Of all the parties I’ve been to in recent memory, I’ve anticipated none so much as last Friday night’s Dearraindrop opening at Kavi Gupta Gallery. The neopsychedelic art collective, featuring twentysomething siblings and native Virginians Billy and Laura Grant and Laura’s long-term boyfriend, Joe Grillo, is hot shit in the art scene–its trippy, cartoony, infinitely detailed collages have been shown at superhip galleries like Deitch Projects and John Connelly Presents in New York and HaNNa in Tokyo and praised in the New York Times–but never mind about that. What I love about the trio is that they’re bona fide troublemakers. Their antics last time they were in town–two years ago to the month–catalyzed the best party I’ve been to in my entire life.
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On the fest’s opening night at Sonotheque, the Totem crew showed up in white painters’ outfits they’d screen-printed and sprayed with fluorescent colors, visors that said CUM, and glitter all over their faces. When people get that dressed up in hopes of a special night, it’s automatically a special night.
A little later Grillo got rowdy and dumped out the club’s carefully organized recycling bins all over the place. Then he grabbed a trumpet and took it into the men’s bathroom, where he blared sour notes into some poor guy’s ear as he was trying to pee. The guy must’ve complained to management, says Grillo, because next thing he knew the aforementioned bartender was dragging him by the collar out the back door. The bartender took one look at the mess of bottles strewn around the alley and forgot his original objective; Grillo took off and went back inside.
Three nights later Dearraindrop had an art and music show at Buddy, a gallery I’d been to maybe once or twice prior. Rumors of how arrogant, rude, disrespectful, and homophobic Dearraindrop had been thus far on their visit had been circulating, and the place was packed. A few minutes into their set of kiddie-toy electronics, synthesizers, cheap drum machines, and that damn trumpet, a group of eight naked guys–including Joe and my future boyfriend–plus a few others in various stages of undress rushed the stage, some with faggot and other homophobic epithets written on their bodies in Sharpie. They were chanting, “FAG-GOT! FAG-GOT!”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/courtesy of Derraindrop, Andrea Bauer.
