DIY and COVID-19: The Impact of the Pandemic on Boston’s Underground Music Scene

By Amelia Brighenti | December 9, 2020 |

Intro

Since I first started attending university in Boston, I’ve been interested in the local music scene and how I could delve into it. I initially knew nothing about the local bands and shows, and had no idea what the DIY scene was until I started talking with people in student groups, finding like-minded people with similar interests. I was able to slowly make a few connections with people, attending more and more live house shows, discovering new music and enveloping myself in this sense of community I hadn’t really felt before, especially so localized.

However, once COVID-19 hit in March of 2020 and lockdown began, house shows (or live, in-person concerts of any kind) have of course become infeasible for the indefinite future. Due to how house shows have always felt like the heart and soul of the DIY community, I felt it important to study and research how this pandemic has impacted the DIY scene in Boston, especially in regards to live music.

Method

To begin with, I believe it’s important to explain both my methods of research, and to specifically identify the community I’m studying. As mentioned above, the DIY scene is essentially Boston’s underground music scene, the genre being mostly alternative and indie-rock. In terms of demographics, from personal observation at shows the scene is mostly made up of college students and young adults in their 20s, heavily populated with LGBTQ individuals and tends to skew white. The DIY aspect, meaning Do-It-Yourself, refers to how these artists are often self-produced, often making music in their bedrooms and home-recording studios, and also often putting on their own gigs at house shows. House shows, just being a concert that’s self-organized by members of the community, typically put on in an apartment basement, and reliant on tips at the door as opposed to the formal purchasing of tickets.

To conduct this research I used a combination of methods such as viewing live-streams, interviewing, and surveying the community. Specifically, I mostly viewed recordings of live-streams posted to the Disposable America YouTube page, a local record label. This includes bands such as Lilith, Prior Panic, Me in Capris, community college, Puppy Problems, and others. I interviewed Jack Kerwin, drummer of The Water Cycle and founder of Big Jack Booking. Due to the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, I was not able to attend any live and in-person community gatherings, where I could truly speak to the community. Instead, I posted a survey in the Boston All Ages DIY Gigs Facebook page, a page that’s used for reaching out to the DIY community, particularly about any local shows going on. In addition to the research I conducted specifically for this project, I will also be drawing on my own, personal experiences with the DIY community pre-COVID, as I’ve personally attended dozens of house shows within Boston, as well as personally knowing people who have been more heavily involved in the scene.

The DIY Community, Pre-COVID

As previously stated, I personally got into the DIY scene here in Boston a couple years into my time at university. I initially got introduced to the scene through student groups, specifically the student-run radio station WRBB and the also student-run on-campus record label, Green Line Records. Through these outlets, I met various very cool people, some of whom I’m still friends with today, and was able to attend various house shows around Boston. These occurred in the Allston/Brighton and Mission Hill neighborhoods, through the fall of 2017, until the start of this new year, 2020. With the nature of the DIY community, it’s often that you have to know someone in the community to be able to know about the shows. While there are groups such as the DIY All Ages groups that specifically post event pages for gigs, the most common way I’ve personally discovered shows is through my friends on Facebook who are in the community, and seeing what events they’ve clicked “interested” on.

(A picture of two shirts I personally own created by two Boston DIY bands, Tuxis Giant (left) and The Water Cycle (right). Taken on 11/20/20, Allston, MA)

When it comes to these house shows, because they’re essentially house parties in the eyes of the police when it comes to noise control and drinking, the aim is to keep the locations of the house shows as secretive as possible, while still advertising them to the community. The way that this was done, pre-COVID of course, was that houses which regularly put on gigs would name themselves, and put those names as the locations on the Facebook event pages. Then, if you didn’t already know the address of the house, you’d have to DM a host, or someone you know in the community, for the address. If you have mutual friends and don’t sound like a cop, the house will typically give you the address. As mentioned there are no tickets, but usually a $5-10 donation is asked for at the door for gas and expenses for the bands, but at DIY house shows no one is ever turned away for lack of funds.

