You remember your first time. You walked past Chop Suey one weekend night and saw the line squirming outside the door, the most enthusiastic social ejaculate competing for the fertile inner sanctum of queer culture. You somehow fell into the queue, and after shuffling past steamy portholes on the glass front, you found yourself inside something resembling a bathhouse. The air was heavy with the musk of young men whose taut flesh you saw writhing on the dance floor. In the corner, two faces compounded and separated with a turn of tongue. A flash of bare hip. A sibilance and a cackle. The pounding of full-on disco. Ah, Comeback.
March 31 marks the two-year anniversary of this most famous catamite club night in Seattle, and there are no plans for stopping. Comeback creator and promoter Marcus Wilson (AKA DJ Porq) drops hints that he’ll be bringing in more guest MCs and performers from local and touring acts. He’s not just booking entertainment, though; he set out some time ago to champion and nurture new talent that can’t otherwise nd a venue. “It’s always been important to be able to provide a space for those who don’t quite fit into common promoters’ agendas,” says Wilson.
Comeback has featured such weirdo acts as NRDLNGR, Stinkmitt, and the International Male (this month it’s Fankick! and Bobcats). The party has also consistently provided the best in danceable cuts—electro, new wave, freestyle, Miami bass, post-punk, hiphop—care of three more of the busiest and best DJs in town: Fucking in the Streets, Colby B, and MC Chompers.
Comeback began as a follow-up to Pho Bang, a successful dance party night for nonmainstream gays. When Comeback hit it big in summer 2004, many clubs around town started aping Comeback’s porny-punk aesthetic. Wilson sees the rampant imitation as flattery.
“Being that there was really nowhere for gays with what I consider good taste in music to go and actually dance, it was a pretty safe bet that Comeback would take off and that it would eventually be imitated or at least ‘inspire’ a bunch of similarly themed nights.”
Now, everywhere you go there’s some poster touting a list of underground music genres and some degree of receptiveness to “queers, dykes, trannies, and their friends.” As usually happens with even the most genuine duplicative efforts, the new nights have been of a lesser and lesser quality, all the way down to the bland and desperately named “Alternative Tuesdays.” Gross.
Despite Comeback’s success, there’s something that’s been bothering our dear Porq. “Unfortunately, Seattle crowds tend to be the most aloof and unresponsive to creative interaction… A lot of people approach going out to a club in the same manner as spending the evening sitting in front of their televisions. It’s like this totally one-sided ‘entertain me’ passive position, where they expect the artist, performer, DJ, or band to expel constant, massive amounts of creative energy to keep them, the passive audience, constantly stimulated.”
Wilson strives to challenge himself as much as he does the clubgoers. “I’m all for encouraging a more involved, reciprocal experience. Maybe I’ll make that my official resolution as we enter year three of Comeback!”
Get ready for fake-blood balloon fights, spontaneous laser-pen light shows, heckling battles on the mic—something. But all of the burden shouldn’t be on the promoters. Surely the attendees have something to say—about themselves, about the world, about politics. Complex displays of creativity have been de rigueur for gay partygoers for, like, centuries. Costumery alone can serve to interrogate ideas about beauty, gender, and race. Any fool can get drunk. Comeback’s DIY spirit should be honored. There’s nothing so funny as someone’s first time in a drag getup of his own creation and nothing so arresting as seeing someone walk up in a full-length burqa. Fashion Muslim, you say? War’s not over yet, girl.
So come, faggots, one and all. Bring your spangled shows, your cobbled and curious couture. Throw a public fit. This Friday let your brilliance run wild, so that we all may be astonished to be in one other’s presence. It is neither our wrists nor our sex that have gone limp. There was a time when we were a creative force to be reckoned with. You have been gifted with a venue. Let this month—nay, this year—be our true comeback.
editor@thestranger.com