The Strobe Knows

The Strobe light continued to flicker -- tack, tack, tack, tack, tack -- an unrelenting assault on the senses, causing some to go into epileptic fits, swallowing their own tongues, almost choking, but somehow pulling it all back together to enjoy the final few minutes of Slope's very short and noisy set in the backyard of my parent's home, circa 1992.

Hmmm, seems so strange to think about this now. I've told the story a million times, I think, and have gotten a few laughs here and there -- mainly because most people can't fathom that a person like myself hosted one of the biggest and craziest parties of 1992. Ahhh, '92, I often think of you in these passing days. Clinton was president, 120 minutes was a Sunday night welcome respite, skateboarding fueled my days, and a powerful new force in me was emerging -- music --and deep and passionate force that was, and still is. So during this time, and particularly the Summer of 1992, my idealistic and optimistic world view was coming into full-bloom. Things were bright, my energy was at an all time high, I still had hair, people liked me, and I liked people. What a perfect time to throw a party, yes?

So my good friend, Alex, had this band called Slope, or Sullen, or whatever name they could think of that month. They were a talented group of wranglers. They played a kind of shoegaze, brit-pop, indie, Manchester style of music. The first time I heard it I loved it instantly. Most of the bands to come out of the high desert were of the punk, hardcore, and metal genre. They all sucked, I hated them. I was never into hardcore, I kind of liked some punk, and fucking despised metal. Nowadays I have an appreciation for this music, mostly because I have aged, like a bottle of cheap red wine, and have expanded my musical interests. But back then, the valley was filled with a bunch of meat-head jocks, just fueling their anger through lazily constructed music. Forming a band was easy for these people. All they had to do was have a singer that yelled and hollered a lot, a tuneless guitarist, a hack bass player, and a troglodyte drummer who just pounded out simple, prehistoric beats.

But Alex's band seemed to soothe the soul amidst all of this chaos. They were noisy, yes, like the great UK band Ride, and they conjured up some beautiful sounds. Sometimes they were noisier than the hardest hardcore bands in the area, and that always brought a smile to my face. So it wasn't until a couple of years of becoming familiar with their music that I thought it proper to have them play a show at my house... er...my "parent's" house. Plans were made, and it was decided that I would leave a few days early from a summer vacation on Catalina island with my family, and return home alone and host a "small" party for my friends.

Alex and Jon, the other guitarist in Slope, had told me that they were going to make a few flyers to tell people about the party. I said it was fine and told them to only hand out flyers to people they knew. My house was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, and having flyers with little maps drawn on the back seemed like a good idea. They were excited, I was really excited. Slope never got the opportunity to play too many shows in Lancaster, mainly because they never really fit in on the bill with other local bands. But I was going to change that, I was going to act like a small town Tony Wilson, and propel Alex's band to stardom!

So the day arrived. I was fresh off the boat from Catalina island, I think I was even a bit tan too. I guess I used to tan a little when out in the sun. Now, I just turn red and resemble some kind of devastated burn victim if I spend too much time in the sun. I was healthier then, tanned, still had hair, and girls liked me, blah, blah, blah...I regress, but now onward to the rock. We had planned to have some other bands play the party as well, to open for Slope. I didn't care about these other bands, I figured it was just a good idea to keep things moving along, and to have a bit more musical diversity throughout the night. I remember one of the bands being quite interesting, actually breaking away from the mediocre hardcore style that dominated the Antelope Valley. Alex and the boys did a little soundcheck earlier in the day. It sounded so good out there in the lazy summer afternoon, sound was bouncing all over my backyard -- off the rickety wooden fence and swirling around in the patio. We had sheep and a pig way in the back of our yard, and safely enough away from where the party would be held. When Slope finished checking a song I could hear the sheep baaaahing in the distance. They were frightened by the noise. I felt badly about this because I didn't want the animals to be scared or hurt in any way. I put up a little sign on the gate to their pen saying, "Please do not touch the animals, please leave them alone, the pig is very aggressive." I didn't want anyone, in a drunken stupor, heading back there and disturbing them.

So the day progressed and slowly transitioned into evening. A beautiful sunset was developing in the West, complete with purple and orange hues lingering in the expansive light blue sky, while traces of dark, dark, dark were quickly taking over the colorful canvas. It was nearing 8:30 pm, and in about an hour people would show up and the first band would play. I was milling about while the other bands were setting up. Alex took out the strobe light, which was present at most of their shows, and placed it over in a corner on a chair. He then came over, with Jon, to speak to me. The conversation went something like this: "Hey Joe, yeah, dude, we have got to tell you something about tonight. Well, you know we made some flyers for this party, right? And we passed them out to some people. Well, we actually made a LOT of flyers and went down to the mall and started handing them out to everyone. We even went out to the parking lot and put some on cars that had band bumper stickers and stuff. We just got kind of excited and went ahead and made a bunch of flyers, I hope you don't mind, was that okay to do???" I was a bit shocked, and really didn't want a bunch of random people showing up at this party. I even told my dad that I might have a few people over on the weekend, and that I was not going to have a huge party. But at that point I didn't care. I said, "Fuck it, that's cool. I'm sure not that many people will show up anyway, ya know?" It was too late, much too late...

The party started, a few people were there, mostly friends and the local skateboarding contingent. I was having a good time. The first band was playing and everyone was sitting on the lawn, or casually standing around drinking and being generally mellow. It was what I wanted, it was how I pictured it. But this peace would not last for too long. My friend Ron came up to me and said, "Joe, you need to see something, come this way". I followed him around to the front of my house and there in the stark blackness of 22nd St., the long dirt road leading to my house, was a stream of headlights that went on forever, and they were all heading toward me. I instantly freaked and mumbled, "Oh fuck..." It was like in the film Field of Dreams when at the end, ol' douchebag Kevin Costner looks out to the distant road and sees the endless stream of headlights emerging toward his little baseball field. I didn't know what to do, and again it was too late, much too late to turn back now.

