JagBytes

Issue date: 1/30/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Dave Evans DJ Sarah "Vain" Stierch spins at Mutiny, Broad Ripple's alternative dance night at the Casbah Bar.

Media Credit: Dave Evans Mutiny attendees, who identified themselves as "Johnny Sexface" and "Jett," get cozy at the Casbah Bar in Broad Ripple.

Media Credit: Dale Evans Maria Morales poses at Mutiny, the alternative dance night held Wednesday nights at the Casbah bar in Broad Ripple.

The Broad Ripple of the recent past is much different than the Broad Ripple of today. It was the home of self-described freaks and punk kids that sat on the rainbow bridge smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey from a bag. They shopped at the vintage stores, independent record stores and purchased leather-stud belts at Future Shock. The telephone poles were plastered with flyers, and the rivers were paved over.

Recently, they tore up the paved rivers, threw in a Starbucks, took down a lot of the flyers and began directing attention toward the college scene, lining Broad Ripple Avenue with rows of nearly-identical bars filled with likely cast alternates for MTV's the Real World.

DJ Sarah "Vain" Stierch wants to bring back the freaks back to Broad Ripple. Stierch and her partner Justin "DJ Dead Billy" Wright, run Mutiny, the Alternative Dance night held Wednesday nights at the Casbah Bar in Broad Ripple.

"It's fun," Stierch says. "Usually this type of music is restricted to people's homes, and listening to it in their cars. We're into it too, and we love to share it."

Mutiny started slowly last Wednesday, with about 10 people scattered around the bar. The two bartenders were watching "Reno 911," on the TV behind the bar, turning it up occasionally over the pseudo-disco Stierch was spinning. A lone girl in a pink shirt shuffled her feet and clapped her hands. She moved in a sort of cross pattern, blessing the dance floor for that evening's party.

"Early in the night, we cater to who ever is there," Wright said. "A week or so ago, the only person there was into punk, so that's what I played for him. He was there, and that's what he wanted to hear."

Over the course of the evening, more and more people began to show up, and their clothes got blacker, the coats longer and more often than not made of black leather. People danced more and more, some in groups, and lone men with eyes cast downward, spinning slowly. The music became darker-more of the Cure, Joy Division, some early Sonic Youth and Mission of Burma. The request list at the DJ table began to fill up with requests for "anything by the Smiths," and "any dark-wave, be creative!" as well as "Jesus loves you!" which appeared at least three times throughout the evening.

"My favorite is when people request really obscure music that the majority of people haven't heard," Wright says. "That's what I like to play too, but it's not stuff I play every time I go out. I can't, because people won't stay around."

Stierch added, "I like it when I play something that everybody is into. When everybody starts dancing, and singing along. I like walking into a room and playing music that 50 other people are into."

Stierch's first hit of the night was the aptly named, Hit Crew's "Don't You Want Me (Baby)." The dance floor began to fill up, and perhaps 30 of the 50 people in the bar at the time began to sing in unison, "Don't you want me baby? Don't you want me, oh whoa-whoa!"

"I have played this song like, 5,324,000 times, and people always get into it," Stierch said as a girl with blonde hair danced towards the table, singing the "whoas" aloud.

Both Stierch and Wright agree that Mutiny draws a wide range of people. Looking at the crowd, this seems to be true.

Maria Morales is a 23-year-old ballroom dance instructor, and has been attending Mutiny since its inception in April 2007. Morales is into the Goth scene and she dresses the part. She wears fishnets on her arms, dresses in black with purple and black "cyber-falls" cascade down her shoulders.

"Cyber-falls are like dreadlocks made out of foam," Morales says. "I can't wear this stuff to work, these things just tie right into my hair; it takes like five seconds."

Morales is a Goth-dance night connoisseur-she has attended Goth nights in Louisville, Dayton, Columbus, and Chicago.

"Mutiny is one of the only regular Goth nights in Indianapolis," Morales says. "The Goth community is very close-knit community, and you see a lot of the same people. The Indianapolis Goth community has just jumped around from club to club for so long, and I've never seen a night so consistent and so crowded in a long time."

However, she also is slightly reserved about calling Mutiny a true Goth night.

"It's not really a hardcore Goth-night is it?" she asked. "They don't play only Goth music. I love that, and I hate it. It's good because they are trying to branch out and encompass so much of the underground scene. They're trying to draw in more people off the street, and at the same time provide a place for people like us to come and listen to this great music."

Devon, who declined to give her last name, is a reporter for WIBC. She is dressed in a similar fashion, black dress, black boots, and a shaggy black wig; she has fourteen more at home.

"You get all these people who come here from all walks of life, all types of income, types of jobs-and they all have the love of this type of music in common," she said.

Sam Edmonds a 27-year-old delivery boy for Jimmy John's Sandwich shop, said, "I grew up to all of these songs in the '80s," he says, "It's nice to hear underground '80s music, the post-punk stuff specifically."

Adam Walker shares Edmond's love of post-punk, and attends Mutiny because they play it. He grew up on '80s post punk and hardcore, so he takes more of a cynical view towards the dancing. He retaliates with a veritable arsenal of dances designed to keep the dance floor lighthearted, dances like "Mowing the Lawn," where he mimes a starting a pull start mower, then proceeds to cut the grass, right through the dance floor. He also has "the Typewriter," "the Grave-Digger," "the Weight-Lifter," and "the Sledge Hammer" - all of which are exactly what they sound like.

"Some of them I have co-opted from other Goth clubs that I have been to," Walker says. "But often I find that people just take themselves too seriously, and it's my cynical asshole response to mow down the dance floor."

The dancers respond to his dances with laughter and smiles. Girls dance with him and they have a good time.

At the peak of the evening, the Casbah contained around 100 people, some dancing, most drinking and congregating around the perimeter of the dance floor, drinking and talking.

Stierch is back behind the table, and she plays another request, "Panic," by the Smiths. People continue to dance, and some sing along.

"Burn down the disco," they sing, "hang the blessed DJ!"

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