Party as Practice: How Nightlife Is Cultivating Creative Community in Boston

I serve the alternative community, including those who enjoy the goth/industrial lifestyle, the fetish lifestyle, the LGBTQIA+ community, and those who are not quite sure where they fit in. Creating a safe and accepting venue empowers people to find the space they’re seeking. Our goal at ManRay is to feel like it’s an extension of your living room.

One of the things we do is dress codes depending on the event. An example would be our fetish nights—fetish gear, goth/industrial gear, latex, vinyl, corsets, etc. Not only does this keep out people who are not part of the community who might think we’re a “people zoo” and say obnoxious things, but it energizes the people we want to show up, look their best, and know that they’re going to be comfortable. So, I don’t look at it as being elitist or gatekeeping; it’s a way to help us keep the room safe.

We have some dance nights that we’ve brought back: Crypt, Fantasy Factory, Heroes, and our LGBTQIA+ nights. But we have some new ones that ManRay has never done before: karaoke, dark rave, house, disco, and three nights offering the talents of local drag queens, like “Drag Me Out Thursdays,” which give first-time drag performers a chance to show what they can do. We’re also attracting new and younger audiences, especially with the dark raves and with the techno collective, Infra. The Infra collective rents our room and brings in a crowd of new and exciting people, who I don’t think we would have reached if we hadn’t partnered with them.

ManRay is a nightclub serving those in alternative communities who are searching for a safe and accepting venue.

Nightlife here isn’t just about entertainment; it’s a thriving hub where creativity flourishes. In dimly lit cafes, I witness poets pouring their souls onto paper, musicians experimenting with melodies, and artists sketching their visions. From underground art shows to intimate live performances, every corner of Boston’s nightlife is a canvas for expression, cultivating a rich and dynamic creative community that inspires me endlessly.

Our family provides a forum for these musicians to work on their craft and become professionals. That’s the secret: our commitment and consistency, seven days a week over the last seventy-eight years. We’ve had so many young musicians come through our space and become world-class professionals, creating a big imprint in the music industry. I’ve been fortunate to have some amazing musicians play here: Mark Kelley from the Roots; Jeff Bhasker, who played with Lettuce and did a lot of Grammy work for Lady Gaga, Kanye, Jay-Z; Robert Glasper and Justin Tyson; John Blackwell, who was the drummer for Prince, just to name a few. Some of my favorite nights we have here are Latin music on Thursdays, funk on Wednesdays, and straight Jazz on Saturdays.

Securing affordable venues that meet safety regulations remains a constant struggle. Balancing the interests of patrons, artists, and local authorities takes finesse and diplomacy. Financial sustainability poses another hurdle, as organizing events incurs hefty expenses for permits, equipment, and talent. Fostering inclusivity and diversity within the nightlife community demands ongoing effort to ensure everyone feels welcome and represented. Addressing these challenges necessitates collaborative efforts, innovative solutions, and a deep commitment to nurturing Boston’s vibrant nocturnal culture.

Wally’s (est. 1947) is a cherished legacy business and among the world’s most iconic jazz venues. With nearly eight decades of history, it is deeply rooted in Boston’s cultural fabric and remains one of the oldest family-owned jazz clubs in operation today.

This is the best I’ve ever seen nightlife in Boston. It’s still got a long way to go, but with local DJs taking charge of their events and creating their own lanes, I’d say the city is in good hands. We don’t need promoters to curate the night. We need the taste to come from the tastemakers themselves.

Use your marketing and networking skills to tap into brands for funding. If you can find a way to get some extra bread to support your dreams and ideas, go for it. That’s a big format that many people don’t understand they have access to. As the artists, we’re like the cultural architects. Without us, these brands can’t tap into the spaces that we’re in, and we need their funding to help us create what we’re trying to achieve. When we have an opportunity to do something at AYCE, we bring everybody in to share it and use their art, skills, and practices.

