House Party Special

House Parties – An Introduction

Four O’clock on a freezing, wet Sunday morning. The rest of the city has already staggered home from the clubs and are tucked up with nothing but their hangovers to look forward to. But across Hyde Park it’s a different story. On any given weekend during term time it’s a given that if you walk around for long enough (and that isn’t usually very long) you’ll stumble on one of any number of all-night student house parties. They range from huge basement affairs with foundation-shaking soundsystems and lazers, to a couple of small struggling speakers and a pair of decks but this weekly ritualistic affair is an integral part of the city’s student nightlife.

I myself run a soundsystem which I hire out almost exclusively to students having house parties, and though I confess to having hosted a few in the past, it never ceases to amaze me that people are happy to play host to an army of intoxicated people, most of whom are strangers intent on staying until long after the hosts have had enough.  Not to put you off or anything, but there’s the mammoth cleanup operation, high risk of theft and the cost of repairs to the inevitable broken speakers/decks/window/toilet that lie ahead. However there is something about Leeds parties that not only means that we keep going to them but that we keep spending time and money hosting them. The party culture here in Leeds is unlike any other I’ve seen in the country and the DJs are often of a high calibre with hosts happy to bring in quality soundsystems for them.

There’s something special about the atmosphere at these events which is hard to describe. Granted, we’ve all been to some terrible ones where you can’t move at all or the DJ can’t mix or the guy selling balloons is charging a fiver a pop or you’re forced to speak to that wasted person who you’ll see in a seminar on tuesday . But ultimately, they’re an established part of the fabric of Leeds student life which will hopefully continue for a long time to come.  On this page, to contine the housing theme running through this issue of the paper, we take a look at some anecdotal stories about Leeds house parties, from veteran alumni and current students alike, as well as some advice about what you should do and what you shouldn’t if you are thinking about hosting your own house party.
words: Finn Ryan

Stories and Advice

“When I hosted a house party on Brudenell Road a few years ago, we decided to secure every single thing in the house beforehand.  Cupboards were sealed, windows were covered, steak knifes removed from draws, posters were removed.  The house was seemingly foolproof.  A couple of hours in the night after the tedious preparation and the whole three-storied house and basement were heaving with people.  I spent a bit of time upstairs before I saw a huge group of people leaving the house from my viewpoint on the top floor. i went downstairs to see the floor filled with smoke, people in coughing fits and someone covered head to toe in what looked like flour…was the house on fire?   No.  We had just managed to miss locking up one of the most obvious things which people could get hold of; the powdered fire extinguisher.  At about 4AM when the party was in full swing, some bright spark let it off in the packed basement, causing some pretty volatile panic”.
Moral Of The Story?
Be sure to double-check the prepatory measures you’ve made. Make sure they are secured and sealed.  You’d be surprised how mischievous this house party lot can be.
words: Sam Donnison

“I run an events company, a magazine, a record label and work for a major record label – but it all began with humble beginnings in a little basement at 10 Ebor Mount.  We used to host parties and quickly gained notoriety on the Leeds house party circuit.  Over the course of two years we threw some huge parties, got invited to festivals, played around the country and much more.  So just before we left we decided to throw one last party, one last final, concluding party.  It was a house of five; me and another guy and three girls who were all great chicks but very different to me and the other boy who would spend days partying and cracking on – so its quite a surprise they would let us do parties.  Anyway, so it’s the last party and it was going on hard until about four in the afternoon the next day, had hundreds of people through the door; it was great …
Little did we know someone had broke into my flatmates room, (one of the girls) and stolen her laptop, all her jewellery, her camera, best coat, trainers, car keys and inevitabley…her car.”
Moral Of The Story?
Make sure all your personal belongings, especially anything of value is securely locked away.
words: Kazim Rashid

“At a recent house party, we were all sat in the kitchen and one of my friends accidentally knocked a bottle of sun flower oil over. Instead of cleaning it up, he started sliding on it. It worked out pretty well, so he took the other oil bottles, emptied them in the corridor, ripped a shelf off the wall (it was attached with two screws) and invented a new house party sporting discipline: oil surfing.  It was soon adopted welcomingly by the other party people. The results: no shelf, a broken glass door, various bruises and no oil left to make the hangover breakfast.”
Moral of the story?
If you’re having a house party, and you don’t mind it being messy, buy more oil, and adopt this wondeful domestic sporting venture because we had a hell of a lot of fun.
words: Marc Rettig

“The set-up for our first ever house party was militant in many ways, but when it came to providing guest entertainment I was a little naive. Not expecting a wall-to-wall throng of revellers inhabiting every crevice of our humble home, I duct-taped a twister mat to the floor of one room, with the spinner firmly attached to the wall in case someone fancied utilising it to break the ice. Hundreds of random visitors later, I expected the twister mat to ravaged beyond recognition beneath a thousand fag butts. At around 6am, we began sheparding unknown visitors through the front door. I entered the aforementioned room to find a hoarde of adolescents, all whom looked more suitable for a school bus than a student house party, had commandeered my twister game as their territory and were merrily contorting away in the house party debris. It took some hasty persuasion to convince them to quit their game without a clear winner and get the hell out of my house.”
Moral Of The Story?
As a general rule, house party entertainment  sorts itself out. You don’t need a twister mat stapled to the floor ensure your guests have a good time. That is unless you are partial to young blood, in which case I guess the moral is a game of Twister is potentially great bait.
words: Rachel C Clark

“After our first house party last year I couldn’t get over how much stuff people had lost. There were multiple sets of keys, numerous bags of unidentifiable white powders, a driving license and even the odd bit of loose change. However of all the items left behind by our guests the night before, the most unexpected had to be the shit that someone had kindly dropped in the shower.”
Moral Of The Story?
I dont think there’s a clear moral of this story  really.  Not sure this could have been avoided.  Just expect the occasional unexpected acts of the degenerated unhygienic minority amongst the House party contingent.
words: Finn Ryan