new all-ages venue

Through a veil of dark hair tendrils, Audrey Cymone stares intensely into the darkened room. The 16-year-old singer of the high school band Kim Theory croons the melancholy-tinged lyrics from “Growing Pains,” their song about adolescent angst.

Why can’t things just be the same?

The question hangs in the air as the sound thickens during soundcheck — guitars climbing, drums cracking. It carries double meaning here at Backyard Party, a new all-ages music venue in a nondescript business park on the border of Pasadena and Altadena.

The band, the venue’s team and the audience share an undesirable connective tissue. All have been affected in different ways by the Eaton and Palisades fires. Some watched their homes burn to the ground. Others live as expatriates from their own community because their houses in the burn zones are still uninhabitable. And some simply bear witness to the grief that, almost a year later, still bubbles up.

Before this rainy November night, the all-female band self-described as Riot Grrrl-adjacent mostly performed at house parties and small downtown L.A. venues. To celebrate the release of its EP, “Bitch Scene,” Kim Theory chose Backyard Party.

“This is a big deal,” says Lula Seifert, 16, the guitarist, watching the line of people snake through the door. “This is an awesome venue.”

When Cymone, wearing a dress fashioned out of a trash bag, and Seifert take the stage later with drummer Zoey Su, and bassist Lucy Fraser, the sold-out room crackles with energy. Teenagers crowd around the stage. A mosh pit breaks out. Bodies collide in a whirl of elbows and flying sneakers.

Attendees dance in the crowd during the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party at Backyard Party on November 15.

The back of the room — populated with parents, guardians and supervisors — is more sedate. Linda Wang, 45, the drummer’s mom, likes the all-ages venue because it provides a safe space for teens to experience live music. Nearby, a dad vigorously bobs his head. Hugs are exchanged between community members torn apart by January’s wildfires.

At Backyard Party, where live music happens every weekend, the vibes are good, the guest list is family friendly and the house rules are straight-edged. Between band sets, Brandon Jay, a Backyard Party partner, popped onstage to remind the crowd that the space is a drug-free zone. For those who don’t comply, “You gotta go,” he announced.

And on Kim Theory’s night, the heaviness left behind by the fires stays at the door.

“Music is a very powerful thing,” says Malena Vesbit, 14, who helped run ticket sales for the show. “It moves your emotions. I think it’s really a way to escape it all.”

The band Kim Theory preforms on stage during their EP Release Party at Backyard Party.

Music composes a second life

Backyard Party, run by Jay and partners Sandra Denver and Matt Chait, is inspired by Pasadena lore — the backyard shows that helped launch Van Halen. The next era of Pasadena parties starts in this 1,500-square-foot space.

But it’s become more than just an all-ages venue and event space since hosting its first show in September. If you lost your record collection in the fires, you can pick up free vinyls from their library. If you lost an instrument, free guitars, amps and a piano for the taking fill a room next to the stage.

Jay, and his wife, Gwendolyn Sanford, who work together as a composing team, lost their Altadena home, music studio and over 150 instruments and pieces of recording gear in the Eaton fire.

“Everyone lost special things like that,” says Jay, 53. “It’s so hard to cope”

Backyard Party founder Brandon Jay helps adjust a drum set during the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

After the fire, friends started pressing their musical gear into his hands — small acts of generosity that helped stitch him back together. All over Los Angeles, musical instruments sit untouched in garages and closets. What if Jay could help match these lonely instruments with musicians in need?

Weeks after the fire, Jay founded Altadena Musicians, and the companion Instrumental Giving app followed in April to connect musicians in need with donors. Jay, with his bouffant curly hair and preternatural ability to remember the smallest details, became a de facto musical matchmaker.

The process often starts with a personal story of a loss and ends with an unexpected human connection made by the need for something small, like a harmonica. Altadena Musicians has helped over 850 people, says Jay. The circulation of treasured possessions and an extraordinary sense of kindness can change lives.

When the Pacific Palisades fire raged, Michelle Bellamy, 39, reached for her Martin acoustic guitar, affectionately named Gretchyn the Second, before evacuating, but then changed her mind. Something told her she would be back.

But the fire took her home — and the guitar she used to learn to write songs on. Regret replayed in her mind until Jay found a match: Abby Sherr, 80, whose Pacific Palisades home survived. Sherr had been given a Martin acoustic guitar at 16 by her brother. She was never quite able to part with it until she heard about Jay’s effort. Then she knew exactly where it needed to go.

In April, Sherr arrived at the Santa Monica real estate office where Bellamy works to give her the guitar, newly named Gretchyn the Third.

Attendees listen to the band Kim Theory during their EP Release Party.

“This guitar has given me a new lease on my musical life,” says Bellamy. She was inspired to write a song about the Palisades fire on Gretchyn the Third. Of course, she sent Sherr a video of her performance.

“It did bring tears to my eyes hearing her play and sing that song,” says Sherr. “I drive by what used to be her apartment, not infrequently, and I think of her every time.”

Just like normal. Just for one night.

No one at Kim Theory’s show really wanted to talk about fires. Especially the kids, says Jay. They just want to feel normal.

Some teenagers prefer action over words. Ticket sales go toward paying the bands and funding Backyard Party and Altadena Musicians’ venue upkeep and programs.

“Helping out can make everything just feel a little bit better about the state of our world,” says Fraser, 16, Kim Theory’s bassist.

Attendees wear various outfit accessories during the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

Vesbit agrees. She helped establish the Alta Pasa Project, an organization to help teens who were impacted by the fires. She and her family are still displaced from their Altadena home.

During the party, Vesbit took breaks from working the door to watch the show. She danced and joined the mosh pit. She noticed that many teenagers hugged, even though they didn’t know each other, Vesbit says. That was her favorite part.

It was the Morrow Family’s first time attending a Backyard Party event. They came from their long-term temporary place in Highland Park to see Kim Theory perform. Their Altadena home stands, but because of the fire’s lingering smoke and ash they haven’t been able to return.

Max Morrow, 15, is tired of talking about the fire and the house they can’t go back to yet. His younger sister, Stella Morrow, 13, still feels awkward about grieving what is still tangible but out of reach.

“It’s a time capsule,” says their mom, Mel Morrow, 52, about their home.

Friends arrive, and she rushes over to greet them.

“I mean, we’ll show up no matter what,” she says. “Because we didn’t just lose our houses, we lost our community.”

Attendees play in the rain after the band Kim Theory’s EP Release Party.

“Growing Pains,” Kim Theory’s EP closer, is a song about the stage of life when you’re unsure the person you were would be proud of your present self, says Cymone.

“I feel like it’s something that a lot of teenagers can relate to,” she adds.

Tomorrow, there will be more uncertainty, but in the parking lot after the show, the teens start dancing in the rain.