The most important moments in the history of music happened in basements, cellars, on ships, in clandestine bars and in theatres no one would have looked twice at.

Underground scenes emerged every time music needed a place of its own. When it was banned, when it was ignored by the industry, when there was simply no space that would accept it. Someone opened a door, set up some chairs, plugged in an amplifier and said: “This is where we play.”

From these small, improbable places, entire music genres were born. Jazz grew in the clubs of Harlem. Punk was born in a run-down venue in New York. Romanian rock survived the communist regime in a basement in central Bucharest.

What united all these places was the same thing: an audience that came for the music, not for the comfort. And artists who played because they couldn’t not play.