Item 5 – House Show Anecdote
Collected From: In-person interview
Date Collected: March 17, 2021
Informant(s): Connor H.
Collector: Alex Hunt
Connor H: “As the night goes on you reach this kind of crescendo of the night. The band realizes this is where we should get the loudest before we kind of wind down for our finale. And where the people realize, you know, the party is finite, we will be going home, let’s get a little rowdy. And when those two kind of coalesce a little bit, you might get more of the extreme circumstances. Like I have seen a fight break out, but in all my time going I think I have only seen two. There was this really cool house show, like, some of these punk bands and stuff like to sort of emulate some of the big rockers, you know? There was this Linkin Park-esque band, you know? By the end of the show, the bass guy had gone outside, and he was tearing it up in the street. And he was like smoking, smoking a cig at the same time he was smashing a guitar in the street while music was still pouring out from the house in the background. And we’re all like the party has transformed from a house show now to a street party where this guy is smashing his guitar on the ground and its crazy and we’re all jumping. You know, they get pretty intense pretty fast, but they always wind down, people always leave the house – it seems to be the party for the people who really want to themselves and not, I don’t know…they’re going to places that are expecting a lot of people and a show yet its really respectful and put together. It’s a pretty organized party.”
Analysis of Texture
Though this may sound like a frightening experience to some, Connor H. recalled this experience fondly. He did not seem to mind the fact that he has witnessed a few fights, even though this is not a common occurrence at house shows. He finished his recollection by saying that the “party” remains fairly “organized” even in these circumstances, implying that such occurrences are taken care of in a civil manner. Overall, he believes instances like this to be a positive component of house show culture, where those involved enjoy witnessing the smashing of a guitar as much as the performer enjoyed smashing it.
Context
Connor H. mentioned that the act of smashing a bass guitar was completed by a “Linkin Park-esque band.” Linkin Park is an alternative metal band that gained popularity in the early 2000s due to their albums Hybrid Theory and Meteora. Being as they are a metal band, they have an aggressive style that involves fairly dark lyrics performed through various vocal techniques, such as rapping and scream-singing. When understanding the attitude of this genre of music, one can better understand how the events in the above text unfolded. As he said, these bands attempt to replicate their musical idols through their own performances, capturing the essence of their favorite artists and attempting to project it back onto the crowd. In doing so, it causes the crowd to take on a matching persona as well, leading to “crescendo” of self-expression mixed with outside influence. According to Connor H.’s recollection, those in attendance were satisfied with this exaggerated form of emulation, as it was fueled by the common attitudes present that night.
Interpretation
I believe the apparent core concepts here are performance and identity. The smashing of the bass guitar was just another aspect of that specific band’s performance, as it came in response to the music they had been playing that night. The music was not the only influencing factor, though, as I highly doubt that this bassist smashes his guitar at every band practice they have. The performers and the crowd have a special interaction, where the energy of one fuels the other. The rowdiness of the performance caused the crowd to replicate such behavior, which, in turn, inspired the band to get even more rowdy. It’s a continuous cycle that occurs, as each group feeds off of the other though both are seemingly insatiable. Without the gradual development of energy that occurred on ‘stage’ and in the crowd that night, I do not believe the performance would have transformed in the same way. In reference to identity, I believe this emulation of Linkin Park is no different than the emulation of punk culture in the house show posters, or the replication of music taste found in attendees’ clothing. There is an element of outside influence mixed with one’s own identity, where this band heard music they enjoyed, and it leaked into their own creativity. In doing so, they are not only identifying themselves with the alternative metal genre and culture, but also identifying themselves as themselves through asserting their own take on what that genre and culture mean to them. Discovering identity within music is, more often than not, gathering up what sounds from the past you enjoy and regurgitating them in a way that leaves room for one’s own thoughts and feelings to provide influence.
Connecting Threads
One of the most interesting aspects of this ethnographic collection was the fact that, even though I interviewed each informant separately, they all seemed to confess the same attitudes towards house shows. Though each informant flexed their own perspective when describing their experiences, they were all on the same page when discussing the pressing commonalities. With this being the case, I believe a primary connecting thread is collective identity. A college campus is a melting pot of individuals, all coming from different backgrounds, following different creeds, and possessing different personality traits. Regardless of this fact, groups are still formed where individuals put aside their differences and focus on the similarities that they share. House shows are one of these groups, where the prevalent attitudes of the community become solidified despite the various individual differences that exist. These attitudes form a concrete collective identity, reflected in the colloquial designs of the posters, the similar styles of dress, the understood procedures found in house party dynamics, and the welcoming environment. A code presents itself, where those who drift from this code are held accountable in a display of ‘mob justice’ of sorts. For example, if someone dresses outside of the common expectations, attendees will see this individual as not apart of the collective identity, and this individual will most likely not be approached or interacted with as much. A similar procedure would occur if someone began acting discriminatory towards a member of the LGBTQ community, as they would be in violation of the group’s accepted code and would be held accountable as such.
Another interesting connecting thread is the idea of escapism mixed with self-discovery. The idea of getting ‘lost in the music’ is prevalent at this house shows, as my informants mentioned many instances throughout the interviews of feeling fully present in the moment due to the encompassing atmosphere. House shows give these individuals a place where they can forget about the daunting assignments waiting for them back at their campus homes and neglect their anxious thoughts using the overwhelming amount of auditory and visual stimuli. This escapism operates in a roundabout way, where attendees are both escaping and discovering themselves at the same time. For example, Katy Z. mentioned how she goes to the house shows to become present in that moment and this causes her to neglect observing her surroundings, but she also asserts that house shows provided her with the friend group she has today: The collective process of escaping one’s problems while surrounding by others doing the same thing leads one to discover those around them that are similar, and this helps develop their view on themselves. By seeing one’s own methods of living reflected back, one can begin to look into this cultural mirror and find answers to the questions they have about their typically hidden thought processes.