Confines of the Underground

Ask the bands that played Wednesday March 5th at The Nuthouse where the future of music may lie, they'd honestly point at themselves. And at you. For the punks, the DIYers, the garage bands and the kids, the future looks bright, especially in that particular dimly-lit basement.

Photos by David Franusich

Hostile 17, Ghost Mice, The Bastards of Fate, The Emotron and Mose Giganticus all have formed connections by traveling the country and playing such venues as The Nuthouse. Basements and houses stand as welcome resting stops and opportunities to "preach the gospel" as these bands move in a tight-knit nationwide network of open arms and cranked up speakers. Last Wednesday,on a weeknight during spring break, the basement was full and spirits were high. Many turned out for Roanoke-based Bastards of Fate and West Philly bands the Emotron and Mose Giganticus. Bare swinging lightbulbs and nudity ensued. The audience was a mixed group of high-school mohawks and scene veterans, as it has been since Mark and Mary opened their basement doors. Mark said that when they got the house, the basement's purpose was a given. "Bands started approaching me to book shows. Things just started magically happening." He cited Myspace as a handy tool for connecting bands and venues. When asked what he thought the local music scene lacked and what The Nuthouse provided, he pointed out the lack of music venues in town."There really aren't any venues for these types of bands." Thus, the suprisingly acoustic basement, packed with people, cheap self-produced CDs, hand-printed T-shirts and homemade peanut butter cookies.

Indiana-born Ghost Mice came to Blacksburg through Hostile 17's drummer and says they prefer house shows to bars "who aren't very nice to bands". So instead of merely acting as beer salesmen at some dive, they stuck to their anti-commercial guns and discussed life on the road in their van, "Purple Rain". Like many other traveling groups, Ghost Mice lives for the road. "When you're on the road, every night's Friday night. It gets to the point that when the tour's over, it's weird." said Chris, wielding an acoustic guitar and faintly reeking of a throw-back to Woody Guthrie. Hannah, the violin player, held an idealistic view, saying that the great thing about being on the road is "seeing positive people doing positive things, like Food Not Bombs." These sentiments were echoed in the online interviews with Emotron and Mose Giganticus, which are an entirely different, more electronic breed from the unplugged Ghost Mice, but whose attitides toward the future of music sound very much the same. Emotron's reasons for touring: "a. so i don't have to get a 'real' job b. seeing the country c. meeting people and learning things d. spreading the tron gospel."

The two West-Philidelphia bands, as touring partners and close friends, are planning a tour to Alaska this year in their vegetable-oil-fueled shuttle bus. "It's something I've joked about in other bands I've been in because it's such a ridiculous goal," said Mose Giganticus. The pair pay their bills by participating in medical studies while at home, and plan to fund their trip back from Alaska by working at a salmon cannery while in the Great North.

This scene's camaraderie looks all the more tight-knit when asked about the future of music. These bands are self described survivors who believe that music's future lies in the hands of the little guy. Ghost Mice got a foot in the door in Europe by being the only band ever to approach venue managers by booking their own shows. "We got gigs by virtue of our lack of a booking agent, and being weird" they said. The DIY ethic goes even farther with mostly-one-man-bands Emotron and Mose Giganticus. Mose Giganticus summed it up: "As for the future of music, everything I've seen and heard seems to suggest that the future of music will be built by the DIYers that have the drive and passion to keep pushing ahead on their own time and their own dime. Ten years from now, sure, there will still be a handful of major labels consolidating the same dull mainstream music they always have, but new bands will need to be smart, resourceful, and efficient. Like-minded individuals condense and network to help each other out resulting in a larger quantitiy of niche 'markets'= more variety. It's nothing that isn't happening already, it will just progress to a further extent. Less big majors, more tiny independents. Less five piece bands, more one and two piece bands with supplementary equipment and electronics to fill out the live sound". Well, if the basement at the Nuthouse and the members of the audience and these bands have anything to do with it, the future of underground music is safe and sound.