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.

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!

Free tickets! Free tickets! Free tickets!

DJ ?UESTLOVE! DJ ?UESTLOVE! DJ ?UESTLOVE!

CultureMob.com is giving away 70 tickets to the party: CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests. It all goes down at Neumos on Capitol Hill Thursday June 5.

CLICK HERE to go to contest entry page.

?uestlove is a gifted producer and an incredibly skilled jazz drummer, best known for his work behind the drum kit for The Roots. He has worked with a myriad of very talented musicians and artists including D’Angelo, Al Green, Zack De La Rocha, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Common, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dave Chapelle, Christina Aguilera and Jay-Z. June 5th he will be laying down fat tracks in his DJ shoes and you can expect a mix of classic hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock; the dance friendly beats will have Neumos poppin’ hot all evening long.

Winners will be selected at random and notified by email on May 30; non-winners can buy tickets at the door or in advance through Ticketswest for $15 (available soon). Doors open at 8PM and sorry toddlers, this one is 21+ only. The Culture Mobsters will be out in force, promoting our awesome website, spreading the good word about the Seattle arts scene, and most of all: enjoying life. Hey, we practice what we preach!

Don’t miss the party! ENTER TO WIN today.

Hey all you crazy, fevered, music-obsessed Seattleites out there! There’s a new forum for enthusiasts to get a good dose of first-hand Seattle music news from people in the know: SeattleSubsonic, otherwise known as “The Sound From Under the Clouds.” Pretty good, huh?

Local music freak, uh, I mean local music fan Kevin LeDoux, formerly of the Northwest Music Blog, has started a new website with a stellar lineup of writers and featuring all the best in Seattle sound, including recommended shows, venues, and blogs; they also have a calendar of upcoming events and articles about the freshest local acts bubbling up as well as the big tours making the rounds.

So why are we promoting another blog on the CultureMob blog? Shouldn’t we be snarkily trashing SeattleSubsonic with a hipster sneer, straight out of our tight pants and from behind messy purple hair? NAH. We’re not like that. Seattle’s a big little town and the more local music support and artist promotion circulating around, the better. This city is known for music (just ask my generation) and no mayor, no closed venues, no decibel meters can stop that. Seattle’s music enthusiasts can and must work together to foster the creative arena, support the artists out there every day doing their thing, and build the Seattle music scene up from a buzz to a barbaric yawp.

Seattle has heaps of interesting music blogs out there reporting back on various aspects of the local music scene, such as NWTekno, Nada Mucho, LineOut, Three Imaginary Girls, Sound on the Sound, Reverb, Seattle Live Music, and many more, all with the same goal: to get you out there and involved in the amazing music scene, whether you like electronic music, punk rock, jazz, or all of the above.

And besides, CultureMob.com is the only website where you can find events concerning all your entertainment interests; not just music but movies, comedy, theatre, dance, sports, festivals, lectures, and community gatherings. Only on CultureMob can you track your favorite performers and get alerted when they come to Seattle, add a MySpace or Facebook calendar to your profile, email your friends about upcoming events, and post previews, reviews, and comments of artists, events, and venues.

So check out SeattleSubsonic and in the immortal words of one of my good friends and local artist: GET INTO IT! It’s your town, your life, your evening: make it one for the blogs.

Want to win a pair of tickets for the June 5th performance: CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests at Neumos?

SURE YOU DO! CultureMob.com is giving away 70 tickets, and all you have to do to win is come back here on Thursday May 15th and enter to win. Winners will be selected randomly.

?uestlove is a gifted producer and an incredibly skilled jazz drummer, best known for his work behind the drum kit for The Roots. He has worked with a myriad of very talented musicians and artists including D’Angelo, Al Green, Zack De La Rocha, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Common, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dave Chapelle, Christina Aguilera and Jay-Z. June 5th he will be laying down fat tracks in his DJ shoes and you can expect a mix of classic hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock; the dance friendly beats will have Neumos poppin’ hot all evening long. 

If you don’t win, tickets will be on sale soon through Ticketswest for $15 in advance; doors will open at 8PM and sorry toddlers, this one is 21+ only. The Culture Mobsters will be out in force, promoting our awesome website, spreading the good word about the Seattle arts scene, and most of all: enjoying life. Hey, we practice what we preach!

See you back here on May 15th!

You know Produkt. You might not know that you know Produkt, but you do. You have no doubt seen these cats on dance floors, behind decks, taking pictures, painting, drawing, and promoting the Seattle electronic music scene all over the city, night after night, club after club.