The hype comes from people knowing what we do on our own as DJs/producers, photographers, videographers, community workers, and storytellers and being excited to attend what we cook up as a unit. Another aspect is we always create a merch experience for our events that you can only get there. We don’t drop it online or ahead of time; you have to show up. So it’s like a takeaway piece if you were able to attend. What we care about is creating the experience. Let’s say a party, for example: all you need for a party is a venue and a DJ. But why do that when you could do so much more to have somebody remember the time they had? We’re big on that.

AllYouCanEat is a full-service creative agency that specializes in events. It aims to provide a platform for other creatives to tap into and get a bag for their work. It’s simple: with AllYouCanEat, everybody eats.

We’re a group of multimedia artists organizing underground dance music events centered around Queer artistic expression in multiple forms. Visual artists contribute to our show flyers, lighting design, and video installations. There are also sometimes drag performers, and dancing is a creative art form that all participants can partake in. Freedom of expression is at the core of our parties, and people are inspired to dress creatively. We build a space to allow the average attendee to be an artist for the night.

I’d argue there is a Boston nightlife renaissance happening! The scene has so much momentum and DIY spirit. Organizers are working hard without corporate sponsorships, not in posh clubs but through grit and determination. People are building the community they want to see. Crews like Aversion and Vertebrae are starting record labels and releasing great music. Clear the Floor has done incredible work to carve out space for the Boston BIPOC community and give up-and-coming DJs a voice. It feels like every month I hear about a new crew popping up and throwing a party, which I think is a sign of a strong, growing scene.

I try to think about who’s the crowd and what’s the vibe of the party—is this a kinky, goth, queer dungeon event, a daytime art market, or strictly a rave? What is the demographic? Why are people coming? And then I also think, what story am I trying to tell? Is something happening in my life or globally that I feel called to speak on and carry through in the music? I played a set in Pittsburgh back in November for this jubilant queer party, and Palestine was on my mind a lot. So, during my set, I slowed down the music for two minutes to play a track where different people say “from the river to the sea” in about twenty different languages. It’s a somber mood shift, but it felt important to me as an artist to show solidarity and comment on what’s happening in the outside world. I don’t think you can necessarily divorce politics from the dance floor.

Boudoir is a group of multimedia artists dedicated to organizing underground dance music events centered around Queer artistic expression.

Access to queer, safe venues. I’ve seen a real shift in queer/lesbian/trans-centered events in that there are more than there used to be. However, these events are always pop-ups or single nights inside of cis-centric queer or straight venues. This can leave folks vulnerable and more likely to have uncomfortable or unsafe encounters.

I have been a drag performer and show organizer for six years and have been supporting and organizing queer kink events and education for the last two years. I think part of creating a safe space is listening to people and implementing accountability practices—opportunities for people to say how things went for them and having accountability people whom folks can come to if they feel unsafe (and making it clear who those people are). I also think these events need to be run by the people they’re for—people with lived experience who can inform for more safety. I’m dedicated to supporting trans and gender-diverse people to find pleasure, play, and connection to self and others. I believe pleasure, community, and creativity are tools for dismantling oppressive structures.

I’m having a love affair with Fascination, a biweekly queer kink party. Historically it has been a gay, cis-man-centered event, but over the last year, I have collaborated with the organizers, who are seriously committed to making it more inclusive and expanding the diversity of their events and the Boston queer kink scene in general. I also recently attended a leather dyke takeover of the Silhouette Lounge organized by the Boston Leather Organization of Dykes (or BLOOD). Standing in a room full of leather-clad, gender-expansive dykes makes me feel proud to be continuing a rich history of change-makers, activists, and all-out pervs.

Kirbie is a trans-masc, nonbinary person who has been a part of Boston nightlife for more than seven years. They are a producer and drag performer, a leather dyke, and a therapist.

All I want to do is give an outlet to people from Boston who feel neglected in its mainstream scenes. I live in Roxbury, and the neighborhood is changing at an alarming rate. Universities are buying up houses, loads of new people are coming in, and people who are from here are consistently pushed out. In my little corner, I want to reinforce the strength of my community as much as I can, primarily through art and music. DIY is about cultivating your circle and embracing each other together—it’s always a collaborative effort, and I believe in doing things as part of a community instead of promoting yourself or a solo venture. We’re doing this together because we love each other and there’s so much talent here, and we have to showcase it.

