The Raven, who was opening for an act billed as the Body Artist, sang and played for about forty minutes. Max was intrigued by her hurdy-gurdy, which was handmade of beautiful woods. The Raven had attached an amplifier to it, and the sound filled the club.

Jake and his musician friends didn’t like the distortion that the amp brought to the musical line. Between sets, they argued about whether their friend could have achieved a better effect with a local mike. Petra and Mr. Contreras argued about the lyrics: she thought the Raven’s songs were awesome, he found them disgusting.

It was Max who put my own reaction into words. “She perhaps never has had a wide audience in her early-music performance. Now she can show a young generation that even a gifted musician can shock, and thus build a market for herself.”

“That’s so cynical,” Petra protested. “She’s just being brave enough to put herself out there.”

“Where art and commerce intersect,” Jake said. “You make art, you sell it-to make a living, to get some validation-you make compromises with your art to make a living-why not go the whole way? Which isn’t to say she doesn’t believe as deeply in heavy metal as she does in early music.”

We had planned to leave before the Body Artist came onstage, but the lively arguments in our party-accompanied by the amount of beer and wine everyone was putting away-went on until the houselights were dimmed again for the evening’s main event.

Young men at tables around us gave catcalls and stomped their feet in anticipation. During the intermission, I’d been watching a table in the middle of the room. The five young men sitting there were all drinking heavily, but two in particular had been banging their beer bottles on the tabletop, demanding that the Body Artist get going. When the lights went down, theirs were the shrillest whistles in a noisy room.