The Central Square VFW is the kind of place where one Saturday night you might see Mary Timony -- erstwhile Helium enchantress and Matador Records solo lilter -- bouncing a Superball in the crowd of a noise-rock show; the following week, a private dance party with a CD-spinning disc jockey fading between Bon Jovi and Def Leppard hits; and the next, a groove-rock band leading the shimmying crowd with its white-boy Afros, wah-wah pedal, and electric piano. But the rental function hall is ideal for DIY punk rock and all its sundry subgenres: it's a shadowy basement equipped with a spare stage, lit with a single string of Christmas lights, and stocked with cheap drinks ($4 for whiskey in a plastic cup). Plus, on the other side of the entrance -- a space you have to pass through to find the main event -- is a genuine dive bar, a pool room of harmless old barflies who winkingly call pretty young things "Baby" and seem transported straight from a Harlem juke joint. Only problem with the rental space: if the scheduled event lasts past 1 a.m., the house staff will snap on the house lights, bark about sending you home, and start sweeping under your feet.

Central Square VFW Post 299, 288 Green Street, Cambridge, (617) 547-9320.