Sharing an Allston building with a very bad band

At the very least, go talk to them before calling the cops.

The city has noise ordinances which start getting stricter at 11 PM, but also noises any time of the day are covered:

Anything louder than 50 decibels from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. is considered unreasonable.
Anything louder than 70 decibels is considered too much at any time, except for permitted construction.

Additionally however, almost without any exceptions, there are building rules regarding noise from a unit not exiting said unit and going into other units. Even loud footsteps are covered by those rules, let alone loud music. These should be provided by building/condo management in a handbook for new buyers and/or tenants.

The first step is to complain to building management and your unit owner regarding the noise. They may ask you to call and document calls to police if it occurs after hours [when management is not on site]. Unless you know the neighbors well it is strongly advised that you do not leave notes or approach them directly as this can lead to conflicts, it is better to mediate through the building management as that is the job of said management.

If they're truly horrendous, an official visit to convince them that, in the public interest, they should take up another profession may be necessary.

Go and ask them nicely to stop practicing after X o'clock. Many people (especially, but not exclusively, the young ones) are clueless and will respond with a sincere, "Oh, sorry" and knock it off. If they choose to be dicks about it, you can always call the cops.

I guess even Allston is changing these days. It used to be a given that this is what you’re signing up for when choosing to live there.

When I moved back to Boston 18 years ago, I got an apartment on Harvard Ave. in Allston. My place was on the first floor and the guys in the basement unit had a terrible band. They weren't bad guys, but their music was awful. On top of that, they were just super inconsiderate. I went and talked to them repeatedly about the noise, mostly during the work week. I basically said to them, "look I don't much care about Friday and Saturday nights (it is Allston after all), but people have to go to work during the week, so can you call it quits before 10?" I thought this was a reasonable request.

They kept to the deal for a while and then just started playing until almost midnight. I called the cops and they came out and dealt with it. I didn't feel bad about it. If anyone should have felt bad, it was the guys playing music in an apartment building until midnight.

The house next to ours has always had bands. Both buildings have fieldstone basements and the houses are pretty close, so when the band plays, it's in our apt. The last three bands that lived there were actually pretty talented (one was even a wedding band) and super respectful, so we didn't mind.

New band has been there for going on three years. They practice every day but somehow? have gotten? worse? Like the Pixies going thru a psychedelic phase. ANYWAY, they would play every day until after 11 and were unresponsive to our attempts at contact, so we got D14 involved. After a dozen or more requests to the station to do something, they finally showed up....at our house. They straight up said, "You're in Brighton, what did you expect? If you don't like it, move." Which got my goat 'cause the cop was younger than we (all in our 20s) and we'd been living in the neighborhood for a long ass time. He then went next door, told the kids we had a problem, and sent them over so we could work something out. So that was pretty awkward. But we hashed it out and it's more or less resolved now.

TLDR; the band was awful and disrespectful. We talked. Now they're just awful, but stop playing at 9. So see if you can exchange numbers and find a time that works for everyone to stop playing. 'Cause D14 don't care.

condo associations' rules are 11pm to 7am, seven days a week. I don't recall having any such restrictions on my lease the last time I was a renter, but that was many years ago.

When I lived on Sorrento Street in Lower Allston, a new roommate was moving into our 5 person apartment. He asked if his band could practice in the huge basement and we told him absolutely not and he never did.