Miguel Migs

Flinging Beads of Vodka
Chop Suey, Seattle, WA

Poor Miguel Migs is accustomed to performing at immense venues filled with the beautiful and sweaty. While Chop Suey is sold out tonight, it's a small and intimate space that probably doesn't make him feel as famous as he is in other cities. That intimacy also makes it a hell of a lot harder to take pictures of people without being questioned as to whether they'll end up on the Internet along with revealing comments. Oh gosh no - not at all. Just for my scrapbook.

First up is someone who I quickly understand to be one of the queens of the live house music scene in Seattle. When I approach the stage she grabs me by the hands to inspect this obviously fresh piece of dance meat, saying with elongated vowels, "do you like Houuuuuuuse? I haven't seen you arouuuuuund!" She introduces herself, "I am Svetlana - have you heard dat name befoooooooore?" Soon she's dancing on the stage and inviting others to join her, as you can monitor in this video.

As lovely as Svetlana is, she is only the second most-popular queen in the room. This guy is so entirely fabulous that whenever he is on stage dancing, the show becomes about him instead of Migs. He tries to teach another less nimble fellow some dance moves so they can wow the crowd with an impromptu choreographed number, but the dude is either not sober or gay enough to follow, so he breaks off to continue his shimmy separately.

This crowd is pretty diverse for Seattle. We have a refreshing blend of ethnicities and an age spread broad enough to not make me the oldest person in the room. It's a terrible venue for a straight guy to pick up a straight girl, however. Fashionable clothing + dance music + Capitol Hill = you are gay. I know that at least half the guys here are not, but the odds are stacked against them.

My friend orders me a vodka tonic, which the bartender hears as "100% vodka with lime." I spend the next hour switching up between the booze, a separate glass of tonic, and a giant glass of water, mainly so I can steer clear of Svetlana's spell. As I'm standing there with 2 of my 3 glasses, a guy comes up to me and says, "YOU ARE SHIMMERING WITH POWER" so I take 3 extra sips of the tonic to dull my gloss.

Hey remember when we talked about the types of dancers? My favorites here are the Zoners, specifically one girl who dances her butt off the whole night without a break. A Bonder couple dance well together for most of the evening, but then when the girl does the dirty-dance slide down the guy's legs, he takes the opportunity to check out the gals on stage. There is a lot to look at here tonight, and while Migs' set started off a little clunky, he has most of the crowd hopping until his set ends at 2:00. It may not be a crowd of thousands, but this group does its best to throw the man some props.