By Artie Capshaw

The Shaking Quakers live in an old farmhouse about 20 miles out of town. Their home is a registered haven for runaways, and bandleaders Joe and Lucy Meach both are licensed social workers. When not doing double-shifts at halfway houses, they design and build custom stereo cabinets and inlaid guitar fretboards.

In town, the Meaches have been derided as “The Mooches” for their habit of scrounging trash from the dumpsters behind clubs they’re playing at. When they appear on bills with unlike-minded bands, The SQs come off uncertain, insular, twee. At home, however—as we can loudly attest, having spent three nights there this past month—they rock the heavens. This is their world, and they shake it righteously.

Imagine a ballroom-sized barn with stiff wooden bleachers and a hayloft you can jump from, the walls rattling—shaking, technically—with the sound of a six-guitar attack, as many as a dozen screaming vocalists and frenzied dancers whose workboot work-outs obviate the need for bass drums. All rhythm is banging. Some of the guitars have only two of three strings. The bass is electronic, and can make your bowels move against your will.

The chaos is orchestrated, and actual songs emerge. One recent set list: “The Turk Song,” “Dismission,” “Mother (Safely Landed)” the new wavey “Precept and Line,” “My Carnal Life,” “She Wars,” “Ram Pang,” “All That” (“A wolf can not become a sheep/because they’re here for all that/For all that and all that”) and a culminating “Quick Dance.” You’ll recognize the titles of some of those, but not what’s been done to the tunes—jagged, angular akimbo noise. Play loud, very very loud, and long. The instrumental guitar jam in “Ram Pang” went on for 25 minutes, but so did the verses—16 of ‘em—in “Mother.”

Since these jams are held nightly with ever-changing line-ups, hundreds of songs have been written and several bands have been formed. Members of Limber Zeal, The Shameful Three, Silver Cup and Balls of Simplicity all came out of the SQ scene. Those bands plus out-of-towners Nightengal, The Shoulder Blankets, Mistaken Thought and Square Order are all heading to the farmhouse this weekend for a non-stop marathon of shaking, quaking and cabinet-making. Visitors are welcome; camping is even available. But to comply with local ordinances, guests must register beforehand and agree to follow certain set rules of conduct. The model is of an invitation-only conference. In a kickass barn.

Back in the land of bricks tomorrow evening: the rapidly aging New Century band at Hamilton’s (two sets, each with a different vocalist)… Another “New” band, the trad-alt-prog-crap New Music Tradition at D’ollaire’s, headlines a full-on road show in which a couple of the early acts are actually worth your time: Strange Land and Him Noddy…. Finally, at the beloved Bullfinch, camp cut-ups with Evan Jellicle and the Magniffy Cats. Scenes, and obscenes, for everyone. Us, we’re heading back to that farm.