Column: This is Boston, not D.C.

I went and saw the band Black Dice play at Massachusetts College of Art on Friday. For those of you who don't know, Black Dice is an experimental band that started out playing dire art noise but that has incorporated elements of techno, funk, and pychedelia into its sound over the years. There are no drums except for a pair of beat up digital drums that provide the rhythmic foundation and little-to-no bass. One member occasionally plays a random guitar figure that gets manipulated through a series of samplers. All of this combines to create a sound that is not unlike futuristic hordes of Sioux Indians on the warpath. It sounds really cool, but it's not what you think of when you think "rulin' the pit." But there it was. A whole gaggle of people jumping around, bumping into each other, crowd surfing, and in general acting like they were at Lollapalooza, as opposed to a show in an art gallery.

Watching the crowd react to Black Dice that way was surprising, to say the least. Black Dice isn't - how should I phrase this? - the band that will get the party started, if you get my drift. There are no traditional symbols of rock music. No front man singing to you or gifted guitar player ripping off solo after solo. The three members look like three guys who work at a food co-op and stand behind suitcases full of archaic electronics. But there was the crowd, moving and dancing and jumping. You would have thought they were watching Good Charlotte.

Neptune played earlier and perhaps what shocked me about the audience's reaction to Black Dice was their relative calm during Neptune. Neptune itself is a fascinating band from Boston that fashions all of the guitars and basses out of heaps of scrap metal. The bass is built using a VCR casing and another one of their instruments has a jagged scythe at the end of it. That being said, seeing Neptune live can be a dangerous experience, given the band's disregard for the fact that their instruments can also double as weaponry. While this all sounds like the band is in an orbit even further out than Black Dice, it actually plays wiry, dissonant post-punk. Like if Gang of Four formed in a junk heap, stuff that seems a lot more appropriate for dancing than Black Dice's post-industrial skronk.

Being from Washington, D.C., it's always a bit surprising for me to see the reception that crowds have to challenging bands in Boston. While D.C. has its own share of challenging bands like Black Eyes or Manhunter, that city's music tends to tread more straight ahead, with punk tinged with politics. I'd always note with a hint of resignation that some of my favorite bands - Lightning Bolt, Wolf Eyes, and Arab on Radar - were playing in Baltimore, Md. and not D.C. Maybe the scene in Washington is just too insular. It does, after all, have one of the only record labels devoted solely to documenting DC bands: Dischord Records. I love D.C., but there's a certain puritan aura that permeates throughout the music scene there. At a show in D.C., you don't dance. You just kind of stand there and watch the band do its thing, a hangover from the late '80s when slam dancing was deemed misogynist and stupid. Hell, D.C. is the home of "straight edge," a sect of people, centered around hardcore music, who don't smoke, drink, or practice promiscuous sex. This practice was set in stone by the band Minor Threat. Because D.C.'s music scene is overwhelmingly political, the message of the music is often louder than the music itself. This is all well and good, but after a while you just want to enjoy the music, not be browbeaten by the band.

In contrast, Boston's music scene seems to have a sense of artistic abandon that isn't marked by a message or any attempt at looking cool. More bands here seem willing to experiment, rather than be obsessed with taking down the state. Sure, there are plenty of crummy bands here, but when was the last time you saw a mosh pit in an art gallery?

Nicholas Feeley is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He welcomes comments at feeleyn@bcheights.com.