In the winter season fewer bands tour, and all is quiet on the Northwestern rock front. So where do restless club kids go before the spring thaw? Low-budget house parties have enjoyed a rather sloppy surge in popularity this season: loads of informal gatherings thrown by and for a 20-ish group of music fans, where an otherwise well-mannered crowd tends to get downright dirty, afforded the privacy of a nonpublic venue.

Twenty-four-year-old Akmed El-Najjarb and his roommates are well known for hosting DJ-driven debaucheries at his Central District house during the leaner social months. "People want to be able to drink for cheap and listen to good music," he tells me over coffee at a Belltown café. "You can just buy a suitcase of Hamm's for like $8, and set out a bunch of cheap liquor. People always bring stuff too."

El-Najjarb's gatherings typically spill into the wee hours and draw in both clubgoers and the local rock cognoscenti. "Don't invite Sam Jayne to a party," he laughs good-naturedly. Apparently the leader of Love as Laughter opened a bottle of pink-hued Cisco wine cooler rather exuberantly at one function, leaving a rosy stain on the ceiling and a hole in the wall. "I guess it got shaken up before he opened it. It was all right. I got free drinks at [the bar where Jayne worked] for a while," he remembers.

Frankie Chan, a 23-year-old comic artist and publicist, took such gatherings one step further, hosting a handful of legendary after-hours blowouts with a cash bar, going so far as hiring bouncers to watch the door of his downtown loft space.

The parties have drawn enormous crowds of vice-lovers, including members from touring bands like Les Savy Fav, Ugly Casanova, and Mars Volta. On one auspicious night, porn star Ron Jeremy made an appearance.

"People were trying to pay us lots of money to get in because they thought Ron was there," Chan says. "He just walked in, saw how crowded it was, and turned around and walked out. But because a few kids saw him, word spread."

The late start time for Chan's parties meant that liquor consumption was usually at nearly toxic levels. "There was always a lot of making out and people going in the bathroom--fairly typical party behavior in Seattle. But at our parties it seemed to get worse, because there was a full bar and people could keep drinking and drinking and drinking. There was always a point at the end of the night where we had to stop it, or it would get dangerous."

Chan theorizes that the rock-star guest list also drove people to act out. "There's this group of about five girls who go to all the parties and make out with each other, and they're always really fucking trashed. There were definitely some funny times with those locals making out with touring bands."

Of course, like any music-related good time, what used to be endless fun gets old rather quick, especially if you're the host. Both El-Najjarb and Chan are weary of throwing future parties. "There were two fights at the last party. A window got broken and the shower curtain was torn down. That was the last party we had," says Chan.

There's something about the cozy confines of private parties that eventually gives way to a juvenile sense of entitlement and inconsiderate hygiene. "I'm tired of having my floors covered with every sort of body fluid you can think of--cigarette butts everywhere, holes in the wall," says Chan. "It was a lot of fun for a while, but it's gotten exhausting." El-Najjarb seconds such sentiments: "I get tired of cleaning up. It takes days sometimes."

Despite both hosts' apprehension about throwing more events, one doesn't have to look far to see someone else picking up where the two left off. Before these parties, the Infernal Noise Brigade was coordinating equally chaotic gatherings in Georgetown, as was Pleaseeasaur frontman J. P. Hasson at his underground Capitol Hill warehouse space.

"For the time being, I am done," says Chan. "It basically boils down to a lot of planning for one night of being drunk and having the house trashed. You can always go to someone else's house."