I should preface by saying, maybe the most important thing not to do for your sweaty, crowded Halloween rager is not to have one. Depending on how our good friend Mr. Delta cuts an angry swath through the unvaccinated folks, we may be heading for another lockdown. I’m writing this in early October, so who fucking knows at this point. We’re on month 21 of 2020. Time literally doesn’t exist anymore.
Although live music is making a slow, steady, skittish comeback, I, unfortunately, haven’t had the chance to venture out yet. So, there’s less and less for me to write about (hence, the absence in last month’s issue). As much as I want to resort to snarky music nerd trivia regurgitated as mediocre comedy, I feel like I need to try my damnedest to return to my roots as a scene critic. But again, in this new, boring apocalypse, it’s hard to suss out what the scene even is anymore. After restrictions were lifted, we had about a month—that I missed—of live music before folks who prefer to use horse medicine that isn’t Ketamine drove up hospital numbers to the point where we have to mask up again. I’m not complaining though, at least shows weren’t canceled. Now, we just have to pay a second door guy to check vaccine cards—just one more new normal after another.
Something that simply isn’t going away (and by the numbers, didn’t go away for even the worst of the pandemic) is house parties. The lifeblood of the paltry local scene here. Now, it’s probably a little harder to enforce a strict vaccine policy at the door of a porous, beer-drenched, dilapidated flophouse, but hey, if you wanna be a dick about it, best of luck to you. Most likely, after your main homies are there, you’re just not gonna care. Before you know it, your costumed, slutty get-together is a super spreader event. But I’m getting ahead of myself. This list isn’t about trying to stop that from happening. That’s inevitable. So, let’s pretend this house party with live music is happening in a post-COVID world ’cause honestly, it just hurts less to think about it that way, and we can all just laugh and talk shit again.
So, imagine this hypothetical house show is happening in a world where some skeezy lurker who no one knows is spiking the punch bowl with some fresh Delta, and douchbros are hitting on the poor gals just trying to enjoy the music, by asking if they’re Team Pfizer or Team Moderna. By the by, the correct answer is team J&J. One-shot blood clots, baby!
Remember the gummy bracelets you wore in school to let your classmates know which body parts you were down to put in your mouth? Anyhoo, I’ve noticed at least an internet trend towards this, with color-coded cups, so you can skip the pleasantries and just let partygoers know whether you were "Taken," "Single AF," "DTF," etc. All I have to say is: do not. This is not a good idea, and I’m using my platform to nip this in the bud before it spreads through Portland like the upcoming Gamma variant. You will have an abundance of dudes with DTF-colored cups, one poor couple with some Taken cups that are seriously regretting coming to this party, and the handful of ladies who brought their own color cups with "fuck off" written on them. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. Don’t do it.
As much as you think you can get a couple of your loser friends’ shitty bands to just show up, play, and figure it’ll all be fine, it simply will not. Now, I’m hoping anyone dumb enough to throw a house party with live music already has a PA system and enough mics and cables to leave nothing up to chance. Still, even if you have the bare minimum equipment (I can already guess you don’t have anything even resembling a stage), I guarantee you it’ll be nothing but sadness and chaos when the entertainment for the evening shows up, and you just point at the pile of speakers and mic stands in the basement corner. Someone has to be the point man. Even if it is just turning down the speakers when they feedback or letting the bands know where they can put their shit, trust me. They don’t even have to be sober. They just have to remain upright and intelligible for the duration of the performance, and they simply cannot leave the pretend stage area. I mean, besides to grab another beer or catch a smoke break. It seems extra, but it’s not. It’s like the bassist. You don’t notice when they’re there, but you really fucking notice when they’re not.
Or really, have more than two. How much space do you have? It’s gonna be a mess no matter what—the less warm bodies, the better. Coordinating young, drunk musicians makes herding cats look easy. Bars with actual staff have a hard time, so why are you and your housemates going to fare any better? If everyone’s bringing their own amps and shit, then the house just becomes a storage unit with very little room for doomed sexual conquests. With setup and tear down and the singer not helping with any of that, the third band isn’t going on till 1 a.m., when everyone has either left or is deep in the k-hole. Now that I’m thinking about it, why do you even have live bands at your house party? Just get a DJ instead. Everyone will have much more fun. Much less shit to move around. Plus, they’ll actually play songs your party guests will like.
