The basement scene has everything you might expect on a normal Friday night: rowdy behavior, loud music, kegs. However, this isn’t the basement of a house on Webster Ave, it’s the basement of Collis.

While it is often lamented that fraternities dominate Dartmouth’s social scene, many successful alternative events have emerged on campus. Usually something considered an “alternative” social space was considered lame and not fun. Previously, the presence of alcohol separated all “fun” and the “boring” social events. But now many events held in Collis serve different alcoholic beverages.

Friday Night Rock, a student group that showcases emerging rock bands, features live concerts on campus. The selection of artists, which has included Of Montreal and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, reflects with surprising accuracy new and buzz-worthy artists. Many of the groups have appeared on Pitchfork.com’s annual “best-of” list, while others have played at large music festivals like South By Southwest (SXSW), the highly-popular Austin, TX music festival. Best Coast, a California band that visited Friday Night Rock in April, was featured on MTV2’s Subterranean two weeks after playing at Dartmouth.

The group, which charges no admission for its shows and supplies free alcohol to students over 21, has also held showcases for Dartmouth-based student bands. However, despite its ability to bring quality bands to campus, Friday Night Rock remains a relatively low-key venue. This status is probably due to the collective music taste of the Dartmouth community, which isn’t known for being geared towards indie rock music.

Meanwhile, Programming Board, another student-run group, has made attempts to provide alternative nightlife events at Collis with alcohol and flashing lights. On May 8th, Super Mash Bros, a mashup group that describes themselves as “Girl Talk’s hot cousin,” played a show that had the crowd flowing from the basement to the help desk. The event, promoted as “Klub Kollis,” featured two other campus DJs, DJ Hollisto and DJ Janski.

Although frat-hopping will probably still be preferred to cool concerts like these, I definitely welcome Friday Night Rock and Programming Board’s alternative social spaces. Let’s hope they keep these spaces open with awesome, jamming music.