The Sauce House: where community, culture collide in a mosh pit

Established in 2018, Sauce House is not just any last-minute house show in the Rio Grande Valley but has made its own name in the community with its lineups, energy and love for the scene.

Sauce House, a DIY live music venue in San Juan that has local and out-of-the-Valley bands perform alongside vendors, is the creation of co-founders Carlos Zamora and Leo Aguilar, who are also bandmates in diseasefreak. 

 Attracting all walks of life, a Sauce House show typically has loud and often fast music, mosh pits, a variety of people from emos and goths to preps, and a sense of community. 

“It’s always going to catch people like, ‘Oh, what, it’s at a house?’” Zamora said. “So people are always gonna look at it a little sketchy. I mean, I don’t blame them … but when it comes to, like, introducing people to [the Sauce House], I won’t describe it as a house show. I’ll say it’s like a community event. There’s live music. There’s vendors. Sometimes, there’s food and drinks.” 

The venue is Zamora’s parents’ house and has hosted benefit shows in collaboration with organizations, such as Frontera Fund, a nonprofit abortion fund in the Valley. 

“I personally started to see that there’s a lot of potential for us to do something that’s a little more, I want to say, in the realm of, like, direct action, or mutual aid,” Zamora said. “Especially mutual aid in the RGV just because we are, like, a pretty close-knit community.” 

Zamora added that just because it is not an official venue with official licenses and status does not mean it is any less than other establishments.

“People in the Valley have a tendency to view, like, status … and money with nice s— and that’s what they base the legitimacy of certain events [on],” he said. “People will go to Cine El Rey and be like, ‘Oh, that’s what a concert is.’ But if you tell them that live bands play in some f—ing garage, in a random neighborhood, in a random house and then hundreds of people show up, they’ll be like, ‘What the f— are you talking about. That’s insane.’”

Aguilar describes the Sauce House as a big congregation of people with the exchanging of energy, which results in good times. 

“I feel like there’s a lot of people that are into alternative music and, like, rock music and hardcore and genres like that,” he said. “And we’ve got a new wave of younger people who want to come out to the shows and experience that kind of lifestyle. … There ain’t s— to do here in the Valley if you really asked me. There’s nothing to do besides, like, commercial stuff. 

“So, like, [the Sauce House] is something that we can all do. … Everybody can put aside five or 10 bucks to go pay at the door and go to the show and you’re guaranteed a good time, sometimes.” 

Samantha Herrera, a UTRGV rehabilitation services freshman, attended a Sauce House concert Feb. 11, which attracted around 160 people. 

Herrera, who viewed the concert from the middle of several mosh pits, described it as “f—ing insane.”

Asked how it feels to be in a mosh pit at the Sauce House, she replied, “It’s like a weird form of love.”

“Because everyone’s, like, making sure everyone is OK,” Herrera said. “If you drop something, we pick it up, give it back to the performers. Everyone gets their belongings back. If you fall, they pick you up so you can’t get trampled. You might get hurt, but it’s out of love.” 

Describing the venue itself as homey, Herrera said the Sauce House has a raw element to it that she has not experienced elsewhere in the Valley. 

Another first-timer at the Sauce House on Feb. 11 was Vanessa Rizo, who described the concert as a way to let loose and have a great time. 

“That’s the energy that they throw out there, just to let it f—ing go,” Rizo said. “I was expecting some sort of, like, official venue but this is, like, more organic. Like, the sprout of something that you can’t take away.” 

With hundreds of people coming to the Sauce House for concerts, from newcomers to veterans of the house show scene, it wasn’t always like that for Zamora and Aguilar. 

Inspired by attending house shows as teenagers, Zamora and Aguilar had ideas to start having their own shows. 

“We had a band and we weren’t getting as many shows as we wanted to,” Zamora said. “So we were like, ‘Let’s try doing it ourselves.’ I had been previously to, like, a house show, our first house show ever, and I was like, ‘Damn, we could just do this in our house.’”

After a small turnout for the first show on Dec. 8, 2018, Zamora said they started to get serious about the DIY live music venue and created social media for it. 

“Even back then, when nobody showed up, we were obviously discouraged, but we had, like, three more shows planned out already,” Zamora said. “So it was, like, ‘Let’s just keep going. Eventually, people are gonna catch on to what we’re doing.’ And it’s starting to seem that people have been catching on. So, it’s just, like, we’re thankful we didn’t give up after, like, a s—-y show. Because it’s so f—ing easy to just be like, ‘I never want to do this again.’” 

Zamora said he handles the logistics of running the show, from managing the sound system and lights to making sure there is someone at the entrance, providing trash cans and handling the money. 

The money made from shows is used to pay the bands, something that is uncommon in the scene. Zamora and Aguilar said the rest is used to invest in better sound equipment and lights for the Sauce House. 

Zamora learned sound engineering to produce better quality sound for live shows, which created a big difference between the first and most recent Sauce House shows, Aguilar said.  

Aguilar curates the show, from booking the bands and reaching out to artists to make show flyers to inviting vendors to participate. 

Asked to describe the local house show scene before and after the initial years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zamora replied there was an oversaturation of the scene with shows every week with too many bands. 

“Very bluntly, there was a lot of s—-y events happening,” he said. “And they were being put on by not the best people … and then, now that it started back up, I’m noticing more promoters are paying bands and they’re just trying hard because … if you just throw a show for whatever, you’re gonna end up hurting the local scene.”

Zamora added that every Sauce House show is not for profit and is put on for a purpose, such as bringing out-of-town bands to the community or giving rising local bands attention.

The purpose is to always keep the community in mind. 

Asked how it feels that the Sauce House is one of the main DIY venues that is a part of the local house show culture, Zamora replied, “A little surreal because at the end of the day, it’s just, like, my mom’s house and … I feel like it’s gotten to the point where we can brag a little bit.”

“And it’s not even, like, bragging to be like, ‘Oh, we’re doing cool s—,’” he said. “But, like, we put on a show and people loved every single band that played. People supported local vendors, especially on shows where people are supporting a really good cause. It feels very rewarding.”

Aguilar added that “it feels good.”

“To be able to, like, change people’s lives a little bit, to change the routine that people go through on the daily,” he said. “To be able to provide an experience that’s good for the artists, for the community and to have a space where people can play good shows and experience good music is great.” 

For information on the venue’s next concert, visit its Instagram page @saucehousetx. 

“Everyone is welcomed to the Sauce House,” Aguilar said. “We do everything we can to make it a safe space for all ages.”