Backyard Party, a brand new all-ages venue, lets teenagers rock out

Through a veil of darkish hair tendrils, Audrey Cymone stares intensely into the darkened room. The 16-year-old singer of the highschool band Kim Theory croons the melancholy-tinged lyrics from “Growing Pains,” their music about adolescent angst.

Why can’t issues simply be the identical?

The query hangs within the air because the sound thickens throughout soundcheck — guitars climbing, drums cracking. It carries double which means right here at Backyard Party, a brand new all-ages music venue in a nondescript enterprise park on the border of Pasadena and Altadena.

The band, the venue’s group and the viewers share an undesirable connective tissue. All have been affected in several methods by the Eaton and Palisades fires. Some watched their properties burn to the bottom. Others dwell as expatriates from their very own group as a result of their homes within the burn zones are nonetheless uninhabitable. And some merely bear witness to the grief that, nearly a yr later, nonetheless bubbles up.

Before this wet November night time, the all-female band self-described as Riot Grrrl-adjacent principally carried out at home events and small downtown L.A. venues. To have fun the discharge of its EP, “Bitch Scene,” Kim Theory selected Backyard Party.

“This is a big deal,” says Lula Seifert, 16, the guitarist, watching the road of individuals snake by way of the door. “This is an awesome venue.”

When Cymone, carrying a costume normal out of a trash bag, and Seifert take the stage later with drummer Zoey Su, and bassist Lucy Fraser, the sold-out room crackles with power. Teenagers crowd across the stage. A mosh pit breaks out. Bodies collide in a whirl of elbows and flying sneakers.

Attendees dance within the crowd in the course of the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party at Backyard Party on November 15.

The again of the room — populated with dad and mom, guardians and supervisors — is extra sedate. Linda Wang, 45, the drummer’s mother, likes the all-ages venue as a result of it gives a secure area for teenagers to expertise dwell music. Nearby, a dad vigorously bobs his head. Hugs are exchanged between group members torn aside by January’s wildfires.

At Backyard Party, the place dwell music occurs each weekend, the vibes are good, the visitor checklist is household pleasant and the home guidelines are straight-edged. Between band units, Brandon Jay, a Backyard Party companion, popped onstage to remind the gang that the area is a drug-free zone. For those that don’t comply, “You gotta go,” he introduced.

And on Kim Theory’s night time, the heaviness left behind by the fires stays on the door.

“Music is a very powerful thing,” says Malena Vesbit, 14, who helped run ticket gross sales for the present. “It moves your emotions. I think it’s really a way to escape it all.”

The band Kim Theory preforms on stage throughout their EP Release Party at Backyard Party.

Music composes a second life

Backyard Party, run by Jay and companions Sandra Denver and Matt Chait, is impressed by Pasadena lore — the yard reveals that helped launch Van Halen. The subsequent period of Pasadena events begins on this 1,500-square-foot area.

But it’s develop into extra than simply an all-ages venue and occasion area since internet hosting its first present in September. If you misplaced your file assortment within the fires, you may choose up free vinyls from their library. If you misplaced an instrument, free guitars, amps and a piano for the taking fill a room subsequent to the stage.

Jay, and his spouse, Gwendolyn Sanford, who work collectively as a composing group, misplaced their Altadena house, music studio and over 150 devices and items of recording gear within the Eaton fireplace.

“Everyone lost special things like that,” says Jay, 53. “It’s so hard to cope”

Backyard Party founder Brandon Jay helps modify a drum set in the course of the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

After the fireplace, mates began urgent their musical gear into his fingers — small acts of generosity that helped sew him again collectively. All over Los Angeles, musical devices sit untouched in garages and closets. What if Jay may assist match these lonely devices with musicians in want?

Weeks after the fireplace, Jay based Altadena Musicians, and the companion Instrumental Giving app adopted in April to attach musicians in want with donors. Jay, along with his bouffant curly hair and preternatural capability to recollect the smallest particulars, turned a de facto musical matchmaker.

The course of typically begins with a private story of a loss and ends with an sudden human connection made by the necessity for one thing small, like a harmonica. Altadena Musicians has helped roughly 1,200 individuals, says Jay. The circulation of treasured possessions and a unprecedented sense of kindness can change lives.

When the Pacific Palisades fireplace raged, Michelle Bellamy, 39, reached for her Martin acoustic guitar, affectionately named Gretchyn the Second, earlier than evacuating, however then modified her thoughts. Something informed her she could be again.

But the fireplace took her house — and the guitar she used to be taught to jot down songs on. Regret replayed in her thoughts till Jay discovered a match: Abby Sherr, 80, whose Pacific Palisades house survived. Sherr had been given a Martin acoustic guitar at 16 by her brother. She was by no means fairly capable of half with it till she heard about Jay’s effort. Then she knew precisely the place it wanted to go.

In April, Sherr arrived on the Santa Monica actual property workplace the place Bellamy works to present her the guitar, newly named Gretchyn the Third.

Attendees take heed to the band Kim Theory throughout their EP Release Party.

“This guitar has given me a new lease on my musical life,” says Bellamy. She was impressed to jot down a music concerning the Palisades fireplace on Gretchyn the Third. Of course, she despatched Sherr a video of her efficiency.

“It did bring tears to my eyes hearing her play and sing that song,” says Sherr. “I drive by what used to be her apartment, not infrequently, and I think of her every time.”

Just like regular. Just for one night time.

No one at Kim Theory’s present actually wished to speak about fires. Especially the youngsters, says Jay. They simply need to really feel regular.

Some youngsters want motion over phrases. Ticket gross sales go towards paying the bands and funding Backyard Party and Altadena Musicians’ venue repairs and applications.

“Helping out can make everything just feel a little bit better about the state of our world,” says Fraser, 16, Kim Theory’s bassist.

Attendees put on numerous outfit equipment in the course of the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

Vesbit agrees. She helped set up the Alta Pasa Project, a corporation to assist teenagers who had been impacted by the fires. She and her household are nonetheless displaced from their Altadena house.

During the get together, Vesbit took breaks from working the door to look at the present. She danced and joined the mosh pit. She observed that many youngsters hugged, regardless that they didn’t know one another, Vesbit says. That was her favourite half.

It was the Morrow Family’s first time attending a Backyard Party occasion. They got here from their long-term short-term place in Highland Park to see Kim Theory carry out. Their Altadena house stands, however due to the fireplace’s lingering smoke and ash they haven’t been capable of return.

Max Morrow, 15, is bored with speaking concerning the fireplace and the home they’ll’t return to but. His youthful sister, Stella Morrow, 13, nonetheless feels awkward about grieving what remains to be tangible however out of attain.

“It’s a time capsule,” says their mother, Mel Morrow, 52, about their house.

Friends arrive, and he or she rushes over to greet them.

“I mean, we’ll show up no matter what,” she says. “Because we didn’t just lose our houses, we lost our community.”

Attendees play within the rain after the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

“Growing Pains,” Kim Theory’s EP nearer, is a music concerning the stage of life whenever you’re uncertain the individual you had been could be happy with your current self, says Cymone.

“I feel like it’s something that a lot of teenagers can relate to,” she provides.

Tomorrow, there shall be extra uncertainty, however within the parking zone after the present, the kids begin dancing within the rain.