Humans don’t fit into one category, as easy as that might be for us, and this is why the diverse artistry which Produkt provides and CultureMob.com are such a beautiful match. We all have many interests. I love electronic music, which is why I check NWTekno about a thousand times a day. However, I also really like horror movies, sketch comedy, reggae, festivals, sculpture exhibits, and swing dancing- and this is where CultureMob comes in. We cover the whole spectrum of entertainment and recognize that everyone has multiple interests in the arts and wants to discover local events without going to twenty different websites.

Produkt realizes this too, which is why at an event like the upcoming Gruvsessionz at Heavens Nightclub you will find not only skilled DJs spinning a variety of beats from house to techno to drum and bass to glitch, but also local visual artists doing their thing live, go-go dancers who truly love to dance (and just happen to be total hotties), and photographers documenting the good times (just in case anyone’s memory is a little fuzzy).

I support Produkt for one reason which is really two: PRODUKT GETS DOWN. Known as the “dopest crew in town,” the Produkt peeps are all about having fun and living it up; however they also take care of their business, heavily promoting each other as well as local artists from outside the group. Produkt stays engaged with the Seattle scene, organizing new events and injecting electricity into the nightlife of the city, which all too often suffers from a hipster-ethos, an I’m-too-cool-to-care vibe. I always hear people whining about how hard it is to make friends in Seattle, and that no one dances in this town. Those people obviously have never been to a Produkt show.

Even the group’s name connotes this passionate response to artistic expression. Just as Produkt provides new experiences for Seattle, they too are a Produkt of the music they deliver. With all of the art happening all around, how could you NOT become excited and go out and dance and have fun? As much as humans create art, it creates us too. Come to a Produkt event and you will find a dance floor full of smiling faces rocking out. And did I mention the hotties?

Produkt has already proved successful with the ongoing series of Analog nights which occur the last Friday of every month at Rebar; next up is the May 30th Analog IX: I Like Orange and Techno. Their newest conquest is Gruvsessionz which will take place the second Friday of every month from here on out at Heavens Nightclub. This Friday is the debut of the new monthly which showcases not only resident and guest DJs Lee Jonas, Awggie, Richie Spoons, Pressha, and Goner but also the holographic art of Lazer Guided Visions artist Raja, fire performances by the Womanipuria Fire Troop, and experimental bellydance theatre by the Hands of Kali. All this action will be documented by professional photographers and journalists and of course, the Produkt dancers will be out in force, as smart and sassy as they are beautiful. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Gruvsessionz is free before 10PM, $5 until 11PM, and $7 until 2AM, and if you haven’t been to Heavens Nightclub in Pioneer Square, then you are missing out on one of the biggest and best dance floors in Seattle. Come and experience the encompassing experience that Produkt creates; immerse yourself in music, dance, art, fire, and best of all- a group of positive partyers who bring it on and hold it down. See you on the dance floor.

Wow, save the date on this one! Thursday June 5th it is going DOWN at Neumos as CultureMob.com presents THE ROOTS New Album “Rising Down” Listening Party hosted by BLACK THOUGHT and featuring DJ ?UESTLOVE with special guests.

?uestlove is a gifted producer and an incredibly skilled jazz drummer, best known for his work behind the drum kit for The Roots. He has worked with a myriad of very talented musicians and artists including D’Angelo, Al Green, Zack De La Rocha, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Common, Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Dave Chapelle, Christina Aguilera and Jay-Z. June 5th he will be laying down fat tracks in his DJ shoes and you can expect a mix of classic hip-hop, funk, soul, and rock; the dance friendly beats will have Neumos poppin’ hot all evening long. I absolutely cannot wait for this party and I hope to see you all there on the dance floor gettin’ down beside me.

The Culture Mobsters will be out in force, promoting our awesome website, spreading the good word about the Seattle arts scene, and most of all: enjoying life. Hey, we practice what we preach!

Tickets will be on sale soon through Ticketswest for $15 in advance; doors will open at 8PM and sorry toddlers, this one is 21+ only. CultureMob.com will be giving away a whole bunch of free tickets: stay tuned at CultureMob.com to find out how you can land some of those and for more information about ?uestlove, Blackthought, and The Roots.