As for actually going to a house show, the best way to generalize the feeling is one of being amongst a large group of friends, even if you barely know anybody there. There’s always been this emphasis on safe space and community that I’ve noticed in the scene, and I feel as if that truly comes through during these gigs. With any concert or live performance, there’s usually at least some sense of community in that you’re all there for the same thing, at least having that one thing in common and likely others, maybe other similar bands that many of the concert attendees also enjoy. However with the DIY community, it goes beyond genre, even beyond music. While no two people are likely to agree on every little thing, when I’m at a DIY show I know I’m surrounded with like minded people, as the DIY community noticeably skews heavily left-wing, with focuses on activism, such as racial and LGBTQ justice and voting rights. This tie-in of music and activism is very well exemplified through the Bummer City Historical Society, a group focused on political activism and local music. I’ve been to multiple house shows that were charity gigs for local activist groups, or were simply handing out information regarding voting and local politics.

In her research on DIY-queer festivals in Europe, Eleftheriadis notes the important of space when it comes to the culture of that specific DIY scene and the activism of these festivals (Eleftheriadis, 2018), something which I think is very much paralleled in Boston’s DIY scene. Creating these safe spaces for marginalized groups where they can come together in a physical space without fear of prejudice or violence is inherently a form of activism. While the heart and soul of the DIY community will always be the music and its creators, the true core of how people come together in this community are these house shows. It’s not just about sharing music, but having that environment where you can feel like friends among strangers, where you don’t have to worry as much about expressing who you truly are as it’s meant to be a place without judgement. An anonymous surveyee mentioned how they miss being around folks they typically only see at shows, sentiments I very much agree with under these COVID-19 restrictions (Personal Correspondence, November 2020). It’s not just about attending live music, but being part of that physical community, a feeling that’s been noticeably hard to recreate by the use of live-streams during this pandemic.

(A Snapchat of NOATS performing at Trixie’s Palace, taken by me on 8/24/18, Brighton MA.)

(A Snapchat of The Water Cycle performing at The Kennel, taken by me on 12/7/18, Mission Hill, MA.)

The DIY Community, Under COVID-19

I believe it important to get an overall view of the scene and how it’s changed since the pandemic, and one of the most prominent changes is simply the lack of activity within the scene in terms of live music. Scrolling through the Boston All Ages DIY Gigs Facebook page, there’s only been a handful of livestream gigs between March of 2020 and now, with most of them occurring pre-summer before tapering off, with only a few live-streams being posted during this past summer and fall. However, pre March of 2020, there was much more activity in terms of shows being posted, both house shows the community itself was hosting, and shows at small venues both in and around Boston.

It’s also important to note that when it comes to the DIY scene, more so than other scenes the number of shows going on is a direct reflection of the community. While the number of shows going on for a specific genre or scene of music is always a reflection of how active that scene is, it’s even more so with the DIY community because they’re not going through an official venue or working with a promotion company. It’s music being put on by the community, for the community.

Through observation of these live-streams along with survey feedback, it’s become increasingly clear to me that it’s really hard to try and recreate and emulate the feeling of being at a live house show and the atmosphere that comes with it, which can be inferred as to why there just aren’t that many live-streams happening. In my viewing of these livestreams I’ve personally seen some very creative uses of physical space to try and recreate this atmosphere, such as Lilith using stuffed animals as an “audience,” or Me in Capris using projection and lights as an interesting, animated backdrop. I honestly love these customizations of space, as there’s only so much you can do to capture the atmosphere of a live gig in a solo livestream, but trying to recreate the aesthetic of basements with mood lighting and custom decor is definitely a noticeable and appreciated effort.

