To DIY or not to DIY?

Note: Names have been changed to insure privacy to the operators of the aforementioned venue.

It is 5PM on a Saturday afternoon and Dan Itasor is extremely stressed out. His fingertips move hastily over the screen of an iPhone that is not his own, sending yet another text message to a band that should’ve been present and accounted for two hours ago.

‘€œI don’t think Dirty Beaches is coming,’€ he says, before running off to go deal with the opening band’s sound check. His hypothesis pops a balloon of unforeseen anxiety, the stagnant water of which trickles down into the many people who are part of tonight’s operation. There is something to be said for DIY projects of any sort ‘€“ they are a double-edged sword. On one side, it is extraordinarily gratifying to do something by your own power. On the other side, you are held entirely accountable for the successes or failures of whatever project it is you’re undertaking. In the instance of DIY music venues in Boston, that particular blade can be especially lethal ‘€“ unless you know what you’re doing.

Enter the Slaughterhouse Gallery, a DIY venue nestled at an undisclosed location on Mission Hill. The house on the hill is home to a handful of Northeastern students who are aided by an assortment of their friends ‘€“  appropriately dubbed ‘€œbutchers’€ ‘€“ to pull off monthly shows in the basement. Saturday night’s show was Dirty Beaches, Birthdays, and DJ Santiago Caballero, and while the latter two were present and had completed soundchecking, Dirty Beaches was currently missing in action two hours past their slated arrival time. It was certainly a problem, as there were already a few stragglers ringing the doorbell asking ‘€œis this the Slaughterhouse?’€, a sign that there are likely to be many others to follow. The night’s anticipated turn out was around 50 ‘€“ 60 people, which is the SHG’s maximum capacity, and with the headlining band missing in action, the numbers were daunting.

AWOL bands and smaller capacities don’t even scratch the surface of the slew of challenges DIY venues face, as opposed to established public venues. Although many people often rail against the rules and regulations imposed by public venues, it’s hard not to miss them when you’re running a DIY venue. There are a plethora of variables that need to operate perfectly in order for the show to be an overall success.

For starters: security. While most people loathe the security at public venues and are wary of the cops that can be called and/or may be lurking in the midst of the venue itself, it can be challenging to enforce authority in an environment that needs to be completely obscure to the police. In other terms, you can’t call the cops if things get out of hand at a DIY show because sure, they’ll come fix the problem and take care of the hooligans kicking up trouble ‘€“ but they’ll make a note to bring the paddy wagon to arrest the proprietors of the show as well.

Managing and limiting the problem of rowdy people depends on a few factors correlated directly to whether or not the venue is a DIY one or a regular public venue. While public venues get their revenue from alcohol sales, it tends to be problematic for DIY locations for a variety of reasons. First, DIY venues don’t have alcohol permits, which means they are unable to serve alcohol to anyone on the premises ‘€“ not that this actually stops people from drinking (and heavily, at that). Either way, it eliminates potential income and often creates problematic situations (i.e. having to exert force and/or pay extra attention to extremely intoxicated individuals, even after they leave the venue. If there’s a drunken fool stumbling around the street in front of the venue in which the house is located, take a wild guess which doors the cops are going to be knocking on). The same goes for illegal drug use, which is even more challenging to regulate in a house environment where certain social expectations don’t come into play.

Money is also a factor. By their own nature, DIY venues can only manage a small capacity of people, making it harder to generate revenue when the venue itself can only feature smaller, local acts. The fact that the featured bands need to be paid as well makes this small revenue more apparent, leaving little money to be used for the venue itself.

Lastly, safety is a concern. It’s impossible to have roughly 60 people crammed into a basement without concern for fire safety. Here, the SHG is luckier than most, as there are two exits to their basement: a door to the upstairs and a exit through the bulkhead. And if there were to be a fire, the fire department would inevitably have to be called ‘€“ which then brings up the recurring issue of needing to hide from the cops and the greater authoritative force.

At the end of the night, however, it’s worth it. Dirty Beaches arrived just in time to play their set, delighting the mass turnout of roughly 70 people that came to see them. Although the excess stressors often add up to create tense situations, the pervasive feeling of victory that fills the empty basement once the show is over is entirely worth it.

Although there is one last pitfall to running a show out of your home.

Dan explains: ‘€œThere are people sitting on the washer in my basement, so I can’t do my laundry.’€