I went back to the party, somehow in the ten minutes that I was gone, the attendance had doubled. There were now people all over my backyard. I didn't know most of them, and I don't think that they knew who the fuck I was. This is Lancaster, the high desert, nothing happens here, ever! And when something somewhat interesting does happens, especially involving youth culture, people are just drawn to it, it's not anyone's fault. Alex once said, "People just want to have somewhere to go." So I ran around, checking everything, making sure that nothing "bad" was happening, or going to happen. Jesus, when all of the cars finally parked along the dirt road on 22nd St., there was a line of vehicles easily stretching out a quarter of a mile. Upon returning once again to the backyard, it was total mayhem.

Ron V. was hanging from a tree in my backyard, he was flailing there and yelling, the branch finally snapped and he came crashing to the ground, only to jump up once again and start running around like a maniac. There was a mosh pit on my lawn, I mean like a hardcore pit! People were thrashing and dancing, stomping and waving their hands around. Groups of people were milling about all over the backyard drinking and smoking weed. The skateboarders remained somewhat calm, watching the antics with cautious eyes. There were hardcore guys and punkers everywhere. I even saw a few mohawks present. Strange and sketchy Lancaster goths were present, they stood around clad in big black trenchcoats and smoked clove cigarettes all night. A group of Hispanic gang-banger types even showed up. Alex's brother was with them and he kept asking me if he and his friends could go into my house to do a few "lines". I said no. People were asking me if they could use the bathroom in the house. I said no, and told them to just pee in the bushes or something. Girls were wanting to use the bathroom, and I'd let groups of two go in only for a few minutes. I stood by the backyard door, acting as the world's weakest bouncer. People were way off in the backyard, by the ship pen, the OFF LIMITS AREA!! I continually had to go over there and tell them not to bother the animals. Somebody wanted to let the pig out and have it run around in the mosh pit. My little sign on the gate was torn down.

This was not what I expected, not what I wanted. My simple little party was out-of-control. People kept showing up, they just kept building up in the backyard. I had placed a 50 gallon barrel in the backyard for trash and what not. The thing was full and overflowing by 11:00 pm. I put another one back there and that was full in about an hour. At one point I estimated maybe about 350 people in my backyard. I was sure something bad was going to happen. The mosh pit was huge, and the hardcore guys were getting rough. The gang-bangers looked everyone down, as if inviting trouble. It was scary, really scary. I tried to have a good time, but it was way too much for me. My heart was beating fast, and I knew there was no way I was going to get away with this. I would certainly be caught.

Slope was about to play and I was getting excited, but still distracted by everything around me. Some of my "big" friends helped me maintain control of the party. This eased my worries some. The gang-bangers even told me that they'd keep an eye out for trouble. Great, just what I needed. Like the Hells Angels at Altamont while the Rolling Stones played. Real great. So Slope played and I was into it, the pit stopped and most of the people just sat on the lawn. No doubt tired, drunk, and stoned at this point. Slope played and sounded great, they seemed to calm the party down, but at the same time maintained the necessary energy to keep things interesting. Oh, and the strobe, it was flashing incessantly, mesmerizing the eyes of many. People made out with each other by the sheep pen. The animals resting now. Dave L. was on acid somewhere in the bushes. But it was still loud, Slope were no folk band, and they played with their amps cranked.

To my "not surprise" a police officer appeared over by the front gate. I made my way over to speak with him. He was livid, he was super PISSED!!! I mean, this guy was the meanest cop I'd ever spoken to. He was old, with receding silvery gray hair, and he had the standard cop moustache. He was yelling at me, telling me that he was going to go back there and arrest everyone who was underage and drinking, and then fine me for every underage person (which was about 90% of the people at the party). I was shaking and nervous. Just then, as I was trying to reason with the cop, some guy walks right up to the fence and starts pissing on it, right there in front of the cop. The cop looked at me in disgust and said, "See, look at your so called friends, they're pissing all over your house!!" Then he said to me, "Who are you, what is your first and last name?" I told him and he said that he knew who my father was, and that he couldn't believe that somebody in my family would do this. What a dick. I was upset and went back to the party, told Slope to stop playing, got on the microphone, and told everyone to leave right away, it was over. The cop stood by the gate and scowled as people slowly exited out of my backyard. Who knows how many people drove home drunk that night? But people always drive drunk in Lancaster, so fuck it.

The strobe flickered until the last person left. Alex finally went over there and turned it off. He then said to me, "Damn, I've never seen you that mad before, you were really pissed, you even scared me!" I told him what the cop told me, and he understood. It was late, and I was tired, I didn't even drink much. I guess that's what happens when you gotta take care of business, which I did all night. The bright morning came all too soon. The backyard looked like a war-zone. Beer cans and bottles scattered everywhere, trash cans overflowing with 12 pack cartons and discarded Boons Strawberry Hill bottles. The grass was all dried up and resembled concrete. There were HUNDREDS of little cigarette butts everywhere. The tree was broken too. Luckily, the animals were alright, and resting in the pen. I fed them some grains and gave them water.
What a night. Later, I took a giant Hefty bag full of bottles and threw it into a juniper bush in the far reaches of our property, with the hope that my dad would not notice so many beers in our trash barrel and start asking questions.

Years later at home, during a college break for the summer, I took a stroll into the backyard and found that old stash of bottles. The Hefty bag most certainly weathered and gone, but the bottles were still all there, shining brightly in 120 degree heat. I laughed to myself and thought of the party, and the damn strobe light that saw everything -- tack, tack, tack, tack, tack.