Funny you mention this. I think the lack of dancing at music events in SF is cross-genre. I was just having a conversation the other day with a guy after the Ministry show last week and we both agreed that music fans in S.F. are usually doing more listening than dancing. The crowd at the Ministry concert was so low-energy I was almost going to sit down! I've had this experience with other bands and I have to say that East Coast fans (of any type of music) are way more rowdy, wild, and into the music than fans here (can't speak for the mid-west since I haven't really been there). I'm not saying that S.F. fans aren't enjoying the music as much, we just enjoy it in a different way. Maybe it's because everybody here is a DJ or is in a band. Maybe it's because the people here are very critical and judgmental of music? I'm not exactly sure. San Franciscans enjoy quality music and we are spoiled with it. Maybe our low-key attitude will never change.

If you don't believe me just browse though my live Grateful Dead collection. The East Coast shows have crowds so fuckin loud you can barely hear the music. Quite the opposite here.

The same goes with dance music here too. Besides nights like Kontrol and when big-name headliners come, our dance floors are close to dead. So i'll support Jason in saying, "Bring out yo dancin' shoes, and get out on the floor!"

:arrow: :idea: :!:

The same goes with dance music here too. Besides nights like Kontrol and when big-name headliners come, our dance floors are close to dead.

Gotta disagree with you Sean, as I believe it's mostly limited to genres where straight men are the majority in the crowd. Dcoy, James Bass & I went over to Gun Club the same night as the last Kontrol and it had tons of chicks there, dancing their asses off to dirty ass disco. Same thing goes for clubs that play house music, progressive or more "scene" or "pickup" oriented clubs. This is no surprise, but guys outnumber women when it comes to techno appreciation, and in a city like SF, pretty much every guy is a DJ.

There are two jokes I know that help summarize the lack of dancing:

Q: How many DJs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: 2. One to screw it in and one to say he could do it better.

And to paraphrase Dane Cook, Women often say, "I just want to go out dancing". Guys just don't say that.

So the fact remains that techno is a dude heavy genre in regards to it's appreciation, and chicks like dancing more than guys.

As DJs, promoters and tastemakers, I think the burden is actually on us, to get the music out there NOT just to fellow techno geeks (myself included) but people outside of the techno scene and get them involved.

And like Jason said, Dance. Some DJs have too much ego to dance to other DJs or are being Mr. Bitter b/c they aren't the one rocking the crowd (Guilty!). Let's get over the ego, and self consciousness and enjoy the music. I'll make a conscious effort to shut up also... :)

On a side note, I think SF is one of the most dance friendly cities in the country. I used to DJ back in the DC/Baltimore area and used to go up to NY and party up and down the East Coast, and was blown away when I first visited SF. Granted, I'm an old man now and haven't partied in as many other cities in the country (outside of DEMF & WMC) as I used to, so things may have changed, but I don't need to. SF treats me just fine... :)

So in summary:
1. Get the music out there!
2. Get more chicks involved.
3. Dance!

Rave on.

I still feel like women stay away when they see/hear the words TECHNO. I think people still associate techno with 145 BPM hard tracky shit....

fuck. i can dance at home.
but how often do you get to yell small talk over a 110db soundsystem.
i'll take the practice when i can get it. :wink:

Sheesh. Doesn't this guy EVER shut up? ;)

Yes, and those "50 posts" have earned you the title of "Techno Snob" :wink:

The problem:

I've heard too many of our out-of-town guests leave the decks confused becuase "no-one was dancing". It is obvious to us that we are having a blast, but they can't tell.

Thoughts?

i dance more than most people--that's why I go to parties. i think i don't talk enough. a dancefloor that's too crowded is no fun.

what i don't like is when people go into the middle of the dance floor and just stand there in clumps talking when it's too loud to hear the other people talking.

or they go up to look at the dj but stand in the middle of the dance floor and then there's no room to move.

i like dancing circles. i don't like it when people elbow me (a lot of girls do it but not really girls who listen to techno) or when they grope me or kick me.

weirdly enough techno is a guy thing in SF, but in europe it's what girls & gay guys listen to too, especially when it's mainstream. i don't know why it's like that. usually it's at drum and bass or breakcore parties where people say that there aren't enough women.

i like it when people connect and dance together on the floor who don't know each other.

i like to dance standing next to the speakers instead of next to the dj, unless the dj's doing handstands or moving around.

everyone just needs to stop being so fucking interesting, then I wouldnt talk to you as much....... :wink:

and I think there is a good balance of girls/boys....

yet another reason to be distracted from dancing, however, I make sure to shake a leg here and there...

If it was so awful maybe you should go to this...

Dance alone with your ipod on and have none of that mindless chatter to worry about.... ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/nyregion/20rave.html?_r=1&ei=5087&em=&...

A silent rave organized by a British exchange student at Packer Collegiate Institute began at 6:17 p.m. on Friday in Manhattan.

Once, under a hot sun in 2005, a soft drink maker tried to stand upright a frozen Popsicle the size of an ICBM. It melted into ooze.

