How I discovered underground sounds and made friends through house shows.
By Bianca Llerena
Muddy boots, blaring music, cups and bottles littering the lawn, cigarette butts stacked in a toilet seat-shaped ashtray. The towel bar of my bathroom lying on the tiled floor. The slanted porch shaking from heavy speaker vibrations and equipment wires snaked around the DJ’s feet. The walkway leading to the kitchen patterned with an array of muddy prints.
If you had told me I would have thrown a house show in my own backyard in college, I would have said you were out of your mind.
My roommate’s partner Wilson Hunter from the band Human Error planned the show for the recent release of their own personal album. Their bandmate under the alias “backtothemoney” also was there to perform and so was DJ Luzia Fuchsia, a close friend. As the night went on, more people slowly accumulated in our backyard and inside of our house, saying the music could be heard from down the block. The energy was curious and relaxed, and in the sea of both recognizable and new faces, I finally felt like part of something bigger.
Bigger, that is, than the suburban land of popular music that was Waconia High School surrounded by cornfields with no room for underground DJs, house shows, or bands like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Quasi, Pavement, or Psychedelic Porn Crumpets. The people I passed in the school halls aligned themselves with country music or fell into a few categories: classic pop music like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, modern rap from Juice World to Drake, and more contemporary pop like Billie Eilish or Tyler, the Creator.
I didn’t quite fit into any of them.
For me, high school brought a gray cloud of music isolation. Being a teen with picky music taste didn’t help. I learned that the hard way and ended up spending my time with headphones and my head down instead of reaching out to others. Sure, I did sports and was in after-school activities. I was never the first to play music for the group or be complimented on my band tee.
I’ve always found myself heavily gravitating towards underground artists and deep cuts. So, I stayed with my playlists of The Unicorns, The Apples in Stereo, and Islands, and crossed my fingers that the transition into college in just a few short years would yield more positive results.
I can’t remember the band that performed at the first house show I attended, but I can remember my excitement about it all. Half of those nerves were from being a tiny freshman in college for sure, but the other half came from not knowing what to expect.
But now, I’ve been to more than 10 house shows and still going strong. I crave the energy from live music, so being able to enjoy it in a small intimate space with my friends is always a positive indulgence. I am always up to date on what shows are playing and when, waiting excitedly for the weekends.
Moving from a “stuck-in-time” suburb to the University of Minnesota, a melting pot of culture and sound, it was truly a beautiful change in dynamic. Meeting people with shared music taste, having new friends come to my dorm and compliment my Psychedelic Porn Crumpets poster, DJing at Radio K and having people call in and thank me for playing Quasi: it has been a drastic moment of redemption.
More and more, I feel a soft and comforting presence of belonging. Music is no longer a distressing hobby, but a way to get closer to like-minded souls. Being able to contribute to the music scene in Minneapolis has been so rewarding; I didn’t even mind picking up the red solo cups left behind.
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