A great night for Cape's elusive electronic music scene

Above the stage, blinding, flashing, multicolored lights pulse along with the beats. A video projector shows pictures of owls, eagles, trapeze artists, tornados and other seemingly random images. Every now and then, a fog machine sprays a thin mist over the dance floor. In the center of it all, the DJ, crouched over turntables, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, is pushing buttons, adjusting knobs or digging around for a new record to throw into the mix. The bar has been transformed into a makeshift rave, and this ain't Bruce Zimmerman's River City Yacht Club.

It's a labor of love for the four local DJs who have arranged and coordinated every element of the show. It's also a make-or-break night for them. For the past few months, they've played any venue that would take them, from the Camp and Club Complex to a indoor roller rink in Jackson. Tonight's show will determine if they still have a regular gig at Port Cape.

"We'd heard, 'You're not bringing in a big enough crowd." says David Patterson, who goes by the name DJ Derve (his compatriots are DJ Brainstorm, DJ SPK, Reperkushin and Tony Foo Young). "So this is a sink-or-swim show. It either goes well or we start looking for a new place to do shows."

If the show wasn't a success, don't tell that to the audience. The DJs say they normally draw respectable crowds of 70-90 a night, and the Port Cape crowd was at least a hundred strong. As rare as it is to see anyone at all dancing in the Yacht Club, the show can be branded a success on audience participation alone: by the end of the night, dozens of their closest friends, fans and newcomers to the brand-new Cape Girardeau dance scene were getting down on the floor. (Yes, there were girls dancing on the bar. Yes, a guy did the robot.)

"People can dance and enjoy it, or they can just sit down and relax. We want to let people know what this is, and how it relates to them," says Lucas Beine, AKA DJ Brainstorm.

The DJs came together through friends who shared rooms in the same Cape apartment buildings, and before long, the buildings were filled with music. Loud, loud music.

"Neighbors would call at 3 a.m. and tell us to turn it down," says Patterson. "But anytime we had a chance, we would be jumping on the decks."

All four DJs are passionate about the music they make, but realize it's a controversial form of expression. For one, dance music inevitably draws connotations of illegal activities.

"The generalization is, rave equals drugs," says Beine. "This is about fun and socialization, not drugs. I mean, one night we were playing and a 65-year-old man started dancing. See? Anyone of any generation can enjoy this. You don't have to be doped up."

But not everyone in the Cape music scene is willing to open their mind to the sounds of House, Drum 'n Bass, Ragga Jungle or, as Patterson describes his music, "dirty breaks."

"Cape's just too conservative," Patterson says. "There's a church on every corner. It's like techno is a bad word. When it comes to live bands, there's blues, hard rock and punk, but we just want to be represented too. Everything's the same here. There's no variety. Sure, we might be playing other people's tracks, but to us it's still original. It's still music."

To that end, the DJs integrated elements of organic music into their electronic blend. If you listened carefully during DJ Derve's set, you could hear a heavily remixed Johnny Cash, singing the Nine Inch Nails cover "Hurt." Paducah's Tony Foo Young incorporated the super-dramatic theme from the movie "Batman" and a spoken-word piece celebrating the universality of house music. ("This guy'll blow your mind," DJ Brainstorm warned me before Tony Foo Young took the stage. "He's better than me.")

"The music's all about dancing," Patterson says . "The idea that you go to a show to dance, this kind of dancing, goes back to the disco era and even before that. Dance music is constantly evolving."

The show turned on at least a few new fans to the wonders of dance music -- and the variety of the Cape music scene. "I really didn't know what to expect," said St. Louis resident Kate Merwald, who came down for the show. "It was a little disconcerting at first to see dance music in a tiny bar like that. But they pulled it off. I'll definitely be checking out their shows when I'm in the area."