By Tessa Solomon
In the eclectic offering of special events at Gabe’s — fall’s Thankskilling throwdown, the annual Elvis Presley fundraiser — none stand in esteem or affection like Saturday’s Black Christmas.
No, it’s not a screening of the 1974 seminal horror classic, Black Christmas, in which a seemingly motiveless stranger slashes sorority girls. Though, it won’t be all candy canes and crackling fireplaces downtown Saturday night, either.
“It’s kind of like a holiday party for local Iowa City people. Everybody knows each other — [lots of] local bands on the lineup,” Gabe’s general manager Pete McCarthy said. “It’s just this dirty rock and roll club, dark and cold and listening to some heavy metal. Everybody sees each other.”
Maybe that can sound off-putting, but in comparison to the alternative — stiff-collared office parties, lukewarm eggnog, *The Christmas Story* on mind-numbing repeat — Gabe’s promises the rowdiest, most memorable holiday hoedown in Iowa City this weekend.
It’s only in recent years that locals have had the chance to enjoy the tradition again.
“The Picador was people from out of town, and they didn’t have any ties to the old Gabe’s,” McCarthy said. “It was one of the things that they didn’t know as much about Gabe’s as we did. My goal was to bring back a lot of the old workers.”
The bar has seen its share of ownership and name transitions since its initial opening as the Pub in the early ’70s — once Gabe & Walker’s, Fox, Sam’s, and most recently, the Picador — but it’s the original Gabe’s Oasis of the early 2000s that Black Christmas organizer Hart Epstein and McCarthy remember most fondly.
“We were pretty much locals,” Epstein said. “I was going to the original Gabe’s, probably before I was suppose to be — I grew up there. It was home away away from, a lot of good bands coming through, a lot of alcohol being drunk. All through the ’80s, that was the punk local venue.”
On the roster for this year’s Black Christmas: Wax Cannon, Iowa City indie-rock darlings since their late-90s debut — think an early ’90s Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. — VanAllen, the prog-rock quartet, and the night’s headliner, Epstein’s own metal band, The Gentle. The audience can expect a festive show, and though the specifics are being kept under wraps, it seems the audience, if any are first-time Black Christmas-ers, can expect something more subversive than just Santa suits and impromptu caroling.
“We owe audience [a spectacle]. Ugly Christmas sweaters are a little played out, but outlandish outfits and stage antics aren’t,” Epstein said. “Black Christmas has always been about joining forces with local luminaries in the punk and rock scene.”
Maybe the bare structures, straining vocals and discorded chords of punk is what this town needs, in place of jolly renditions of “Jingle Bells,” as a roller-coaster year begins its screech to a halt.
“2016 being the utter shit show it was, it’s a great way to get together and commiserate, show some solidarity,” Epstein said. “It’s good to get together and show solidarity.”
