(I wrote an article on DIY music. A version of it as published in the DFP, but when it was edited there were some factual inaccuracies made and some things were removed for sake of space. I wanted this version preserved somewhere, so here it is)
When we arrive at The Democracy Center, I notice that there’s a line snaking around the small building. I’ve never seen this before. As we walk past the hedge at the corner of Harvard Avenue and Mt. Auburn Street, my friend looks at me and says, “I hope we can get in.”
Ceremony, a California hardcore band, is playing at the Democracy Center. Normally, this would be the perfect venue for the band—all ages, no booze, show’s over by 11. But the situation isn’t normal. Ceremony is now on Matador Records; they’re getting coverage in the mainstream press. Quite simply, they’re getting big. They don’t belong at the Democracy Center anymore.
This isn’t a question of punk ethics. It’s simple fact: there are far more people who want to see Ceremony then there is room in The Democracy Center’s cramped ballroom.
I happen to be lucky enough to get in. As I pay my 10 dollars—the entrance fee is 7-10 dollars, though they prefer that you donate up—I look over at the promoter. She’s the one who put this show, and countless others like it, together. She does this on her own time. I get my wristband and walk away to watch the first band.
At some point I come back to the entrance of the building. People are still filing in. Walking over to the table set up by the door, I ask the promoter what she’s capping the show’s attendance at. She looks up at me. Pointing at the blue wristbands lying on the table in front of her, she says, “Until we run out.”
The phenomenon of the Democracy Center is actually quite rare. It is, by all accounts, a real venue. It may be small, there may be no stage or sound booth, but it is legal. Many other DIY shows—held in quaintly named spaces such as What We Talk About When We Talk About Us and The Secret House of Pancakes—are much less, for lack of a better word, official.
If you were to attend one of these shows, your probably wouldn’t get a wristband. You might get a mark on one of your hands—a line, a number—to indicate that you did indeed pay to get in. These shows also aren’t going to have a headliner as well known as Ceremony. Instead, you’re like to see bands with names like Ex-Magicians, Lube and Puppy Mill. And, of course, these shows aren’t exactly legal.
“The Democracy Center is legal, which is great…but these other spaces, they’re in warehouses and stuff, the cops can come and shut them down if they want,” says Ali Donohue. “Usually it doesn’t happen, because they have bigger fish to fry, but it is an issue.”
Donohue, a BU senior and music director at WTBU, has been involved in the DIY scene for a long time. She originally became a part of it when she was living outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey, a city legendary for its basement shows. When she came to BU in 2008, she was looking for the same thing that she had experienced in New Jersey.
“I didn’t feel socially connected, and I was looking for something like I did back in New Jersey, which was just go to shows all the time. So I started hearing about basement shows and going to those.”
Donohue’s experience is not unique. Many people in Boston—and in other cities across the country—are drawn to DIY shows for the community as much as they drawn to the music.
Rani Gupta, a junior at BU, first started to go to DIY shows for the music. But it soon became something more.
“Initially it was just the music. But then you start talking to people and getting to know them, you start talking about your different views and then you realize that you have a lot of the same views on things.”
Gupta has always been shy—she admits that she’s still meeting new people—but for her DIY is something much more than going to shows in nontraditional spaces.
“It’s not just music. I think for people who just think that DIY is just a style of music, I think that’s really inaccurate,” Gupta says, “DIY is everything. It’s choosing not to go to big chain stores; it’s choosing to not use certain oppressive language, whether it be transphobic, homophobic, racist language.”
Gupta is also an active member of the Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism at BU. She attended the recent Take Back the Night rally. The idea of resisting oppression is incredibly important to her, and the DIY ethos ties into that.
“As a whole, DIY is resisting different forms of oppression. That’s what it is to me, at least.”
DIY means something different to everyone. At the same time, almost everyone agrees that it’s not just about the music. The music is important, but other ideas—whether it be resisting oppression, progressive ideas, or just the satisfaction of doing something on your own—are just as important.
Donohue knows this first hand. She was involved in the planning of the second annual Smash it Dead Fest, which raised money for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. It took place in various spaces around both Allston and Cambridge. The music was great, but what was far more important was attention they were able to bring to BARCC and the amount of money they raised—about $4,300, all told.
Smash it Dead Fest featured mostly punk and hardcore bands. In fact, the entire DIY ethos is often associated with the punk subculture. But punk bands aren’t the only ones putting on shows in Boston basements.
Liz Pelly, a BU grad who is currently a writer at the Boston Phoenix, knows this as well as anyone. She’s been booking shows since 2010. Originally simply booking them on her own in her living room and at local venue Great Scott, she has since teamed up with her friends from Lorem Ipsum Books in Cambridge to form a sort of booking collective. A DIT, or Do it Together, philosophy, as she calls it. And they don’t just book punk shows.
“There’s also a community of people in Boston who are into experimental electronic but who have the same sort of punk, grassroots ethos, which is pretty fun.”
Liz also works with some of the Boston-based members of the FMLY collective, a group of artists whose music tends to be much more experimental than your average garage punk band. It turns out that Boston, a city long known for its hardcore and punk scenes, has got a little bit of everything. A lot of this is due to the obvious fact that Boston’s youth population is constantly revolving—kids are coming, starting new bands and spaces, graduating, and leaving. It means that not many bands stay together for more than a few years, and most that are serious about making a career out of it tend to move to New York. However, that isn’t always the worst thing in the world.
“I think that it’s really great that there are so many people coming and going too, because you get to meet new people all the time,” says Pelly.
And that’s what it always comes back to: the people. The bands and basements may come and go, but the fact remains that there’s always going to be something going on. And when there’s something going on, there’s a community of people behind it. A community that allows everybody—whether it’s a scared college freshman or a graduate in their mid 20’s—to be part of something.
It seems that the phrase “DIY” is actually quite strange. Truth is, most people in Boston tend to do it together. The people who live here all tend to agree, there’s simply something about Boston that makes it a great place to make music, go to shows, help causes and be a part of a community. Donohue puts it succinctly:
“There’s a lot of music happening here. There’s a lot of cool people making things happen and I’m just…I’m glad to be in Boston.”
Burk Smyth 