If you're an Irish twenty-something, those are actually words to live by. Because there have been major changes in club music in the last 10 years and -- believe it or not -- Irish DJs have been at their forefront since the start. Firstly, musical tastes have changed -- or, more accurately, they have diversified -- and like never before. In the '80s, for the most part, you had a fairly basic choice between pop music and rock. But today young people are listening to an ever-widening field that includes dance, trance, house, jungle, hip-hop, trip-hop, R&B, rap, electro, techno, Euro dance and more.

Just keeping up with the latest names for the latest musical hybrids will instantly signal to the cognoscenti if you're "with it" or "past it." And woe to the mere mortal who unwittingly confuses one new club sound with another, because to house music purists, for example, trance music is the mark of the devil. Think of the internecine squabbles between the punks and the hippies and you're getting a good sense of the issues at play here.

As talented Irish DJ Denver Cochrane of New York-based dance party Best Music puts it: "House music is what the true clubbers want to hear -- because trance music attracts kids from New Jersey wielding glow sticks, which obviously nobody wants." (Musical trends may come and go, it seems, but cracks about New Jersey will endure through the ages).

MicroMotion Entertainment is the best known Irish promotional company for this kind of house music event, flying in new Irish DJs each month to show off their distinctive skills to Irish and American club goers. Established and operated by Niall Rafferty here in Manhattan, his company regularly presents cutting-edge dance nights to appreciative club goers in several New York locations. Thanks to its efforts, the East Village, Chelsea and now Yonkers have all become first-choice venues for a rotating series of premier league Irish dance parties. If you're Irish and in your 20s and you live within the five boroughs, you probably already know all about them.

The majority of young Irish people who live outside Manhattan tend to party close to their own turf -- due to the considerable expense and hassle of getting to and from Manhattan late at night -- and so MicroMotion decided to solve their commuting issue by bringing the mountain to Mohammed. MicroMotion's popular Summer Series kicked off its 2003 dance parties before a capacity crowd at Rockin' Robbins on McLean Avenue in Yonkers on Memorial Day, when it hosted the award-winning Irish DJ Francois. By all accounts, it was a night to remember, with the entire audience and even the bar staff getting into the beat (albeit from a safe distance behind the bar) by the end of the evening.

MicroMotion also runs a celebrated occasional series of New York City dance parties at the Leopard Lounge in the East Village and at the Frying Pan in Chelsea. The latter venue is an atmospheric out-of-commission lightship drydocked along the Chelsea Piers that positively brims with a risqué Austin Powers ambience, so it's really no wonder that it attracts so many Irish dance music fans. The occasional showcases held at these venues feature an exciting range of up and coming Irish DJ talent side by side with well-established names and they're one of the first real attempts by a New York promoter to address the musical tastes of the most recent generation of young Irish emigrants.

"First and foremost, we wanted to provide a showcase for both established and emerging acts," Rafferty said. "So we usually have DJs playing in two different rooms in the same venue. The smaller room always goes to the emerging talent -- because that's the proving ground. If they excel and the crowd responds to them, they can graduate to the main floor. That's basically how it works."

And what of the music fans themselves? The house music generation has been derided as vain, hedonistic, drug addled, apolitical and only interested in the music (all of them familiar charges used to bash each new emerging generation since the '60s). And to a degree it's often true.

But they also see real countercultural defiance and non-conformity in their relentless pursuit of good times and good music. After a hard working week on the building sites or in the bars, they remind me, it's time to check out of the mainstream and join their own peers in a 48-hour underground musical celebration. In 2003 that's what passes for a significant countercultural event, although it may be pretty tame stuff by the standards of the 1960s. Today, if a word like socialism has any meaning to Irish twenty-somethings, it probably has something to do with sharing illegal music over the internet or downloading the latest bootlegged computer game files. Political introspection has been ruled off limits. As the emerging young star DJ Jimmi Bee puts it: "I have no interest at all in that downtrodden Irish history stuff -- all that aggro -- we're all just passionate about the music and we're here to dance."

Coming of age in the era of the Celtic Tiger, he and thousands of young Irish people like him have discovered a new and abiding taste for the pleasures of the moment, and that's exactly how they want it to stay.

The new club culture comes with it's own commandments, too -- perhaps the most important of which is that you go for the music -- and it's a commandment strictly adhered to by young Irish music fans. These days aggression just isn't welcome in the clubs, so macho face-offs are now considered embarrassingly retro. (This is quite a change in outlook for those who can remember club life in the '80s).

But for all of their celebrated pacifism, an attitude still persists among older Irish people here that the club kid scene is rife with drink, drugs and debauchery. And this attitude has often led to a blanket refusal to book popular club nights at local Irish venues. "It surprises me that some venues will book hip-hop nights over house music nights," said DJ Mark Lynch. "If they don't want hassle, then why do they choose to host events that will sometimes redefine the meaning of the word?"

He has a point. Since so many Irish venue owners here have been slow to embrace the burgeoning dance music scene, it has often resulted in the DJs themselves occasionally moonlighting as promoters in order to secure the best gigs. Fear of the colloquially known Rave Act, tacked on to the Amber Alert bill published earlier this year, means that club owners are simply concerned about its draconian enactment. At worst, an entire club can be seized for a single drug violation. Concern about it -- and the smoking bill -- have dampened venue owners' enthusiasm and have driven a great deal of the dance scene back underground. And now it occasionally looks as if will stay there. But to combat this state of affairs both the DJs and the promoters are coming out fighting. Both sides agree now that there's a real need to secure some solid long-term venues to promote both the sound and the parties. And they the have passion for the music on their side. That and a guaranteed full house.

"It would be terrific if the Irish DJs and promoters who operate independently here could come together and create a well-produced dance party in the city," said Mark Lynch of Best Music. "There's a terrific amount of Irish talent on the East Coast; it would be great it we could bring it together in the near future for a dance weekender."

Mark your calendars now: The next Micromotion dance event will be held in Rockin' Robbins on June 20. The next Best Music dance event will be held at the Water Street Bar in Brooklyn on June 21.