Last Thursday I showed up to Midtempo Madness at the new Pioneer Square nightclub Crimson C at 10PM, my normal time of arrival, being the total nerd of the club scene and all. I fully expected to, like usual, be the first one on the dance floor and get the party going. Pushing my way past the smokers outside to the heart of the club, I realized that this party didn’t need me to get it going- the dance floor was already packed! It had started like wildfire with NoiseMaker on the decks and this was no ease-into-it night: to my thrill, everyone was getting down. My purpose in life is to get people to get down, on the dance floor or otherwise, but this crowd, with a stellar female presence, needed no help from me at all. The sheer excitement for the lineup had everyone buzzing and smiling and dancing, club nerd one and all.

After yet a-whompwhompwhomp-nother inciting and enticing set from Seattle’s funky crunkbrother NoiseMaker, rapper Souleye and DJ team BLVD proceeded to lay it down thick; the dance floor went wild and minds were blown right out of that little club. You can always tell when the experience of new music has gotten under the skin of someone: moon eyes, mouth hanging slightly open, distinct lack of articulate vocabulary, palms upturned in a gesture of thrill and disbelief: what do you MEAN I have never heard these guys before? The combination of Souleye’s gritty and organic rap lines laid over the twisting electronic loops of BLVD is an anti-match made in deep in the human consciousness; we crave this variety. Sameness is a safe and warm feeling, but we don’t settle for contentment. We want to be on fire, and to light it we need originality, diversity, and risk. We need this music.

I can’t explain electronic music, but I can explain what it does. In this case, your mind starts drifting off to the ether-sphere of sound with the long, guitar-studded electronic mash of BLVD and then is brought back to earth by the gritty and genuine words of a poet. It’s the mix, the to-and-fro, the take-it-away and give-it-back-again that takes music from being a constant good thing to being absolutely great. The boys of BLVD and Souleye have discovered this thrilling melange of earth and ether. It speaks so well to the human audience because we too are part heaven and part earth, part spirit and part body, part electronic sound waves and part rap. The dance floor of Crimson C spread right up through the tables and bar area as no one could resist the hot gooey bass. And damn that boy can rap!

Then, holy Thursday night, came Vibesquad, a producer whose bass takes no absolutely no prisoners whatsoever. I thought the whole of Crimson C was about to shake right down to rubble, leaving only the dancers and DJ there- and no one would even have noticed, so powerful is the spell of this DJ. The twisted, mutated sounds; the crackles, beeps, growls, and thumps don’t just speak to us alive out here in the world, they insist that we open our eyes and move. In the presence of Vibesquad, you have no choice but to exist in the present. Everything else goes away and we lap up the sounds, like starving refugees from society, our bodies as our spoons.

I am an unofficial ambassador of crunk, you might say, and had been telling my friends about this show for weeks and insisting they go. All through the night people kept coming up to me saying, “Oh wow, Shilo, you were right, this is AMAZING! I can’t even believe it!” Then a little shake of the head and the aforementioned glazed look of new music discovery. That is also what I live for- to share with others the transformative power of music that I have experienced in my life. Why do I, why do we, love it so much? Why do we love the thick, dirty bass and the filthy beats so much? I may not be able to explain it but I sure as hell can understand it. I want you to as well, but be warned- once you go off the deep bass end, there is no going back. Once you put on the suit of Captain Crunk, no other electronic music will quite do it for you: not drum and bass, not dub step, and certainly not house.

So what is this blond girl going on about? Why is she so ’bout it-’bout it with this music which doesn’t really have a name but is seeping up and over the nation from the West Coast and Colorado and conquering dance floors wherever it goes? Find out for yourself at Dirty Velvet May 16 at Nectar when Noisemaker, Novatron, and Kraddy and OOah from THE GLITCH MOB start a musical riot in Fremont. Buy tickets now; the show will sell out, and it is quite possible that people will be falling from the balcony, going into spastic dance fevers, twitching their minds all the way over to new dimensions, and having so much fun their hearts explode and they wake up in their yard. It might even happen to you, so get ready for your next life-changing music experience.

Do I have to say it? See you on the dance floor.

At Sasha and Digweed’s DJ extravaganza last night I fell back in love with dancing after a week (a whole week!) of not going out, I remembered why I never ever wear jeans to shows, and was thrilled up to my eyebrows to see so many electroheads out on a Tuesday night!