Boston is a very bureaucratic city with not-in-my-backyard type of energy. It feels like the city only cares about the arts when it’s tied to wealth or academia, while the rest of us are fed up with not being represented or acknowledged. For example, there’s this stigma around hip-hop artists, black metal artists, or noise bands. Maybe it’s a little bit weird or different from the safe, homogenous norm that Boston’s trying to cultivate, so they see it as a threat. DIY is meant to be counter to elitist culture. You put on a show by getting people together and creating something, without needing a formal platform, venue, or money.

I worked with my friend Slyla, DJ Maddog, and other people on this show called “Weaponized Geminis” in June last year. We converted the first floor of the space into a gallery, where we had a bunch of visual artists hanging up canvases and prints, and a merch room, where people were selling jewelry, making candy bracelets, and selling racks of clothes. Everyone was showing up days beforehand to help put it together, even for the parts that they weren’t directly involved in. It was this whole operation, and it was like, no one’s really getting paid to be here. We’re all just doing this because we know it’s going to be fun. Everything from the promotion to the night itself, it was just beautiful. That was one of the last events we did at TST.

Trendy Shit Town was a DIY venue in Roxbury for more than fifteen years. Before shutting down in September 2023, TST regularly hosted raves, emo, metal, and noise shows, as well as artist showcases with a variety of vendors and installations. Dru continues to organize shows for other DIY spaces in Boston.

After much reflection on the state of dance music in Boston, we’ve decided to focus on our original, twelve-year-old mission, strip down the party, and simply reconstruct what we love in a night: quality dance music, quality connections, quality time. That’s it. Our parties are guest DJ-driven. Each night celebrates the music that moves us through the selections of the underground’s current torchbearers. We’re proud to introduce people to the “ones to watch,” the ones with soul, the ones who are emerging as leaders and dancefloor educators.

Nightlife in Boston suffers from the same gentrification issues afflicting the rest of the city. I want nightlife to be fueled by creativity. Most venues downtown are not designed for creatives but rather for a demographic more interested in bottle service and social media influence. When nightlife becomes more of a business operation than something about music or art, it loses its magic. Boston nightlife needs smaller venues that are active participants in the curation process and are dedicated to nurturing a “scene” and not just offering “rent to play” options.

There’s a sense of solidarity in the nightlife community in the face of injustice, particularly right now in regard to the genocide of Palestinians. As the underground was traditionally a place for liberation, of oneself or from daily oppressive systems, it’s great to see folks in nightlife using their platforms to amplify issues, organize, or fundraise. It’s good to know there’s still heart in nightlife. In our corner, we’ve always been a bit academic about dance music’s past and future, and we’re looking forward to creating more editorial content and art this year. It’s a rewarding supplement to our parties and a reminder that nightlife isn’t only about partying.

Social Studies has been a staple for house, disco, and techno events in Boston for twelve years. In 2022, Rico-Dimas, Sacha Madadian, and Azzeddine Elasrin launched an editorial platform, webzine, and mix series aimed at documenting and educating about dance music’s roots (Black, Brown, and LGBTQ+).

With the growing issue of third places in the city, we’ve recently seen a decrease in venue spaces and a big growth within underground nightlife. It has gotten to the point where people are tired of the lack of support toward the arts community and has created a subculture of nightlife. We’re coming together through music in these dive bars while also protesting the mainstream nightlife here, thus making the very creative and innovative nightlife community we have today. Boston has a severely underrepresented QTBIPOC arts community and culture. CTF was born because of the lack of space we have, and now we’re creating that space for others, whether it’s booking them for a show or having them collaborate with us.

Personally, as an Afro-Indigenous person, I grew up very community-centric, so it’s something that’s always been instilled in me. When thinking about CTF, I was thinking about how there was a lack of community-centered events here—not just for QTBIPOC people, but also connecting community work and the music scene together. There was no bridge. So I made it a point for us to do a few fundraisers throughout the year, because that’s a very big philosophy I work by: support your community, and your community will support you. Recently we’ve hosted “fundravers” for Voices of Liberation, for Black History Month with the B.L.A.C. Project, and a food and clothing drive with Warm Up Boston. Then personally, I also did a fundraiser for our local trans community with Boston GLASS, with a bunch of other queer and trans artists and DJs, and a neighborhood cleanup in Allston with Stamina Boston, where we had a mobile DJ rig throughout the day.

