The Knack: How to dance to drum & bass

Drum and bass is basically funk music. Period. Just like house in 1986, it revolutionised and initially confused. It was the shock of the new. Drum & bass is now the most likely form of music to fill the dance floor at our night, The Electric Chair. It's stripped-down raw funk and huge basslines - what more do you want from the local disco?

When we first started playing it there were a lot of non-dancers. For them it was the Devil's music. They told us to turn it off, it was rubbish. Then in 1996 they read articles about it and quickly shut up and danced, very badly. They laboured under the misguided belief that the only way to dance to this new music was to have arms and legs flailing at 289 mph, grinning inanely, and looking like puppets on amphetamine.

Eventually, with the occasional use of mirrors, they learned the dance. They went to the clubs, listened to the basslines and moved at half speed to the half beat. At Electric Chair more women dance to it than men. There is a crazy theory about basslines and women's anatomy. Is this true? It certainly seems to be, which gives the lie to the myth that drum and bass is only for gangsters and moody males.

Drum and bass makes you stick your head in the bass bin and move your ass. If you still can't dance to it? Well, it's like driving a car. If you can't drive, learn. And if you still can't pass the test, stay at home, read Albert Camus and give up.

Luke Cowdrey is a DJ with Manchester's UNABOMBERS