E-Mail This Article to a Friend It came from the basement (continued)
	Ten local basement bands Bread and Roses. This shambling folk-punk seven-piece are the consummate DIY act, performing in Allston ice-cream shops and even lugging their instruments to serenade friends under a Riverway bridge. Clickers. An Allston post-punk foursome who are equal parts early Modest Mouse, the Constantines, and June of ’44. Fat Day. Arty hardcore veterans known to play keyboard helmets, dress like Vikings, and release EPs titled Poop. Fruit Salad. Boston anarcho-thrashers who fly through seven songs in eight minutes on their breakneck Buy or Die EP and sound like an insane-asylum brawl. Mahi Mahi. Although they’re from Providence, Boston has adopted this industrial-electro pair as its own. They’re a drums-and-keyboards duo who fuse C3P0 cries, laser-gun fires, emergency-broadcast signals, and hollow Midnight Oil lyrics into a robotic-dance party. Mittens. Nick Lowe ate Squeeze and spit out these Jamaica Plain indie-poppers, a buoyant boy trio who sing head-swaying ditties about girls forgetting their umbrellas. Night Rally. Inman Square post-punkers who borrow their name from an Elvis Costello song and their droning guitars from Joy Division. Plunge into Death. Electro/goth-punk/hip-hop wonders who mix hands-in-the-air beats with sassy cheerleading chants, references to subway cars, and Promise Keepers namechecks. Sinaloa. Discordant punk-rock threesome with a strict allegiance to the DIY scene, playing Newton’s Knights of Columbus Hall when no other all-ages venues are available. U.V. Protection. Imagine Devo scoring Doctor Who with an all-woman cast. Or Le Tigre meeting operatic-disco queen Klaus Nomi and forgoing feminism in lieu of chemistry. — Camille Dodero

At the end of July, the HOSS suffered the inevitable: a police crackdown. Since the previous September, the Boston Police Department had visited the HOSS 34 times, mostly for noise violations. By then area cabbies had not only memorized the HOSS address, but idled outside for jobs on weekend nights. Officers lurked around the premises, driving by like stalkers, ready to pull the plug on the party.

One Friday night in late July, squad cars rolled up before the show even started. Dan Shea admits that he ran away. Jonah Rapino, who’d helped set up the show, hid in his van. The Boston Herald’s police blotter summed up the confrontation: "In the basement, the musicians told the cops ‘some dude’ booked their talent. Upstairs, police were stumbling over piles of trash, empty beer cans, assorted liquor bottles and scores of uncooperative music fans. In just one apartment, they also found eight homemade bedrooms, one of which had a piece of sliding drywall for a door."

The next night, the cops returned. This time, they threatened to lock people up and confiscate the various bands’ equipment. After a 90-minute lecture from a half-dozen officers, Shea finally relented, and moved the HOSS’s August bookings to houses and clubs in Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain.

A similar thing happened last March at the Amory. For nearly a decade, the Amory had hosted an impressive menagerie of local and national bands who couldn’t land slots in bigger clubs. But last March, the Amory’s head had been put on the chopping block. The landlord sold the house; the tenants’ lease was up, and the water had been shut off. So Radar Recordings — an Allston-based record label run by Will Benoit, of the band Constants, and Mike Repasch, from Junius — planned a final, two-night, 10-band swan song. Benoit even issued a press release.

Not surprisingly, the cops came early during Junius’s opening set, quashed the show, and forbade everyone to return to the basement. When the police left, Junius drummer Dana Filloon dragged his equipment and his bandmates upstairs and regrouped in his bedroom. They started to play; within minutes, the cops came again, this time laughing. But they still shut down the show.

"What I really hope comes out of [the HOSS] is not that people think they have to do that many shows," says Matt Mitchell. "But if it could inspire 10 other people to book two shows a year anywhere, Boston would be a more fun place to live."

Still, even those on the basement circuit have to deal with work in one way or another. The six Bloodstains residents, in the words of housemate Dan Wars, are "either unemployed or work a shitty job." Wars, 25, is a bowling-alley mechanic. Wars’s girlfriend, Cassie, Bloodstains’ booking linchpin, sells shoes in Harvard Square. Another female roommate, Danielle, works in a café. Crusty Tim toils as a manual laborer. John Flax, 21, scoops ice cream. Another roommate named John, 26, is "going to school — kind of."

And Bloodstains is a houseful of punks. Two Saturdays ago, the line-up included bands with names like Combat Death, Life’s a Drag, Send More Cops, and Blüdwülf. Nearly 100 staggering kids showed up, covered in studded leather, wallet chains, piercings, and dyed hair. Guests spat on the floor. A circle pit roiled; as the evening wore on, one kid emerged with a black eye. Even the most innocent-looking person there — Lily, Combat Death’s bespectacled guitarist, dressed in cut-off Dickies, a brown-and-red-striped Le Tigre shirt (the label, not the band), and Chuck Taylors — hawked silk-screened T-shirts that growled TERRIFYING HARDCORE beneath two assault rifles.

"Our neighbors either like us a lot or are terrified of us," says Wars. Nearly all of the house’s dozen shows have been matinees that wrapped up before 10 p.m., since they don’t want to test their neighbors’ patience by interrupting their sleep. Until that night, the neighbors hadn’t whined. But when Blüdwülf frontman Reverend Sinn — a leather-clad howler with Nikki Sixx hair — took the stage, the landlord called. Neighbors complained about a punk peeing on their front steps. So when Blüdwülf finished, Wars had to evacuate the place. The next day, an irate neighbor came over and threatened to kill them all. But the following Saturday, Bloodstains had another show with no problems or objections.

The shows at Bloodstains will go on — for now. "We live in Somerville, we have a rundown house," Wars says. "We have a basement big enough to have people over and have bands play, so why not? You know, what’s the worst thing that can happen? We can get evicted. So what? I’ve been evicted enough times."

And if their punk shows get snuffed out, they’re already envisioning lo-fi film screenings, puppet shows, and DIY theater. Wars says he’s writing a script with Crusty Tim cast as Jesus Christ. "Having a guaranteed show space is really lighting a fire under our asses to get something going," he says. He’s also putting together a "really gross" rockabilly/psychobilly band that’ll involve capes, fire-blowing, and puke.

"We’re not the first DIY space in Boston; we’re not going to be the last," says Wars. "We’re just having shows while we live here."

Camille Dodero can be reached at cdodero[a]phx.com