This Unchill Boston News Report Basically Narced on Parties

They’re calling it “partying.” And young people may be doing it at an apartment or warehouse in your town… tonight. Find out why they’re all going to die at 11.

So went the lead to a recent investigative report on Boston’s WCVB Channel 5. More or less. The piece, headed up by 5 Investigates’ Mike Beaudet, also a journalism professor at Northeastern University, sent three of his students into the seedy underbelly of Boston’s underground dance scene—yes, there is one—in the student and feral rats-heavy neighborhood of Allston.

Gaining entry to the party was easy for the journalism students. They ordered tickets online, at $25 a pop, and waited for the location to be announced beforehand. If you’ve spent any time in Boston’s after-hours or underground party world, or similar ones in any city, none of this will come as news. But the tone of the piece has many in the Boston scene shaking their heads… and not just to the beat of the music.

Why do people feel the need to snitch?

Boston tough enough as is without you ruining underground partieshttps://t.co/DTzDmzrTXO

— ☔️ TΣJAS ☔️ (@Texasmike) April 30, 2016

Inside the party, the team found Ukrainian DJ IO performing, and a cash bar. “There are also some people using drugs, what looks like marijuana and cocaine,” Beaudet’s voiceover explains. “They were very open about it. It wasn’t very discretely done,” one of the students adds.

“There’s one common theme with all of these parties,” the story continues. “They’re off the radar. So officials have no ideas they’re even happening.”

It’s a prospect that’s troubling to William “Buddy” Christopher, Commissioner of Boston’s Inspectional Services Department. “It’s not my job to be fun,” he says.

That may be true. But, as critics of the piece have been asking since it ran last week: What’s the students’ excuse?

Lol glad they're teaching journalism students to narc on the big bad local arts community. https://t.co/jpNMyXCKov

— Perry Eaton (@PerryEaton) May 2, 2016

“Personally I wish these narcs went undercover at the Statehouse or something instead of doing Allston cops' jobs for them,” Will Mayo, a veteran promoter and DJ in Boston who’s thrown many similar “unofficial” parties, said of the piece.

He’s heard plenty of grumbling about it himself. “A lot of people I talked to just seem like it's something of a moral panic or whatever. Like these kids don't understand the lifestyle. And it's illegal activity, sure, but people do drugs in legal clubs all the time.”

Stories like this obscure the real reason people like him throw parties in the first place.

“It’s not like it's just a drug thing, people just want to experience the music and community where they feel comfortable being themselves. And there's no legal after hours scene at all since Rise closed.” Rise, the long-running after hours club, the only legal one in Boston, closed its doors in April of last year. The shuttering of the 18-plus dry club, another rarity in Boston, which took a more international-underground, independent approach to music bookings and eschewed big corporate club extravagance, didn’t invent the demand for parties like these, but it has displaced many of its regular followers.

Mayo, who says, admittedly, the high ticket cost, and the cash bar at the party in question was outrageous, in his experience, has never sold tickets or alcohol. “The music, dancing, and feeling of community are always the focus.”

Stories like this one, he says, misrepresent such parties by focusing on the “negative aspects that you could find at almost any party, even at fully legal clubs.”

“Most people in my community don't go to underground techno parties to do drugs; they go because the legal club scene is expensive, stale, and closes too early. There is also more freedom to express yourself and create your own sense of community with people who are focused on experiencing the music rather than an interest in drugs and/or sex.”

“I have played parties like these. And every party like this that I've attended was organized and designed to give people who enjoy this underground music, a place to see DJs and artists that won't normally come here because the clubs here only focus on top 40 bullshit,” adds Kidd Drunkadelic, a Boston DJ and producer. All that he’s gone to or played at have been 21-plus he says.

“This piece completely misrepresents what the underground scene is all about here. What's left of it," he continues. "They are not organized to be drug dens or underage drinking havens, nor are they even like that. Furthermore, I've never witnessed problems or felt unsafe at any underground parties. In my experience, I've only seen different groups of people come together to make art/music-based parties come to life in a city where it seems next to impossible to do anything creative event wise.

“I don't think it necessarily misrepresents the underground party scene,” another well regarded Boston DJ and artist, who asked not to use his name, explained. “Maybe the tone was overly sinister, but it looked like your standard small Boston rave-like dance party to me. I do think it's a stretch to call this news. It's really just a frat party for art kids and weirdos, why put them on blast right now?”

"I think if Boston really wants to crack down on the 'house show' scene, they need to relax the overall climate around partying, dancing, and music in general. Let university students be themselves on campus to some extent, and make it easier for a local bar or club to get the licenses to host live music," the anonymous DJ said. "Maybe even extend the last call hours. Otherwise what do they expect?"

The genesis of the story, explained one of the student journalists, who declined to speak on the record, was a piece in The Huntington, Northeastern’s student paper, which tracked the revival of the underground rave scene.

Beaudet says he and the students have heard some significant pushback since the piece ran with people asking when they would investigate essentially a college party.

“I’m sure there were some college kids there, but I don’t think we were investigating a kegger,” he says.

“That’s where I think there is a distinction. We wouldn’t be investigating the college party scene. This is very organized as far as buying tickets online, they have the bar. It’s different than some of the people criticizing it are saying, ‘You're doing a story on college partying’ because it’s organized and it’s not targeting college students.”

Beaudet said he’s sympathetic to the idea that there aren’t enough spaces for people to hear music late at night in Boston, and said they did address that in the piece. They wanted to show the perspective of the organizers of such parties, “So we could get more of a profile into their world” but most declined to speak to them. “But I think we tried to bring in: Is Boston fueling it by shutting down earlier? We had many discussions in class saying we weren’t trying to shut these places down, but let’s take a look inside this world and why it exists.”

Boston’s mayor, Martin Walsh, has been trying to relax some restrictions on entertainment licenses, and extend the hours of operations for bars in the city since he took office in 2014, but little progress has been made as of yet.

“If this ‘city’ actually gave a shit about nightlife, they'd extend hours, make the liquor license process much easier, and overall just be more involved to make Boston more of a destination for young people, instead of having the bare minimum just to get people to go to school here and then leave to pursue careers and life in actual cities that provide an array of nightlife options, most of which are sanctioned and legalized within that city,” Kidd Drunkadelic says.

One of the journalism students said they heard from some after the piece ran that explained how hard it is to get a venue licensed by the city, and how Boston’s music scene is dominated by a handful of like-minded, often bland venues. “It seems like the alternative is to just throw your own concerts.”

But, they added, criticisms about the piece aside, it was the safety issue that stuck out. The venue in question had only one exit it seemed, and in the event of a fire, it could have been exceptionally dangerous.

I asked Beaudet if there might be an unforeseen bonus lesson in journalism for his students about what happens when you rankle people with a story.

“Absolutely. I think it’s a good lesson. I told them I don’t think there’s any instigative story I do that doesn’t get backlash, so I think is par for the course.”

Luke O'Neil is a writer in Boston and will be totally chill at your party if you'd like to invite him. @lukeoneil47