I really like the ShowBox SoDo and was stoked to experience mythic DJs Sasha and Digweed. I thought the show was sold out only to be informed early that morning that I was wrong, so I bought the $35 ticket with a what-the-hell attitude; that’s a lot of dough for cheapskates like me who try to get on every list they can. After forgetting the ticket print-out in my car (which of course was parked practically at Castle Starbucks) I returned, ready to dance, and never even had my ticket looked at! The workers did search thoroughly through my bag and we did the frisk-dance, leaving me standing there holding my $35 piece of paper, saying, “Hey! somebody look at this!!!” They never did.

DJ Kazell was the opening act and I was really impressed with his take on the bass, so much so that I actually was pulled away from the line at the bar, losing my space so I could go dance. I didn’t want to miss a minute the fat track that the DJ was laying down, not even for a buzz- now that’s powerful music. The big bar areas of the ShowBox SoDo were stacked with people trying to down several beers before the headliners came on, lots of people bobbing heads, and my friends, gettin’ down like no one’s business and making me proud. I am never a huge fan of all-ages shows- what can I say, I like to drink and dance, but sometimes the scene has to throw a frickin’ bone to the 18-21 year-olds.

I made my way up to the front of the dance floor as Digweed was about to come on. People were starting to freak out, and the anticipative energy of the crowd was close to spontaneous combustion in the middle of the floor. Now progressive house and trance aren’t my favorite electronic music genres; for me the tracks and sets never seem to climax, leaving me in a prolonged state of liminality. But like all electronic music, these beats are damn danceable, and I can recognize when the shit is going down even when it isn’t 100% my cup of tea. Aku, local DJ and my friend told me that Sasha and Digweed were the reason he started making music- now that means a whole lot. My ears perked up and I could tell that many others in the audience also held up these two DJs to the legendary status that they should deservedly claim. The whole place was rockin’.

A shortie like me can’t see very well, even at the front of the dance floor, but I could hear the chants which turned to, “Sasha, Sasha, Sasha,” as the night progressed. Like I said I am not firmly in the camp of crazed fans for these two Brits like most of the audience but I danced my face off last night at the ShowBox SoDo for hours. And then I danced some more. Making people shake and move is just one raison d’etre that inspires DJs to exist, (getting girls is another) and Sasha and Digweed found believers last night. Hot and sweaty with my jeans rolled up to my knees, I left the front of the dance floor to find a little space and air at the back. Not possible- the whole place was packed with Seattlites shaking what their mothers gave them. A Tuesday night like this is what I’m talkin’ ’bout- hundreds of people all moving together, having fun, and devouring the energy created in the musical exchange.

Of course, there wasn’t enough sticky bass pour moi, however I try not to review music too harshly for the same reason I don’t write up reviews of Mexican food restaurants in Seattle. Let me explain: I’m from Texas and eat whole jalepenos for breakfast so every write-up would go like this: “Not enough spice, not enough heat, not enough mind-mashing fire.” The same goes for most electronic music; there’s rarely enough sticky, thick, whompy bass for me, unless it’s an event like the upcoming Glitch Mob show at Nectar. When I dance I usually go into a mini-trance and can only say one of two words: YEAH or MORE. Yesterday evening was a MORE night for me, but I still had a thrilling time dancing and a really great experience, no doubt.

And sometimes wanting more is a good thing which even a hedonist like me can recognize; crazy things happen when you’re left on the threshold. Everyone left the show a little happier than they came in and the party continued to Contour for afterhours and we all got down for a couple more hours to DJs Jason LeMaitre, Dev, and the aforementioned Aku who was absolutely on top of the world after hearing the great Sasha and Digweed lay it down. Seeing people so inspired by and passionate about music thrills me to no end and reminds me that we are all kindred spirits in the arena of music’s effects on the human psyche.

Speaking of kindred spirits, there were hundreds and hundreds of dancers out last night, and I want to know where they go the rest of the time. Last Wednesday? Next Tuesday? Where do you go, oh mysterious dancing crowd? I want to know, and I will find out, and then I will drag them out to enjoy life. SO WHAT ya gotta work in the morning? There is a sure excitement in the air that the Seattle electronic music scene breaths, and I think we should nurture it and light it on fire. Let’s blow it up. Whose with me?

You may not be able to crawl around the streets of Seattle six nights a week, feverishly searching for electric local artists that stir the heart and entice the mind, but I can, and I do, and then I bring them to you in my weekly report: From the Streets of Seattle. You are in for a sweet sticky treat this time, as I introduce you to a most-loved underground artist, an inspired DJ whom everyone seems to list as their top friend on MySpace and no one ever wants to miss: NoiseMaker.

