SUBCULTURE UNDERWORLD SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY
Catch One, Los Angeles, October 12, 2024.
The window of nostalgia is rapidly shrinking. We’ve discussed this already: I recently wrote about the indie sleaze revival, which hearkens back to the late 2000s and early 2010s. What we haven’t talked about is Gen Z’s fondness for the upbeat anthems and salacious slogans of the “Party Rock” era, when every other song implored listeners to dance like the world was ending—2012, after all, was right around the corner.
It seems to me that the pandemic helped kick this phenomenon into gear. Trapped inside, we found ourselves fantasizing about wild nights on the town—the way we did when we were kids, wondering what promises adulthood might hold. It’s no coincidence that hyperpop, known for its high-energy anthems and irreverent sensibility, really caught fire during quarantine. So did Subculture, the nation’s foremost hyperpop rave series, whose six-year-anniversary bash I attended last weekend.
Originally, founders Gannon Baxter and Tyler Shepherd hosted the event on Zoom; eager to experience PLUR in a season of loneliness, the masses flocked to their livestreams. (The party’s explicitly queer-friendly, “all are welcome” ethos certainly boosted the sense of community it provided.) When Subculture first moved into the real world, lineups were anchored by rising stars gaining traction for their radical experiments in pop pastiche, Dorian Electra and Dylan Brady of 100 gecs among them. Cut to the present day. Subculture’s current interpretation of nostalgia is quite literal: the poster for their anniversary rave, which doubled as a Halloween party, announced a number of names that brought me back to my early teens, including Vicky-T of Cobra Starship(“Good Girls Go Bad,” “You Make Me Feel …”), Kreayshawn (“Gucci Gucci,” “Go Hard”), and DEV(“Bass Down Low,” “In the Dark,” and featured on Far East Movement’s “Like a G6”).
Strolling into Catch One, the multiroom Mid-City nightclub where Subculture has taken up residence, I found myself at a crossroads: I could bust a move in “The Netherworld,” “The Sanctum,” or “The Void.” I entered the Void, where Kreayshawn, now booking as a DJ, spun a series of old-school faves chopped into club bangers. As I bobbed my cat ears to a remix of Ellie Goulding’s “Lights,” I watched an animated rendering of Stonehenge cycle on a giant screen. I then assessed my fellow ravers’ sartorial choices. Ghostface masks and banana suits appeared particularly popular, but a homemade take on Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 (2001) took the cake. When a hardstyle version of Zedd’s “Clarity” dropped, every costumed carouser went wild.
DJ Kreay was followed by Petal Supply, a staple from Subculture’s Zoom days. Finally IRL, she performed a live set with a voice-changing mic. A lap around the venue soon had me watching WHOKILLEDXIX, an experimental rap duo who made the crowd guess each song title by presenting a simple riddle. Next came the long-awaited set from DEV; sporting a pair of devil horns, she looked even cooler than in her music videos of yore. Shouting along to a live rendition of “Like a G6” was nothing short of cathartic, even without Far East Movement in the building; they just don’t write rhymes like “gettin’ slizzard / sippin’ sizzurp” anymore.
DEV stepped offstage with 45 minutes until closing time, yet I couldn’t help but feel that the party was already over. The hyperpop songs I heard were structured around the repetition of memetic catchphrases intended to mass-manufacture synthetic feelings of euphoria. Nothing seized my attention like 100 gecs’ clever interpolations of Skrillex-style drops, or even Cobra Starship’s immersive dance floor–romance duets. As I came down from my sax-induced frenzy, everything seemed a bit … recursive. Then again, what else can we really expect given the state of culture? Even discounting our collective obsessions with nostalgia and references, we’re obsessed with mining fads until our pickaxes dull: consider Charli XCX’s new remix album brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, as well as the 34 distinct editions of Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department released since spring. Subculture fashions itself as a safe space—perhaps it could stand to get a bit more dangerous, at least musically speaking.
