Must I climb her ladder???

Late last night I got a message on facebook from Warehouse 135 inviting me to a night of tech-house, house, micro-house, and techno care of Science of Sounds.

Skeptical as usual of Warehouse 135's (and Manila's) interpretation of electronic music, I did some research online until I found a couple audio samples posted on the S.O.S. website. There wasn't much, but it was enough to convince me that my idea of tech-house and their idea of tech-house were similiar: a Terry Francis sound.

I got there around midnight, went straight to the bar to exchange my P400 ticket for a bottle of water. At the door they'd told me, "sir, one free drink", so I was annoyed at being denied a bottle of water by the bargirl. She agreed to give me some really flat Coke Zero. It didn't bother me too much at this because I saw it as a compromise; they had probably been instructed to pour out Jägermeister. It did annoy me when I came back a couple hours later and was sold a P100 glass of Coke Zero from the same assed out bottle. They no longer sold cans of Coke Zero and they'd raised the price from P90 to P100.

Since Manila is a hotbed for remarkably crappy electronic music, the 2 Science of Sounds DJ's, Impulse & Lupen, were relatively good. Track selection and mixing were decent.

In principle tech-house is a tasteful genre: it is understated, smooth, neither too dark nor too cheerful, very "safe" sounding. However, 3 hours of the same flavor of tech-house can get really, really monotonous. The switch in DJ from Lupen to Impulse should have given some variation, but it didn't.

I danced for all the 3 hours I was there, and for the first time at Warehouse was approached by a couple of people who commented on it. One was the DJ, Lupen. He was appreciative of my being the only one dancing for hours. This, of course, was entirely appropriate for him to have appreciated.

Sometime during the the 2nd DJ's set (Impulse), a bunch of maybe 25 of 20-somethings decided to form a breakdancing circle. Hmm. Tech-house isn't exactly b-boy material..and lo and behold their moves were entirely out of sync with the beat. These kids were a cheesy mix: wannabe-Bench-billboard-model-looking-Olongapo-mestizos, uber-flaming hip-hop homos (who merged female stripper moves with..trying-hard breakdancer...and some Rihanna & Beyoncé), and random white tourist dudes with their National Geographic dates.

From the time I got there there was this chick who had parked herself beside the DJ booth. Because she was hanging with a random white dude, had on a short dress, heels, and was dancing a certain way, I had assumed her to be a G.R.O. Apparently she didn't think she was, because she was the second person who came up to me and tried to be friendly.

This is what she said (and no, it's not a pseudo memory because it's quite recent):

"You're cool! You dance cool! Where are you from?" she punctuated this by giving me a 2-stage handshake. Sooo, maybe she wasn't a G.R.O. Her english was decent.
"Makati," I grunted, not quite reciprocating the friendliness.
"Oh my God, I'm sooo high on ecstasy!!!"
"Uh, okay...."
"What are these kids doing? They can't dance!" ....and you can?
"In case you haven't noticed, all of Manila can't dance. Embassy's no better than this place for dancers."
"Ooooh, Embassy! My BEST friend, you know Tim Yap, he owns it!" she gushed. "I should show these kids how to really move....I've danced all my life....ballet, plus I'm from Long Beach, California so I know what I'm doing! I'm actually gonna have my own club, focussed on dancing, with a 'no VIP' theme! At the Fort!!"
"So show them!!" I urged her. "Show them your stuff!
At this point I was really hoping she'd get in there and make a spectacle of herself, a fool among fools. But she wouldn't, despite my urging.
"So, do you wanna see a REAL party? After this you should come to my house for a REAL party. My place is at the Fort."
Hmm. So she lives in the Fort, where she's gonna have her own club, and her BEST friend is Tim Yap, plus she's from Long Beach, California. Impressive. I was so unworthy of her gracious attention. What had I done to deserve to bask in this parvenu's presence?
"No," I said. "I'm going home."