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Bien Bien playing at the Leaquinox House.
Fuzzily audible bass booms as I walk past the student-filled apartments on West Mifflin Street toward a place known as the Leaquinox house. My buddy Sam, stationed at the back door, takes a five dollar donation, which entitles me to a Solo cup and five hours of music in a packed, sweaty basement
I’m here for A Leaqfest Miracle — possibly the final iteration of an annual house-show series at the house. Pushing through clumps of humans packed into a concrete underground, my head bowed by low ceilings, I notice how on-brand Leaqfest is. Most house shows are promoted by word of mouth, but Leaqfest is a little different: Co-host Keegan Lynch, an art education student, has created stickers, a wall projection featuring the line-up and retro televisions flashing the Leaqfest logo.
House shows are frequent in Madison. At least a couple of times a month, audiences can find a live music show in someone’s basement. For the hosts, finding an audience is easy. A bigger problem is crowd control. Too many unknown people can lead to quick robberies of easy-to-steal items like laptops and other electronics, as happened at one of the early Leaqfest shows. “We don’t want to be exclusive, but if you tell the whole city, you have a problem on your hands,” Lynch says.
The organizers recently started asking for donations at the door, a move that increased respect for the house and cut down on overcrowding. The unofficial cover charge also created a fund to pay bands, which Lynch estimates make from $20 to $80 for a set. In some cases, the pay is comparable to what a small, local act would make at the Frequency or High Noon Saloon.
The night features plenty of young Madison talent, from folk to hip-hop, and a stunning performance from Melkweed. The members of the psychedelic-pop outfit draw cheers before they begin their sparkly jams, including a cover of The Beatles’ “I’m Only Sleeping.” The sardine-packed young audience members jostle and elbow each other, screaming and spilling beer onto themselves and the concrete floor.
Lead singer Emily Massey, 21, answers her friends who pretend to heckle her. “Ya’ll are wild.”
Afterward, I sit down with Massey, who fronted the now defunct Modern Mod and sings in the psych-punk band Slow Pulp. “I’ve made more friends at house shows in a short amount of time than any other space,” Massey says.
Massey says she sometimes prefers playing house parties to official venues. People are generally more well-behaved at a show where people are somewhat aware of who the other guests are. “I’ve had people say and do some shitty things to me at bigger venues,” says Massey.
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Emily Massey (left) with Melkweed.
I was part of a group of musicians that created a now-defunct house venue, Spanish Mansion, which we ran in 2014-15 in the Mansion Hill district. We managed slightly under a show a month. Inspired by the successful house scene in Boston, we hosted touring bands, including The Symptoms and Vundabar. We also maintained a practice space where local bands could play; from Frankie Pobar Lay’s experiments with classic rock, to my band, The Great Duck War, which melded noise punk and pop traditions. Spanish Mansion was where Trophy Dad and Dolores played their first shows, building loyal fanbases they could later depend on to pack High Noon Saloon — a great venue that’s depressing when only 20 people show up.
Because most concerts at official venues exclude audience members under 21, opportunities to play house shows are vital for the development of young bands and audiences. Playing a show for friends is pressure free and fuels experimentation, allowing a city’s music culture to evolve as younger generations continue cycles of artistic reinvention. Farther-flung house venues like Kiki’s House of Righteous Music are awesome, but tend to attract different audiences (older) and offer fewer musical options (no hip-hop, a perennial Madison problem). They also tend to host more established touring acts, which doesn’t help update the scene with fresh, local faces.
What’s going on at these more youthful, downtown house shows is a valuable part of Madison’s musical ecosystem. But in order to avoid the problems that arose in Boston — which enacted strict noise ordinances and where cops posed as punks online to crash parties — partiers need to respect neighbors.
In addition, there’s a need for a public dialogue between the police and house show organizers since hosts are now at the mercy of police officers’ discretion. Despite the noise and risks, house shows create spaces for young people to create and share their creations with a live audience.
The blood and sweat of a mosh-pit in an acquaintance’s basement may turn away mature audiences. But these spaces — where young people listen and move to strange sounds — are where the music community is refreshed and revitalized.
