A fairy prince flaunting baby blue wings, a hot pink sparkly scarf,
and pink leopard-print short-shorts welcomes me to “Bend-it Bandits’
Semi-Secret Social: Hallowganza” with a slight curtsy. Though too
late for the vegan potluck, Party Crasher is just in time for the
Sleater-Kinney-esque stylings of house-show regulars My Parade. Their
“POC dance punk” (POC = people of color, fool) fills the living
room-cum-dance floor with crisp, raucous beats, inspiring grins and
bouncing from partyers. Highlights include a sped-up punk cover of
Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and a drummer dressed (advertently?) as a
never-nude.
Between bands, the room transforms into a theater as we settle down
to watch an annotated slide show by the dapper ilvs (pronounced
“Elvis”) strauss. In a trim brown velour jacket and a porkpie hat, ilvs
clicks through a series of spare images. Part one: slides of a factory,
with copper pipes and a large boiler gleaming through the dusky
resolution. The artistic love child of Miranda July and Tracy + the
Plastics, ilvs dryly narrates the lascivious fantasies of a factory
worker so vividly we can almost see him pressed against the big
copper dome as his boss fucks him (“I love my job, I love my job,” he
pants). Part two: a lustful, English-lilted tour of botanical gardens,
including a Moby-Dick-style obsession with peonies and the
etymology of “vagiant” (giant vagina).
Our faces hurt from laughing, and I look forward to the
brass-accented acoustic sing-alongs of Tin Tree Factory up next. It’s late, and tired smiles rest on faces around the room as
we quietly listen. But the mood shifts with their final tune—the
first few notes of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” summon our energy to jump
around once more, this time to lyrics about linoleum floors. 
Want to welcome The Stranger to your house party
with a “No cops/No scabies/No problem” sign on your front door?
E-mail the date, place, and party details to partycrasher@thestranger.com.