The Night Air
Andrea Chin

Despite the humidity and smog, I find myself very fond of the air here in Houston. Especially the night air, which has a bold mesquite pungency that lingers within it. The scent swirls around the spread-out city just above the sidewalks. As I wait outside for a friend to whisk me away, I am surrounded by the scent of the night air. Recalling random memories as I sit here alone, I am even more aware of its sweet smell.

I’ve listened to the horror stories my parents tell me to keep me home at night, but in the glow of the streetlights along the Richmond Strip, one breath makes me feel invincible. I am drawn here every weekend by the bright neon lights, street noise, music of all sorts, an atmosphere carried by the smell of cigarette smoke and the strumming of high-pitched chords. Sometimes it’s late and I’m tired, but I don’t want to go home. I’m practically falling asleep, but I’ve waited for the band this long and I can wait a little longer. When I’m out listening to music, I no longer care what people think. My suburban drama disappears like a dirt clump in the fist of a child, and I am left only to think about the ethereal night.

Before I encountered “punk rawk,” I had no idea such a thing existed—this release of suppressed anger, with people of all ages united. My fascination with this subculture has taken me to the outskirts of town and many other odd places on the “wrong side of the tracks.” Upon arriving at an anarchist music festival on a farm on Conklin, I caught sight of two young men with mohawks tearing down a fence. I had gone through the trouble of persuading my friends to take me and had paid the fee, but I strongly reconsidered whether to stay or not. My stomach settled when Pretty Little Flower performed a cover of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It.” As it happens, the festival turned out to be fairly sociable. There were pretty trees out there, and we sat in circles talking in the cool November air as if we all knew each other. They were decent people, most of them from middle class families; you could trust a lot of them to watch your purse. Acceptance wasn’t hard to achieve. Classifying people can be risky because not everyone is the same within a group. There are always people out there who will prove you wrong. Still, though this group took pride in being individuals within each of their societies, the ones who spent enough time in this scene would eventually blend into it.

That night a band from Colorado played. They had driven all the way to Houston and only asked for fifty dollars to pay for their gas. I could not understand a word their lead singer sang, but by then I had fallen in love with the grindcore scene. Later a friend taped “Hostile Intent,” which he had bought at the farm, and added in several other records lying around. As I listened, the lyrics became clearer and I liked this genre even more. Grindcore is the kind of punk rock that sounds closest to random noise put together with occasional screaming. Not all grindcore songs have a message, but a lot of bands that play this music are political. Most bands seem unhappy with our capitalist system and preach chaos along with animal rights. I noticed a wide range of people at the farm on Conklin were animal rights activists, vegans, anarchists, and dropouts. The “crusty kids,” as some of them call themselves.

Friends at school don’t liked punk rock, nor can they stand the “inaudible screams.” When I began to lose interest in grindcore, a friend of mine introduced me to oi! music. Oi! has more of a drunken feel to it, though it’s hard to describe because different bands have distinctive sounds. The most recent oi! show I saw had the Casualties, Virus, the Flatliners, and Endless Struggle. All the bands are pretty well known for playing oi!, but each has its own twist. I suppose people assumed I would sit in the back or stand at the sides of the stage while the larger men dominated the front of the stage. But the music made me feel just as big as anyone there, and I found myself in the center of the large, thrashing mass. I knocked them down and picked them back up. I was knocked down and they picked me back up. I had gone with my friends Sofia and Ree, though Sofia had left early. Ree, who stayed, was not interested in the punk rock genre at all, but she was filled with the same energy I was. After it was all over, people came up to greet us. It was odd how friendly everyone was after the show had ended. I guess all the suppressed anger had been dealt with.

Many people who are associated with oi! music are often called skinheads. I have got accustomed to this, but I don’t think the name suits them. When one thinks of a skinhead, one thinks of an ignorant, racist neo-Nazi. Some crusties use that as a reason to justify hating skinheads. But they probably just got their name from their choice of haircut. Still, most crusties are anarchist and most skinheads are patriotic, so they aren’t all that fond of each other. Not all people who listen to oi! are skinheads, of course. In fact, instead of generating hate, oi! shows are more like group therapy; I can’t think of a better cure for taking out built-up anger. I also think by going to oi! shows I’ve been able to be more tolerant of people. But the main thing is that I have more fun at oi! shows than at any others.

