Tom Loftus with hand painted knuckle tats by Hanna Mae

The first House Show as School House went off like a pack of bottle rockets next to a fire! Without a doubt, this came as close as one could hope to being the Platonic Ideal of a house show – “The House Show”. It had it all: great music, cute kids, cops, speeches, drunken debauchery, hula hooping, a keg, a dance party, hand painted knuckle tats and much more…

Star Spangled Blammo!

The house which hosted the event is named the “Community Gardens” and is famous as a long standing DIY show house. Their big event of the year is an annual 4th of July party. They missed it this year so they decided to host one on the 23rd instead as part of HSaSH. Things kicked off bright and early at 5pm with a BBQ, fireworks, decorations, snow cones and other shenanigans. From 5pm till after dark various folks gave speeches devoted to the topic of “Freedom”. Speechifiers included Rayna, Mr & Mrs. Classical, Tigger, and giving his 4th annual speech was local comedian and Swedish immigrant, Nils Lindahl..

Following the speeches were performances by a host of local awesomeness switching off between the crammed living room upstairs and the moldy basement below.

Robust Worlds (above) started things off. This was Chris Rose from Vampire Hands’ debut solo show. He was followed by To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie in the basement. Invisible Boy, aka Chris B., also of Vampire Hands, performed a lovely solo set of post-crooner psychedelia upstairs in the living room. Strong Bones lay down some heavy boogie in the basement and were followed shortly thereafter by an absurdly drunk Daughters of the Sun who got sweaty bodies moving with their beautiful percussion riddled soundscapes.

A night of great songs and beautiful noise… check back later for more photos, videos and audio of the performances and other action.