 26 at the Dirty Dancing Showcase on the dance floor of Neumos, when the influential musician headlines yet another electronic arts extravaganza: the 2008 Decibel Festival in Seattle. His new album, Random Album Title, drops today (September 2), look for it online or find it old-school style in record stores on September 4. Enjoy a slice of the absurd with your life, and come celebrate the bliss of Right Now in the Age of the Nerds with your Mau5 King.

What is better than heady electronic music, a dance floor full of freaks, and live art being created on hot chicks? Not a lot- add some alcohol and I think you have a party on your hands!

Last night’s Get Tha Funk Out at the Crimson C was a spectacular and swirling mix of the Seattle underground’s finest; with live art created by Grym and head party pimpstress Lynzie. Go-go dancers were the canvasses; they stopped shaking it just long enough to get radioactive elephants, tripping musical notes, and random abstractions painted on their chests, arms, stomachs, legs, and faces.

Photographers Matt Matsuda and Ev were bouncing around taking mad pics, and besides the live body painting going on there was also several artists’ work being exhibited including works by the amazing Burgandy as well as the photography of Matsuda.

DJ sets by A.J. Spider Sorbello, Roman, Noisemaker and PrEssHa kept the night bumpin’ until two in the morning with what was certainly the best music going on in Seattle.

On to the pictures:

It’s a hard job, but somebody has to do it.

You know you want to see more photos-

There are more from Cedric here, and check out Matt Matsuda’s clever pics here.

Seattle is on the edge of an electronic music explosion, a fact that initially might seem highly incongruent to those living outside the Pacific Northwest as the city brings to the world-mind an image of a flannel-wearing latte-sipper writing folk songs on an acoustic guitar in the rain.

Look closer, though- behind that latte the gritty neo-hippie has an iPhone in her pocket which she will use to update her status on Twitter before riding her bike home and plunging into her makeshift studio to layer her soulful ballads with edgy electronic beats on state-of-the-art audio equipment. Seattle is the perfect stage for the next electronic music eruption; the city is poised on the sharpest razor blade of computer technology, which is now even more inseparable from music production and indeed arts culture as a whole than ever before. Art has been irrevocably intertwined with technology ever since humans used sticks to paint glyphs in caves, but now the indisputable union of music and art production with computer technology hits you in the face like a laptop on four shots of espresso. And there is no place in the world where this is more obvious than in the Emerald City of Seattle.

Epitomizing and propelling the burgeoning electronic music scene in Seattle is the fifth annual Decibel Festival which is a veritable rainstorm of kerosene on the fire of electronica that will fall on the city from September 25-28, 2008. The four-day annual Decibel International Festival of Electronic Music Performance, Visual Art and New Media will showcase over one hundred diverse artists from all over the world and will take place largely in the gritty and colorful neighborhood of Capital Hill in nearly a dozen venues. The Decibel Festival is one of the premier electronic music events in the U.S. and will be bringing big-name international acts like Jahcoozi, DeadMau5, and Carl Craig, nationally and regionally touring artists, and up-and-coming locals who are stoking the fires of the Seattle scene.

And the fires are blazing. The presence of Microsoft, Adobe, Google, and other tech companies in the area has helped to construct a buzzing culture of artechnology in Seattle, and a new animal has manifested at the threshold where traditional arts creation meets the production efforts of the future. Just as the mountains ranges and brisk waters of the Puget Sound meet to form a majestic natural environment, the tech-savvy ethos of Seattle has ignited the city’s electronic music scene and the fire is only getting bigger and louder. It is on this fertile ground where thousands of thousands of arts lovers in the international electronic music community will convene this autumn for the 2008 Decibel Festival to share their ideas on the future of the arts, experience a fantastic array of performers and artists, and shake some ass.

Tomorrow will see the image of the flannelled Seattle grungster replaced with a forward-thinking electronic artist using the world’s leading production technology to create experiences that we cannot even begin to imagine today. Combining the infinite nature of the human brain’s creative capacity with the ever-expanding technological tools at our fingertips, the future of the electronic art and music community in Seattle is as bright as snow-capped Mount Rainier on a summer day. Plus, all that caffeine really makes you want to dance.

For more information on the Decibel Festival, click here.

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. 

The 3rd Annual Seattle Power Tool Race & Derby 2008 took place on Saturday (6-28). The event was part of Artopia in Georgetown. HazardFactory hosted the event. Their claim of faster tools, bigger air, more chaos, and more stupid (huh) turned out to be true. Check out the smashing and crashing that went down.

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Culturemob was proud to be a co-sponsor of the event!

Go to culturemob to discover more events.

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.

Note from Shilo, CultureMob’s Queen of Content:

CultureMob is now in sunny SAN DIEGO and has plans to open in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orange County by the end of June! In honor of our foray into sunny Southern California I have a special guest blogger, Thaïs, who just returned from kicking off festival season right at Lightning in a Bottle in Santa Barbara.

Do you like to write about arts and entertainment and want to be a guest blogger for CultureMob? Send me a message: shilo@culturemob.com

GUEST BLOGGER: Thaïs

The expedition started out on Wednesday, May 21 deep into the night. After rushing to get ready and loading up the van and trailer, we picked up our fellow copilots. We were now off to make a 24 hour drive, on our way to beautiful Santa Barbara to catch the breathtaking forest festival, Lightning in a Bottle!

Luckily for my boyfriend and I we were blessed with two angels that liked to drive and ended up doing so most of the way. Ah, what a lovely drive it was! With a bed in the back, and DJ Noisemaker pulling a 24 hour live set in the captain’s chair while we chain-smoked and cuddled, I couldn’t have asked for anything more!

After the long haul we made it to Lightning in a Bottle, where we met up with our wonderful camp GFP, Ghetto Fabulous Projects, Leaders of Random. And what a lovely bunch they are.

For three entire days we had the chance to stay at this divine location. Full of love, magik and sooo much more. Everywhere you turned a bright, enlightened spirit would be there warming your heart and filling your soul with ridiculous amounts of love. If I wouldn’t have known any better, seeing as I have been to quite a few festivals in my past, I would have swore I was in a Dream Land, on a magical adventure with fairies and dragons…oh my!

We had the chance to make it to all three stages, four if you want to count the Renegade Stage. Each one spiraled towards the sky with it’s own individuality. The Bamboo Stage, or Main Stage, was made of thousands of pieces of wood, woven together to make a star-like tetrahedron. What countless hours this must have taken, each piece individually strewn together! Next was the Wookie Stage…we didn’t get to make it to this one too much but it did consist of a large, shell-like DJ booth with a few other posts surrounding the area. And last but DEFINITELY not least was the Tree Stage. This was the stage that just seemed to be bumping at ALL hours of the night! It looked like a pirate ship with different rooms and levels…and what a fun stage to dance on! This was where most of the most rockin’ DJs played, jamming out in all hours of the night. David Starfire, Bassnectar, Glitch Mob, and so many others kicked our asses here. There wasn’t one moment that the dance floor wasn’t PACKED!

When we weren’t dancing our little butts off or conversing with tons of magik folk, there were booths to discover, such as Kelsey’s Creations with fairy-like tutus and Foxy’s Tooth Bling, where you could bling out your teeth with tiny sparkling jewels. And of course there were also live artists, fun air-brushing, and don’t forget the organic yummyness of food everywhere!

All I’ve got to say is thank you, Lightning in a Bottle for a most exciting, freakin’ fabulous, lusciously divine weekend! I’ll be seeing you at Lightning in a Bottle 2009- it only gets better from here!