When testing how far my dance-floor skills have progressed, I usually use drum 'n' bass as the litmus. There's not a whole lot of room for pussyfootin' around when it comes to having the stamina to lock into futuristic hyperspeed breakbeat rhythms, and having the fitness and patience to groove to the drugged-out, half-time-snaking baselines.
Last week I put the skills on the line at the longest running drum 'n' bass night in Seattle, put on by Sugar Shack Unlimited at the Baltic Room. This is a night that many fresh-faced 21-year-olds seem to covet, and the crowd usually consists of skatepark homies trying to get laid, guys who resemble the skatepark homies but who don't actually skate, the sorority sister contingent, and a few dance-clubbing regulars. The most predominant dance here is the half-gang sign/half-"shake your hand like your uncle shakes the salt off beer nuts with a loosely opened fist." (You also kind of run in place, then throw a clenched fist in the air for good measure.)
Resident DJ Demo started things out, and then Keaton and Friction from the U.K. came on to show us why they have the Stilton and we have Velveeta. It's a strange thing seeing drum 'n' bass so far from its homeland across the Atlantic, because by the time outside genres get here, they can resemble a mere ghost of their original sound. When I went to Sweden, it was interesting dancing to West Coast gangsta rap with the whitest people on Earth, in the same way it's interesting seeing a girl from Mercer Island giving rude-boy howls to gritty, proletarian U.K. drum 'n' bass.
By the time Keaton and Friction got on the decks, the place was packed wall-to-wall, and all I could do was the funny-jump-up-and-down, run-in-place dance like everyone else. The promoters brought in their own sound system with towering speakers to insure that no crevice of the room (and no internal organ) went unmolested by the throbbing bass. The sheer physical impact of the music was inescapable. As the night wound to a close, I peeled myself off the dance floor, wiped the sweat off my brow, and made sure that both my innards and underpants were all in check. NICOLAE WHITE
Drum 'n' bass presented by Sugar Shack Unlimited every Tuesday at the Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St, 625-4444, 9 pm-2 am, 21+.
