Last night was the first time in probably 20 years that I said out loud, “I wish I was rollerskating right now.”

Fujiya & Miyagi brough some kind of wind-up funk fuel to Chop Suey’s early show, mechanical and minimal and irrefutably danceable.

There are four main branches on the funk family tree: Nawleans funk, P-Funk, Sly funk, and JB’s funk. From these prototypes most forms of hiphop and dance music has evolved. But it occurred to me last night that there’s a fifth element often overlooked, at least by yours truly, and that’s Kraut-Funk. Sleek, precise, robotic, and strangely soulful, the German offshoot of the funk forefathers opposes the dirty, organic sounds usually associated with the genre but is just as propulsive.

And so British-born, Kraftwerk-worshipping trio Fujiya &Miyagi made some relentlessly groovy dance music. Droning electronic rhythms counterpointed simple synth lines and even simpler bass lines, with pitch-shifted Moog, occasional guitar solos, and nonchalant vocals tying it all up in a thread of melody. Given the elbow-to-elbow capacity and off-hour, nobody was really dancing, but it was a high-energy set, and the crowd and the band both showed it.

The night was a coup for booker Colin Johnson, as Chop Suey held the first ever U.S. performances of F&M as well as French mod-punkers Prototypes and Young Knives, another U.K. band. Score!

Colin, next time it’s a warehouse in South Seattle with a rental skates and a disco ball. That shit was meant to be moved to.