The DIY, or do-it-yourself music scene is confined to dark, cramped basements with low ceilings, nestled deep in dark corners of Bloomington. But they’ve always been a source of light. Until this fall.
On October 13th, 2019 there was a shooting at famed DIY venue “The Brickhouse.” It’s important to note that a band wasn’t actually playing the night of the 13th. It was a party with a DJ playing music off of a laptop. However, the shooting has serious implications for the DIY music scene.
“The Brickhouse is an eerie place,” IU senior Lily Jervis said. She used to frequent house shows, but doesn’t think she’ll attend them anymore.
The fact that the shooting happened at a party, not an actual house show didn’t surprise Jervis.
“The person I was with at the last house show his brother was at a party, like a B-Town Bangers party and someone pulled out a gun there and had a gun.”
The shooting may not have been surprising to everyone, but it had a much larger effect on the majority of Indiana University students, not just ones that go to shows.
IU Notify failed to send any emails or notify students about the potentially dangerous situation. IU Notify usually notifies students of any potential dangers, but failed to do so during the Brickhouse shooting. IU Notify said they didn’t email students because the shooting didn’t happen on campus.
But it’s still a very important situation. Two students were injured, the residents of the Brickhouse were evicted and the fate of the local underground music scene is up in the air.
The story of the eviction and ensuing protests can be read here.
“I think I’ll only ever go to shows at bars, honestly,” IU junior Garrett Popp said.
The shooting has had a massive effect on those that make music too, obviously.
“People are more hesitant to have house shows at their house,” Devon Rigali drummer of DIY band Gesto Vuoto said. “Once [the shooting] happened we stopped. Like, there weren’t as many house shows. There still are some, but there weren’t any every weekend like there were before.”
The lack of house shows can really hurt local bands which live off of the exposure that house shows bring them.
“There is a donation type thing, but it’s basically exposure,” Victor Roa lead singer and guitarist for Gesto Vuoto said. “But that exposure has helped us definitely cause we’ve been given opportunities to play more shows from those house shows which is awesome.”
However, the shooting has limited those opportunities. Without house shows bands are forced to play at bars. While playing shows is good, bars are not always the best place to play them.
“We like playing at bars,” Rigali said. “But the atmosphere at house shows is always better.”
“At house shows people are really there for the music,” Roa added. “At bars people can be there just because it’s a bar, not because of the music.”
Gesto Vuoto doesn’t have any performances in Bloomington lined up. However, they plan to play a show in Indianapolis in February. They hope that the house show scene will come back stronger in the spring semester.
While the music scene is still relatively up in the air, you can still learn more about it. The WIUX House Show Guide offers a lot of useful information about each of the venues in town.