Bands want an audience, but getting one in the underground music scene might draw attention that kills the scene. It was a quandary without an answer at a Conference of Musicians held Feb. 1 at the Lilypad in Cambridge’s Inman Square.
There was actually a list of possible topics to discuss at the start of the conference, which was attended by more than two dozen people and run by the arts organization Kids Like You and Me, known as Klyam (pronounced “clam”). Chris DeCarlo and Glen Maganzini have been contributing to the Boston music scene since 2009 when they started Klyam as a music blog – “if people even remember what those are,” DeCarlo joked at the start of the event.
The prompts included that the “Boston music scene is toxic,” that “there are not enough venues,” that “shows go too late (or end too early)” and “How can we make the scene better/bring together more people?” But DeCarlo and Maganzini were okay seeing it become a more directed conversation about the house venues, DIY concerts and underground music that have become essential in a scene that is “not as culture-centered as it once was,” DeCarlo said.
“We’re so dug into the underground – for our own protection – that we don’t have an aboveground presence so that we can actually make our voices heard and force the change that we need,” local band cheerleader Hannah O’Hearne said.
The need for cheap nightlife for the area’s many college students and the presence of schools with musicians who want to be heard have made for an at-times thriving underground music scene in which student apartments host secretive shows costing just a few bucks to attend – but they describe a scene in which venues pop up and police shut them down like a game of Allston Whac-A-Mole.
An underground venue, Mt. Greylock, drew police attention after a reporter wrote up a visit
for The Boston Globe in in 2023. “Within days, the scene had gone stagnant; those who ran these unlicensed venues were left with no choice but to close their doors indefinitely,” Morgan Evelyn Arnold wrote in a follow-up the next year.
Some at the Klyam conference believed police have a task force set up to find and shut down the DIY music venues. The Boston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment left in early February. Cambridge and Somerville spokespeople were also contacted.
“While it is not uncommon for our officers to respond to loud-party complaints, what we see is typically one-night private gatherings,” Cambridge police spokesperson Bob Reardon Jr. said. “We really have not seen any of the more organized types of events.”
Somerville police got 1,052 noise complaints since Jan. 1, 2024, but a spokesperson could not say that any were related to underground clubs.
New faces at new venues
The DIY scene persists, members say, because their bands don’t get the chance to play aboveground, legal venues. People at the conference said too many booking agents favor friendly faces over diversifying their bills.
“We’re just all seeing the same fucking five acts and the same shit all the time, you know?” musician Liam Grant said.
While music scenes might use noise and late hours as a gauge for success, Cambridge’s City Council worked from 2017 to 2021 to make it easier to create a different kind of scene in which any kind of business could become a performance venue. The council passed a Live Acoustic Entertainment Ordinance unanimously in June 2021 that allows up to five performers at a single venue at a time with one microphone as late as 10 p.m. – meaning any place from a bookstore to a hardware store could host bills with the right prodding. Councillors similarly relaxed laws around street busking, though neither kind of performance has exploded to the extent backers hoped.
(It doesn’t appear Somerville has a similar law, so a business would need to either apply for an entertainment license with the Licensing Commission or get a one-day public event license, said Grace Munns, a spokesperson for the city.)
Cheap entertainment
Another part of the DIY paradox raised by the musicians: the need for “a built-in crowd” of customers who go to shows at a venue regularly regardless of knowing the performers, avoiding the burden of bands needing to bring audiences themselves. Underground, word of mouth is used to orchestrate most things for the sake of the safety – to keep the underground exactly that.
Audiences may be there for a night of cheap entertainment – but cheap doesn’t do much to keep a scene alive, said Bob Gallagher, father of Lilypad booker Jesse Gallagher.
Growing up in the 1960s, he said, he experienced a Boston bursting with a vibrant music scene. Nowadays, people will just show up high to a show, buy a ginger ale and stay the whole night, he said.
“The best thing to do is save money [for] when you go out” to a show in someone’s apartment, Bob Gallagher advised the room of younger showgoers. “Buy a couple of beers, because that’s what pays the rent.”
To the bigger question of what folks can do to keep the underground scene alive, though, no one was fully sure. The night ended without answers, but with a performance by local noise rock band PV.
DeCarlo and Maganzini said they plan to continue their Conference of Musicians next year.
A stronger
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