I want to see more local DJs and artists get access to the bigger venues. I want to see more venues catered to the local scene pop up. I want more music venues, not luxury condos or Taco Bell Cantinas. Last but certainly not least, I want the City of Boston and venue owners to accept change and help nightlife grow.

Clear the Floor is a Boston-based, QTBIPOC-run and centered rave collective highlighting genreless, electronic, and experimental music.

I see the potential for what nightlife culture can do here, but the barriers to entry are very high, with the availability of venues being slim and costing thousands of dollars just for the space. They’re not always equipped with sound or lighting, so we wanted to help solve these issues and encourage a culture of affordability and accessibility. We started doing everything ourselves to cut costs, doing sound for other parties and our own parties with custom hi-fi sound systems. Building our own speakers is not as expensive as you might think, and the quality that you get is unreal. Our goal is to revolutionize the sound that people are experiencing—to show them a new level of sound quality that will change their lives without damaging their hearing.

We’ve provided sound for local collectives like Boudoir, Break-Fast, Experience Collective, and Aversion, setting up our sound system every weekend at different venues, like Cloud & Spirits, for all these parties from dancehall to hip-hop. This has cemented our place here and the trust of the people in the community. Boston’s history with hi-fi runs deep, harkening to a time of quality over quantity. High-fidelity doesn’t necessarily mean expensive; it means that the quality of the reproduction is how the artist recorded/intended it, highlighting all the beautiful parts of the music.

The biggest roadblock is the availability of liquor licenses, which are impossible to come by unless you have money—the state values them at $600,000, and they sell for more than that. If you can’t afford that, you put yourself on a list with 1,500 other people/businesses, and it’s a lottery of only fourteen to sixteen new liquor licenses per year. The city has taken ownership of this issue and is releasing more licenses in areas of need. Corean Reynolds is doing a great job spearheading these changes. With her help, we were able to host an open panel discussion with other local organizers inside City Hall.

Sound Logic is a group of DIY event producers throwing quality dance music events with their own custom-built, hi-fi sound systems.

Hue is high-energy dining; it’s live music and DJs while you eat. It all goes back to my interest in bringing people together, and I think music and food are the two biggest proponents of that. Our menu is family style with shareable plates that make for a more engaging and communal experience. “Hue” is a double entendre: it’s our address (Huntington and Exeter), and “hue” as in color, because I wanted this space to be a reflection of Boston as a whole—Black, white, young, old, gay, straight. We host a drag bunch, events with local sneaker brands, and a poetry night once a month. We provide a space for people of color to perform on a consistent basis. My goal at Hue is to build community with all these different pockets throughout the city.

More representation. Even for myself, to be a Black business owner in Back Bay was unheard of a few years ago. Boston is definitely moving in the right direction: we’ve got Grace by Nia in the Seaport and Estella and Fete downtown. As more diverse spaces open, I think Boston will become more of an inclusive city and people who come here will find a reason to stay. That’s been a big issue thus far with retention: people who come to school here not finding a social life/scene and taking their talent once they graduate.

People are coming for experiences more than regular outings. I think people really like what I’m offering in terms of dining and bespoke cocktails with entertainment, versus nightclubs with just shots and typical mixed drinks. The idea behind Hue was I felt like there was a void in the city—what do you do if you don’t want a full-on night-club and you don’t want to just sit at a bar? There are not a lot of restaurants that you can go in and have a DJ spin while you’re eating. We also don’t do a cover charge. We don’t hold a line. There’s nothing pretentious about what we’re offering.

As diverse as the flavors that make up Boston, Hue is a restaurant and lounge located in Boston’s Back Bay with family-style dining and lively nightlife. Eugene is also co-curator of Silk R&B, Boston’s largest R&B party.