But few things were more curious than what was staged on Friday evening, at the south end of Union Square near East 14th Street. More than a thousand people, most of them young, gathered for a dance party without audible music, known as a silent rave.

It was striking for what could not be heard.

On the west side of the square, city workers ripped up the street with jackhammers. On the east side, a stalled caravan of drivers, no doubt frustrated by streets’ closing for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, leaned on car horns.

But in the middle, there might as well have been a cone of silence. A mass of people — a head-bobbing, arms-above-the-head, conga-line-forming, full-tilt boogie-woogie — emitted what seemed like no sound but rather music visible.

Everyone danced in place, listening to an iPod and prancing to his or her own playlist. For long minutes, in the distance, only the square’s ever-present bongo players could be heard, while close up only shoes, or bare feet, could be heard padding on concrete. Video cameras and cellphones were everywhere.

A man explained to his friend: “It’s a silent rave. Everyone’s dancing to whatever’s on their iPod.”

“And filming themselves,” replied his friend.

“Yeah, it’ll be on YouTube tonight,” the first man said, “if not, like, now already.” (Indeed, several videos were posted on YouTube within hours.)

A man in camouflage fatigues walking a very small dog struck a curious pose. A group of teenagers, spying the upraised hands, picked up their pace out of the square when one teen declared, “I know that’s a fight.”

Across the street, shoppers on the second and third floors of Filene’s Basement pressed their hands against windows.

The mastermind behind the silent rave was one Jonnie Wesson, 18, a British exchange student spending a year at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights.

Silent raves are popular in Europe, especially London, where he grew up, Mr. Wesson said. “The basic premise is that a hundred or a thousand or a few thousand people all turn up in a public place, turn on their own headphones and dance.”

He added: “It’s always fantastic and weird to see thousands of people dancing silently. It’s always in a public space, but it’s not meant to cause disruption, but only because it’s the last place you’d expect that sort of thing.”

And what attracts Mr. Wesson to such public displays? “Anyone who is self-conscious like I am,” he said, “can find themselves completely at ease. I can never imagine dancing in the street, but when you’re with a thousand like-minded other people — commuters, grandmas, teachers, students, any kind of person you can imagine, all listening to their own music, but all together at the same time.”

One of the largest such silent raves occurred in London in 2006 at Paddington Station, when 3,500 people turned up at the height of rush hour, 7:18 p.m.

The provenance of the silent rave has more to do with the recent phenomenon of flash mobs, which are instant public gatherings performing something absurd, like a pillow fight.

They have little to do with raves, which are often drug-fueled, all-night parties in dance clubs. Indeed, one censorious young man circled the dancing crowd and yelled, “What! This is a rave? How could there be a rave and no booty? How could there be a rave and no sex? How could there be a rave and no E?” referring to Ecstasy.

As is the case with much of his generation, Mr. Wesson organized the silent rave through a social networking Web site, in this case Facebook. By late afternoon on Friday, nearly 7,000 people had responded.

It began at 6:17 p.m. “It’s a random time that fits in with the ethos of the flash mob,” said Mr. Wesson, standing below Union Square’s giant statue of George Washington.

At the appointed hour, people rushed toward Mr. Wesson, shouting the time from the digital watch of a passer-by, counting down with him as if it were New Year’s Eve.

Mr. Wesson’s hoped-for musical diversity didn’t materialize. He listened to “Tarantula” by Pendulum.

Others listened to 50 Cent, Notorious B.I.G., Paul van Dyk, DJ Tiësto, Armin Van Buuren. Sinatra could not be heard from anyone’s white iPod earphones.

By 11 p.m., the rave had dwindled to several hundred still-whirling people. Olivier Rousseau, 50, an engineer from Nice, France, stopped and tried to apprehend the silent disarray before him.

“This idea of individualism is so very strange,” he said, “so American.”

Yeah, I've actually been quite impressed by the equality of the gender distribution at SF parties. Though at last night's 222 show, there was definitely a sort of "high school" style separation of boys and girls on different sides of the dance floor.

Dance!
Together!

did it really end at 12:00?

everyone needs a little bass in their face.... :shock: :lol:

yeah, i got cranky about the volume of the chatter on the dance floor at stewart walker, too. hell, i paid to hear him, not everyone blah blah blahing. ok, granted, it's a small space, and there's not a lot of space to go talk. but still, it sucked.

I like chattering as much as the next person, but I try to do it outside or just off the dancefloor. Maybe a quick saying hello to a friend on the dance floor, but why have an extended conversation there when you have to yell?

Yeah, I get annoyed by people just standing in the middle of the dance floor, too. It really stops the flow of energy somehow. It's like how it's easier to move through a crowd and not bump into people when you're kind of dancingwalking and not just walking.

I am impressed. Not like i doubted him at all but it pleased me to see. Jason was front and center for Mo's entire set at Anu on Friday. I replied with a fuck yeah and a fist pump. He totally set the tone for such an energetic set. I just wish he could have played longer. Drumcell deserves more than an hour. :lol:

WORDUP