Another friend acquainted me with another side of downtown Houston. I always thought of downtown as a business area, the part of the city that got scary at night. During the day, downtown is fairly active, with buses, cars, and people carrying briefcases going in all directions, always in a rush. I had never seen downtown at night. When I got there, it seemed so lively, full of so many people. Seen from the sidewalk, all the places seemed jumbled together. The people there were so glamorous, it was almost like a mini Las Vegas. We went to a place called No Tsu Oh (Houston spelled backwards) to see the Free Radicals. The coffee and tea bar was a small hole in the wall, but there were three stories to it. Near the entrance was a waterbed surrounded by mannequin parts. The furniture did not match, but it did not stick out too much either. It was quite comfy, and we started to play a game of Scrabble. Some of the letters were missing, though, so we discontinued the game; it was hard to make words out of Xs, Ys, and Zs. I felt like I was in someone’s living room. The Free Radicals have a jazzy set that they play in several bars in one night. I hadn’t heard anything like them before. A lady dancing brought attention to herself: she danced elegantly, but with a sort of anger that fit the music. We watched her and two other women brave enough to dance, then left around three or four a.m.

I went to Fitzgerald’s a few nights later to catch the Jazz Mandolin Project. I initially went to meet with my friend Morgan and see Japanic downstairs, but she had a friend sneak us upstairs. The jazz was enchanting, and the cigarette smoke filling the air added to the atmosphere. Beneath the calm movements of the band, I sensed a strong shove to the music—a high-pitched energy that seemed to stab me in the heart, sitting in front of the stage and hearing instruments played with such precise confusion.

Rockabilly was something else entirely. When I was six or so, I thought high school would be like it used to be in the fifties: girls with their hair in tight, high ponytails and guys that greased up their hair just like they did on television’s “Happy Days.” High school, of course, was nothing like I dreamed it would be. Then I met a boy named Scott who was very much like those greasers I had pictured in my head, and I knew something like this still existed. But I still didn’t understand why anyone would want to relive the past. After I met Buddy Demon, a radio personality and the bassist of a local rockabilly band called the Luxurious Panthers, the fascination with this decade became clear. The fifties had an appealing sound and look to it, one that now made people flock to Live Bait and Rudyard’s. Rockabilly sounds like a mix of rock and country, but it can also sound like something you might have heard in the ’50s. Lately there seems to have been an explosion of people taking an interest in this scene.

Another friend introduced me to another genre of punk rock called hardcore. This is similar to grindcore, but it has more organized instrumentals. Devoted hardcore fans, however, may disagree, saying that hardcore sounds nothing like grindcore. Crowds at other punk rock performances I had gone to were mostly filled with intoxicated people whose reflexes were slow. Hardcore shows, in contrast, had more energetic adolescents in the crowd. Although I have friends my age, the teenage boys making up this crowd made me feel out of place, especially in the one-man mosh pits. I act very differently at school than I do at a show, and I guess I felt oppressed by their presence. I feel more comfortable pushing down the largest man than I do colliding with the smallest teenage boy.

There are many music scenes in Houston to choose from, and you can count on seeing the same people always showing up for a particular genre. Even though I feel like I’ve seen a lot, there are still many places I have yet to explore. And although I feel most at ease on Richmond, I’ll never fit into one scene. I may have adopted the Richmond Strip as home, but I don’t have to build walls and stay in one room. Sometimes I’m afraid of becoming a hypocrite, like some of those at the anarchist festival who mouthed causes I wasn’t sure they honestly believed in. While I want a place to fit in, I know that I don’t need to fit in.

One Thursday night, as I waited for a friend on the steps just outside the radio station, lying in the humid air and being feasted upon by mosquitoes, I realized where I was. On our drive home, I rolled down the window and I asked my friend if she could smell the mesquite scent as well. She turned and gave me a confused look, but then smiled anyway and said, “Sure, I do.” There weren’t many other cars on the street that night, but who would be out at three in the morning?

Copyright©2000 Andrea Chin