In Altadena, a Youth Music Scene Grows From the Eaton Fire’s Ashes

Families are gradually moving into newly built homes in Altadena after the Eaton fire, which largely turned the Los Angeles community into ashes in early 2025.

While dirt lots still dominate Altadena’s west side, live music shows and throngs of teenagers flocking to see them have been filling the void.

“People like having something to do, somewhere to go,” said 16-year-old Elise Lamond, a guitarist in the Altadena-based quintet Last Friday.

On one recent summer night, Lamond watched Persona Non Grata, a young, multi-ethnic seven-member music collective influenced by funk and Afrobeat.

The mood was celebratory. A few dozen kids crowded the stage — a freshly painted back porch.

“The shows were a little smaller in the beginning, and then slowly more and more people started to become aware of them,” said Lamond, who’s been involved in the scene from the start.

Within weeks after the Eaton Fire, local music promoter Matt Chait and his colleague Sandra Denver were scouting for stages amid the scorched lots of Altadena. Now, shows are popping up a few times a month in backyards, parking lots, at a local veterans’ hall and other unconventional venues.

The upstart music scene is a confluence of different initiatives meant to help fire survivors and musicians. 

First, nonprofit Altadena Musicians formed to get musical instruments back in the hands of artists who lost gear. While volunteering with that organization, Chait and Denver launched Backyard Party. The aim was to give teenage musicians opportunities to perform, be creative and have a place to socialize after the disaster.

“If they want to talk about [the fire], they absolutely should,” Chait said. “If they want to write songs about it, they absolutely should.” 

But because many of the young musicians directly impacted by the fire say they do not want to be identified as “victims” or otherwise be defined by it, Chait said the music space is for the young musicians to grow in whichever ways they choose.

“The families and parents are already still dealing with it,” he said. 

“If they want to move past it and just sing about cars or boys or whatever the hell they want to sing about, they should do that.”

Fourteen-year-old Sadie Denver of the Altadena band Last Friday said the early backyard shows raised thousands of dollars for fire-impacted kids and their families, including three of her own bandmates.

“We wanted to do fundraisers for it because we knew so many people who were affected. Everyone was affected,” Denver said.

On a recent weekday night, the band’s five members crowded into a small, one-room backyard studio to rehearse at the home of 17-year-old drummer Charlie Bohlman.

As each member slowly develops songwriting chops, for now they lean on covers by contemporary punk and alt-rock bands like Wet Leg, Dream Nails and South Pasadena’s Linda Lindas. Tonight they’re also running through PJ Harvey’s ‘90s indie rock classic, “50ft Queenie.” 

Denver’s father, Nate, is a local fire chief and veteran noise punk musician. Her mom, Sandra, is also a Los Angeles indie music scene veteran and co-founder of Backyard Party.

“My focus really is the teenagers and trying to help them create the scene and get to know each other,” she said. Other teenagers help them run the shows.

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“They run the door, they’re even the bouncers,” Denver said, laughing.

While Sandra Denver sometimes collects the $5 or $10 admission at the door, the adults mostly keep their distance at these all-ages shows, while the kids, depending on the band, crowd up against the makeshift stage.

When the retro garage rock band The Lawnchairs played in a backyard in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood, kids busted out in song and kicked up a gentle, slow-moving mosh pit on the grass.

Fifteen-year-old Ynez Brice, Last Friday’s lead guitarist, said the backyard shows are a place to put away your phones, make new connections and feel part of something bigger.

“People that don’t know each other, I see them coming together and talking with each other,” Brice said. 

She said the shows foster the feeling that teens can “talk with someone … no matter what.”

As the scene grows, so do the musicians

When Matt Chait launched Backyard Party, his expectations were modest. Over the last year, it’s grown into a donor-supported nonprofit with a newly launched summer program, offering kids and parents tips on music gear, songwriting and the music business.

“When there’s a music scene that’s being built, the bands are generally the center of it. But they don’t really run it,” said Chait, adding that the organization does promotion so bands can earn up to several hundred bucks a show. 

Beyond the graphic design and booking services, Chait said they provide a bigger service to the kids. 

“There’s such an incredible amount of social education that goes on with something as simple as a punk show.” 

Despite being in multiple bands and formally educating themselves in music, some of the young musicians are noncommittal about pursuing a career in music.

“If at some point I can get to the point where we’re like ‘Oh, we can have normal gigs, and we can get paid sometimes,’ I would like that,” Ynez Brice said.

“But I’d [also] rather have a job. I know I love music, but there’s also other things I like.”

Drummer Charlie Bohlman said he’s eager to get in a van and hit the road with Last Friday, or with the metallic hardcore band he also drums for called Love at First Fight.

“Dude, I would love to have a career in music. I have a backup plan too — to just leave and travel the world,” Bohlman said.

Backyard Party-sponsored shows will continue throughout the summer and well into the school year.

Some of the young Altadena area musicians have moved back after the fire; others have left the burn scar behind. Right now, they’re more concerned with the usual teenage challenges — crushes, fashion and school — and that next live show.