Prof’s Place was feeling loud and local Friday, Dec. 6 as Rowan Alt hosted their last show of the semester. This show featured three emo and punk bands native to the region, Mechanical Canine, Frankie Mermaid, and Snowman Fight.

The first set of the night came from Snowman Fight. This three-person band played quite a few songs, including one of their more recent releases, Dexter Morgan Freeman. Before starting the song, one band member quipped “Sometimes when you’re sad the only thing you can do is make it worse.”

If the song was a downer, however, the audience didn’t seem to notice. People jumped around, bobbed their heads, and swayed to the music as the lead guitar played riffs signature to Snowman Fight and their set for the evening.

The next band of the night was Mechanical Canine, a Philadelphia-based group that has recently gone on tour. They played an equally unique set, including a song called Mountain of Chairs.

Between songs, each band would keep the audience interested by talking about the music to come or bantering with one another. Occasionally, they would bring up recent events and talk about them.

Jon Herroon from Mechanical Canine, for example, remarked that if you ever see a mountain of chairs, you have to climb it.

Absurdism and absurdist humor are not unknown to indie music culture. Instead, the creative liberties of alt-music lend themselves to musicians creating music that doesn’t adhere to norms.

The crowd itself embodied these ideals. Notably, the whole crowd felt incredibly heterogeneous. Rather than each person looking the same or dressing the same as anyone else, the room exuded diversity. The one through-line tying the audience together, of course, was the music.

“I think, this is our first time playing Rowan, but I can speak for Goucher [College] down in Baltimore, we played there a whole bunch and we were always seeing the same faces. And it seems like these kinds of things really cultivate a community on campus. […] I can say from my own personal experience, having that sort of community and place to go stay out of trouble is really important,” said Jon Herroon from Mechanical Canine.

Rowan Alt truly does seem to have cultivated a community that shows up for these shows and bonds over the music and the bands at them. It’s important to have these shows somewhere like Prof’s Place as well.

“I was talking to some of the Rowan Alt folks, and they were talking about how trying to run shows off campus, cops kept getting called and shows kept getting shut down, so having it be on campus in a campus building, it provides something that you’re not able to get elsewhere, and the steadiness of a venue that you know isn’t going to get shut down,” said Herroon.

Finding stable venues with reliable audiences is part of the struggles of being an independent, gigging band. Rowan Alt, then, provides a dual service to fans of live music, and to the musicians themselves.

The last band of the night was Frankie Mermaid, a four-person band composed of former Rowan students. As they were getting ready to perform, a member of the band remarked that he had once watched the ceiling of Prof’s Place collapse. And with that, they began their set.

They played quite a few songs, including their most recent single, Make Things Right. Between songs, they shouted out the other bands of the night, in a display of camaraderie.

Each band of the night offered their unique indie, emo flair that audience members seemed to enjoy as they cheered between sets and even shouted for encores. Putting together gigs that students and bands will like isn’t necessarily easy, however.

“[A] challenge is finding a balance between something the students want to go to, and something the artist would want to play, and something the school allows us to throw on campus,” said Andrew Ciardella, senior music industry major and Rowan Alt President. 

Athena Rossi, senior student and vice president of Rowan Alt, said promoting is also a challenge. Ciardella elaborated on that point.

“We’re deep in the semester, a lot of people get busy […] whereas at the beginning of the year for us is like super easy to get stuff started, to get people excited because we try to start right as the semester begins,” said Ciardella.

For students who are interested in Rowan Alt, but don’t know how to get into the scene, Ciardella says go to events for the love of music, to discover new music, and to be a part of the music community.

The music community provided by Rowan Alt is one that many people find valuable. Sadi Gomez, an undecided sophomore at Rowan, says that Rowan Alt has definitely gotten him into new music. On Friday, he was wearing a shirt repping a band he had discovered through Rowan Alt.

“Honestly, I don’t think I would have made as many friends and community around me if it weren’t for them,” said Gomez.

To know future Rowan Alt events the best way is to follow the Rowan Alt Instagram, @rowanaltmusic.

For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email arts@thewhitonline.com.