Mini Mart City Park is a new SuttonBerresCuller project that's just what it sounds like: an old gas station mini mart turned into a park. Inside the old mini mart itself are some wall panels of text about the history and environmental impact of this and similar gas stations and some taped off areas; out back is an overgrown lawn; the place looks like it's still a work in progress. Ben Berres says that the night's show is the second even they've had at the place—the first was a performance by "Awesome"—but the first with amplification. When I arrive, the Pine Hill Haints are just wrapping up out back. In between bands, Wu Tang blasts from a stereo—this is an Implied Violence benefit, after all. Planes fly low overhead at regular intervals. I'm told that during Strong Killings' set, which was out front on the street-side of the building, a city bus stopped nearby and several passengers wandered over to see what was going on. Neighbors have been dropping by throughout the night, curious and affable and apparently not complaining about the noise. Some familiar faces show up having come from a house party just up the street. Tacocat play a set, and it occurs to me that their song about Kevin Costner < Japanther's song about River Phoenix. Sorry, guys. Japanther set up—their drum head looks like it says "Japantier," like it's French—and start playing along to a cassingle of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince's "Summertime." They tear through one of the best sets I've seen from them in years, playing favorites like "1-10," "Challenge," the aforementioned "River Phoenix," "Fuk tha Prince a Pull Iz Dum," and "Mornings." What made it the best show in years wasn't the set list, though—they hardly played all my faves—it was just one of those perfect, almost chance combinations of band, crowd, and setting. The band played with heart and humor, drummer/vocalist Ian Vanek talking his usual snarky but sincerely inspirational shit between songs; the crowd danced and pogoed and pumped their fists and sang along as one big sweaty mass, kicking up clouds of dust from the ground, Pig-pen style; the setting, a disused-industrial backyard in the middle of nowhere, was sweet. I rode my bike back to the hill buzzed and still singing Japanther's songs.

The much talked-about Jansport-sponsored $10,000 500 Block Party in the Havana parking lot was like the opposite of the Mini Mart Park City show. Where the Mini Mart City Park is all about taking an old urban space and transforming it into something new, the 500 Block Party was about recreating the past in theme version, a shrine built of painted cardboard facades. Not to mention the fact that those old spaces of the 500 block still exist, only new and transformed and transplanted, changed but living on organically. Hell, the actual Cha Cha was right across the street from this party (the $10,000 party's mock-up of the Cha Cha only just said "lounge" because they couldn't get the real Cha Cha's blessing, since, you know, the real Cha Cha would like people to come drink there, thank you very much). (All of which is to say: Capitol Hill still exists; Capitol Hill is not the same as it was; you can't step in the same river, etc, etc.) There was a line around the block to get in (the Cha Cha never started getting lines until their new location), the inside of Havana was more or less like Havana on any other old DJ night (although the Kylie/Ludacris mashup helped with the early-2000s time-warping), the parking lot was all thumping club music and a photo booth projected large on the wall opposite Havana (there was also a photograph of the old 500 block projected hovering over the life-size dioramas). Signs posted at the Havana entrance warned that you were consenting to being photographed and your likeness used however Jansport saw fit. A friend opined that probably 95% of the people there never even hung out on the old block, which was probably a little unfair, but felt about right in the moment. Another wondered where all that $10,000 went (to be fair, there was also a taco truck, a bus from the Can Can, and probably those dioramas were more expensive than they looked). I'm a crank, but to hand it to the party's organizers: it was quite a spectacle, like it or not, and it is always nice drinking outside on a summer night. On the way out, I saw some kids successfully jumping the parking lot fence to get in.

(photos coming soon)