Thank you, Dallas Police Gang Unit.

I was at a house show on Saturday night. For those of you who don’t know what a house show is, it’s what happens when a couple bands wanna play a show and there’s no venue available, so someone says “Hey! Play at my house!” The local bands on the bill were Trifle Tower and The Undoing of David Wright, as well as an out of town band called Ari Ari.

The shows usually work pretty much the same as a BYOB house party with a live band playing and are usually a lot of fun. Despite BYOB policies, there is also usually pretty rampant underage drinking.

I was sitting in the back yard at this particular show, half-drunk, talking to some guy whose name escapes me, when I looked up and someone was shining a flashlight in my face. Dallas Police Gang Unit!

Typically, if and when the cops show up, it’s a noise complaint. But here, part of town and the fact that there were a BUNCH of kids hanging around equals GANG VIOLENCE!! At first, it was a serious party-killer, but the police seemed to pick up pretty quickly on the fact that we weren’t doing anything wrong as everyone was cooperating and were all still pretty chatty as they “raided” the party. Not to bash these guys - they were just doing their job. And they left us alone when they discovered that the only thing going on was loud music and underage drinking.