Screen Shot 2021-01-14 at 5.08.24 PM

(A screenshot of Me in Capris performing for the Disposable America E-Stream Showcase. Screenshot taken on 11/20/20, streamed on Twitch on 4/14/20, uploaded to YouTube on 4/15/20)

Screen Shot 2021-01-14 at 5.08.33 PM

(A screenshot of Hannah Liuzzo of Lilith performing for the Disposable America E-Stream Showcase. Screenshot taken on 12/11/20, streamed on Twitch on 4/14/20, uploaded to YouTube on 4/15/20)

Other than the use of space, artists have also made use of the chat during these livestreams, as well as additional “banter” time. In our interview, Jack Kerwin and I discussed our similar feelings on live-streams, where we agree they can’t ever truly emulate a live gig. Jack does note, however, that “...the whole like, live chat function, I feel like the closet that… you can get to… recreating a venue to some extent… ” (Personal Interview, 3 November 2020) which is something I’ve also seen utilized in a few recorded live-streams, on top of some artists making use of some of those awkward pauses that seem par for the course in any type of streaming, and using that time to banter with the audience, even if the audience can’t necessarily banter back. This, I believe, is as close as these livestreams can come to capturing the personable atmosphere of house shows. And it can capture aspects of that--the banter in these streams still feels genuine and personable; maybe it doesn’t make you totally feel among friends, but the banter does make the tone of these streams more warm and inviting. When it comes down to it, there’s just no true replacement for physical community gatherings in this sense, especially for a community heavily influenced by the use of physical space.

The Future for the DIY Scene

As with everything influenced by COVID-19, no one expected this. Jack mentions “...it’s kind of crazy how all these things… that were happening in February, for example… no one ever really considered them closing… but I find it hard to believe that all the same places are gonna be willing to have shows… ” (Personal Interview, 3 November 2020). Despite this, I believe the DIY community will survive. As mentioned, it’s truly the people themselves that make up the community, and new music has still been coming out during this time--such as Jack’s own band, The Water Cycle. The DIY scene is always shifting, there are always new houses popping up and old ones closing as the years progress and leases change. The DIY community is nothing if not resilient, as shown through their benefit work such as the mentioned Bummer City, benefit shows, and fundraiser work such as fighting for the survival of the Great Scott (source). While I do agree with Jack in that many of the houses that were open in 2019 aren’t likely to open again, I truly believe the DIY community will forge ahead in their self-created spaces, new or old, once it’s safe to gather physically as a community once more.

Acknowledgments:

A huge thank you to Jack Kerwin, for taking the time to sit down and interview with me, along with his general support with my research. I also want to thank Disposable America, for the amazing work they’ve been doing with putting on live-streams during this pandemic. A thank you to my classmates for their peer feedback, and general discussion help, along with a thank you to the mods of Boston All Ages DIY Gigs on Facebook. Lastly, a thank you to my dad for his help with grammar and phrasing during the editing process.

Endnotes:

Bummer City Historical Society. (n.d.). Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://bummercityhistoricalsociety.com/

Daniels, C., Fox, H., Poindexter, S., & Reilly, E. (2015). Saving all the freaks on the life raft: blending documentation strategy with community engagement to build a local music archives. The American Archivist, 78(1), 238-261. Retrieved October 16, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43489615

[Disposable America] (2020 April 15). Me in Capris (Live on Twitch 04/14/20) DISPOSABLE AMERICA E-STREAM SHOWCASE [Video]. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqLKILsIUpk

[Disposable America] (2020 April 15). Lilith (Live on Twitch 04/14/20) DISPOSABLE AMERICA E-STREAM SHOWCASE [Video]. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZPrUB4IxEg

Eleftheriadis, K. (2018). Organizing the queer space: squats, horizontality and do-it-yourself. In Queer Festivals (pp. 53-76). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv5nph43.6

Imber‐Black, E. (2020). Rituals in the time of COVID‐19: imagination, responsiveness, and the human spirit. Family Process, 59(3), 912-921.

Kerwin, Jack (November 2 2020). Personal communication

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