The Juice Box

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 Bottles of Water

by Leif Wauters

After starting out the July 4th Saturday night at a couple of lesser events, my buddies and I stood in a brief line to join other holiday celebrants at Seattle’s Cuff Complex. Once heralded as THE leather bar in Seattle, it’s now also home to one of the premier gay dance joints in our northern sister city and the prefect place for brothers and sisters to join in celebration to the visiting sounds of DJ John LePage.

A staple of the San Francisco’s dance scene, John’s music can sometimes be branded as standard circuit with a side of meat, but his Independence set was more than a run of typical tracks. The floor was jammed for most of the night with folks who were built up and up and up by heavy beats and storming vocals that were unrelenting. At least when the bar staff weren’t announcing the coming, arriving and passing of last call. It was a whole lot of interruption for a simple cutting-off of booze, but I guess that’s how they appease the Man in that town. Once the barking was done, however, John chugged along into a sexy run of later tunes that were both dirty and dreamy. It rounded the night into a sweaty treat for a town where meaningful nights of dancing seem less common but no less needed.

With a large bar and dance area that are partnered with a spacious patio that lives in the shadow of residences that loom next door, The Cuff Complex is an apparently successful attempt at creating a place for everyone. And although I’m more a fan of venues that do one thing and do it well, this club works for Seattle and I’m happy to see that it’s survived so long with a healthy pulse. I would say that the dance area needs a serious face lift. With small town neon lighting and trippy stock videos as it’s focus, the visuals leave a lot to be desired for a club that’s become a pinnacle of the Northwest gay dance. Add to that a sound system that sharpened the treble into shivs and air conditioning that chilled some gaps while leaving others scorched, and we found ourselves grooving in a challenging environment for sure.

But there are many pros to this club as well, including lots of bars, both inside and out, and plenty of bathrooms that never seemed too busy. Above all, the Cuff had a crowd that ate up the feast Mr. LePage had cooked up for the evening and that’s the most valuable thing this club, or any other in the world, can ever have – an awesome vibe. Just imagine what an infusion of cash and a purposeful renovation could do. The Cuff’s historic presence as the home of Northwest leatherdom could be matched by the richness of it’s dance arena, and I expect to someday see it come to pass. But for now, it’s a groovy club where a wide variety of Seattleites can celebrate their fabulosity, and I was proud for a night to be counted amongst them.