Four of the rooms that mattered most to this scene have closed in three years. The bands did not stop; the geography did. Shows moved to basements, then to a warehouse an hour out, then to living rooms with borrowed PAs.
Something interesting happened on the way. Sets got shorter. Recordings got rougher and more frequent. The economics of a scene that cannot rely on a door split pushed everyone toward putting things out fast.
The result is a body of work that sounds less finished and more alive than what the same musicians were making when they had a stage every weekend.