Every time NoiseMaker (a.k.a. Joshua Hale) steps up to the decks I know it will be a crazy fuck-up of a night, and so does Seattle. He always brings dancers out to the floor and then sets them on fire with his slamdown of sound. NoiseMaker is my favorite DJ in this city, which is a big fat salty ocean full of DJs. I may say this to my other electronic wizard friends (sorry yall) but with Josh I really mean it, and I’m not alone. Heaps of other DJs, promoters, photographers, artists, and go-go dancers in the city have declared the same sentiment: NoiseMaker is their favorite DJ in Seattle.

In his current demo Psy-Breaks (listen to and download a free teaser here), a ridiculous warping of musical fusion takes place. On one track Bananarama’s Cruel Summer transmorphs into an entirely new animal, a sweaty, snarling, twisted season that makes you run to the dance floor, disrobing all the paraphernalia of the presupposed reality of life on the way. Get familiar with this DJ so you can say that you knew him when, that you were dancing under a bridge in the freezing cold at five in the morning with the soundmaster of tomorrow.

So what’s up with this DJ?

NoiseMaker ignites crowds like the anti-fireman of the sound revolution, a peaceful warrior and artist who sets to flames all who hear his unique and expressive style. His weapon is a smart-bomb of beats, an imaginative interpretation of music which is virtually an orgy of genres from glitch to hip-hop to dub step to 80’s pop hits to drum and bass to thug rap from the eastern suburbs of Paris. His sets are always fresh and full of provocative melodic contortions; NoiseMaker owns the word bold. Unafraid to take risks, he chops up everything from Rage Against the Machine to Justin Timberlake with no apologies and with much love from his audience. He is not constrained by any one musical variety and his artful combination of ancient and futuristic sounds speaks loudly to those in the world living for the present. On NoiseMaker’s dance floor tribal drums blend effortlessly with cascading electronic tones, songs from animal mouths are laid over your great-grandchildren’s cut-up bass mixes, and pulsing jet airplane crashes collide seamlessly with the dark layers of deep, emotive aggression you would find on a post-apocalyptic carousel ride. You better hold on tight kids, this is the red pill.

The Seattle crowd salivates for his thick, heavy bass; fuck that, the obese bass, the shamelessly sticky grinding ribcage-rattling thunderfunk that drives humans into transcendent madness. NoiseMaker does not settle for music as solely an aural experience; his sets engage the whole body, from dancing toes to the tips of sweaty, slinging hair. It’s not just the random masses whose unconscious inner artists pull them shaking and vibing to the dance floor in reverence of this commander of crunk; countless other DJs are always on his floor getting down, constant proof not only of NoiseMaker’s talent but also of his appeal as a performer and his ability to connect with the beat-hungry souls who crave the palpable energy exchange that he creates. He never fails to stimulate his ever-present crowd, his dynamic musical designs produce an environment where die-hard fans collide with wanderers who step onto the dance floor with, “who the, how the, what the hell is this?” on their tongues in response to his original and engaging performance, and the room explodes with the passion of the new, the bold, and the fresh, which NoiseMaker loves to deliver- you can see it in his eyes.

Most exciting of all is the fact that NoiseMaker’s sound continues to develop and his contribution to the Seattle and West Coast electronic music scenes progressively deepens with each night he spins. Besides being involved with the Seattle DJ collective Beatcon Crew and the monthly dance mania and brain-killer Spy Party, he has also performed alongside such talents as BreakBeatBuddha, Novatron, Kadeejah Streets, KJ Sawka, Skoi Sirius, Chris Fortier, DJ Crime, Influenza, Dig Dug, Psychoz, DJ Pyro, and many others who are stretching the definition of music into a new and exhilarating creature. The future of art is happening right now, and it sounds like NoiseMaker.

Try to be as fearless and original in your life as NoiseMaker is with the music he throws. It’s no secret that I heart the glitch more than most things on earth; it is the embrace of futuristic sounds in combination with the deep bass that I respond to, the brash back-talking ethos of Hell yes, I’m pushing buttons- and look what it does to my dance floor, the musical representation of the post-modern void of a world we live in which could end any second with the press of another kind of button. I am far from alone, and this revolution will not be televised. Come and experience with us dance rioters the mmm-mmm-good glitch and NoiseMaker this Thursday night at Midtempo Madness at Crimson C with Souleye, BLVD, and Vibesquad. This lineup is so sick, it’s practically dying. I’ll be at home: on the front of the dance floor, that is. See you there.