Alternative venues for indie music

Music venues have been closing in NYC, but shows in non-traditional locations are doing well.

New York Night Life - New York Times, 5/11/07: "'Anything is a venue,' said the promoter Todd Patrick, known professionally as Todd P. For six years he has made it his mission to program music in far-flung places, from divey bars in Greenpoint to Lutheran churches to private lofts. Now New York’s alt-location guru, he has recently expanded to work with bands on the verge of stardom (Animal Collective, which he booked in 2005) and even nationally known acts (Oneida, Trans Am) at large clubs like Studio B in Brooklyn, winning the attention of the music industry.

But Mr. Patrick’s hallmark remains the cheap, on-the-fly, do-it-yourself concert, promoted through his Web site (toddpnyc.com), his e-mail list (13,000 strong) and MySpace, blog and newspaper and magazine listings. Essentially a one-man band, Mr. Patrick, 31, has interns who work the door (ticket prices rarely go above $10) and stamp hands (he only does all-ages shows) while he helps set up.

'Because the idea is about D.I.Y., I like to show the strings,' he said. 'I want people to come to the show and see me build the P.A. system, see that there’s nothing glossy about what we’re doing. I think alternative venues are a great way of doing that. It just kind of throws it off. If a club is the quote-unquote appropriate place to see music, why do people have so much more fun in a warehouse?'...

Nearby, interns counted the door money; Mr. Patrick takes 10 percent before expenses (security, interns) and the rest goes to performers....

Along with low overhead other common traits of this scene include out-of-the way locations (a long walk from the subway is common), online promotion, candles instead of spotlights and a high tolerance for graffiti: GlassLands, where the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed as part of a video shoot, has two rooms where anyone can scribble on the walls, markers and paint provided. Many places lack proper licensing; Mr. Patrick switches locations often to avoid the authorities. (Don Pedro is a legal establishment with a liquor license; the loft space was not.)"

What the club owner really thinks of your band

"Shhhh-it!": Introducing Idolator's AnonIMous Music-Biz Interview Series - Idolator: "VivSavage1984: okay, so first question: do you actually read/care about music blogs?

RockClubBigWig: I do read them, every day, when I get to work. Just the major ones--Idolator, of course, Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, Product Shop NYC, etc.

VivSavage1984: well, thanks for the plug. So, do the blogs have any big impact on what bands you guys book?

RockClubBigWig: Sometimes. I would say that more often, we book the bands first and then the blogs write about them. Blogs are more useful for finding out about shows going on at other venues.

VivSavage1984: really! interesting. well, what do you think about when blogs take credit for helping to 'break' a band? is there any merit to that? so what's the day-to-day of your job like?

RockClubBigWig: go over the schedule for the evening. listen to a lot of cd's and visit a bunch of myspace pages. respond (or don't respond) to a couple hundred e-mails. answer the phone. bullshit with colleagues. talk shit about shitty bands. and praise good ones. ... There are a lot of new venues. But there's a big market out there. I mean, I wish I could say that there's cutthroat competition in the New York live music scene. But it's kind of like, Clear Channel/Live Nation, whatever, they're on one side, and everyone else is on the other. And the balance seems to be tilting towards the independents. Irving Plaza, Nokia Theater, BB Kings: their booking has really gone downhill in the last couple years."

clubs
New York
Brooklyn
Williamsburg

Web-TV to promote local scenes

Here's a clever project that is a great way to promote local music, hangouts, and advertisers. However, it's labor-intensive, without much income so far.

You Oughta Be In Webcasts: "Scene six, take two. Action. 'I love the skulls on your shirt,' says a snooty designer. 'It's very Pol Pot chic.' On a recent Saturday in Brooklyn, the 11th episode of Web sitcom The Burg is being filmed in the Bushwick Country Club bar. A satire about the hipsters of the Williamsburg neighborhood, the show in five months has developed a small but hard-core group of fans, many of them the same arty twentysomethings the show skewers. Cast and crew may be working for free, but they aren't rookies. One is All My Children actress Kelli Giddish, and this shoot has all the trappings of a professional production....

"The Burg, for instance, already has viewers paying close attention to the bars the characters hang out in and to the songs on the show's sound track, which are produced entirely by local Brooklyn bands. Advertisers, including Dewar's, have approached the show's creator, Kathleen Grace, about running video ads ahead of the episodes. The rates are competitive with those of rich media ads offered on other sites, she says, but since they're based on the hits a site gets and her audience is only about 10,000 per episode, any ad revenue generated won't even cover her bandwidth costs, let alone pay the cast and crew. (The show is currently self-financed.)"

music scene
YouTube
tourism
music promotion
creative class
New York
Brooklyn
Williamsburg

Neighborhoods grow up and so do clubs

More evolution in the NYC club scene.

Having clubs fit a neighborhood does make sense if you want locals to drop in.

If your core audience has been pushed out by higher rents, or if they have changed lifestyles to afford to stay, the old clubs may not have anyone left to serve.

Still, if people are moving into the neighborhood because they like what's already there, then it's probably a loss for everyone when a club moves or changes.

Polishing the Grunge - New York Times: Northsix, "which was one of the first of a wave of music places to open in Brooklyn, and an early hub in the Williamsburg music scene in the heady days when bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were becoming famous, is getting ready to close — sort of. It is scheduled to shut for an extensive renovation at the end of January and reopen a few months later as the Music Hall of Williamsburg, owned by the Bowery Presents, the company that puts on music shows at the Bowery Ballroom, the Mercury Lounge and Webster Hall, all in Manhattan.

"Williamsburg is not losing a rock club, then, but gaining one that may be more suited to its current state of gentrification, to the 40-story condos being planned along the East River nearby. Where Northsix has distressed, paint-caked wood floors and rudimentary high-school-style risers, the Music Hall will have balconies and a big-city gloss."


The article points out that "Jeff Steinhauser, still in his 20s and armed with his inheritance money," who leased the space that became Northsix "will have a job in the management of the new club." He's a good example of how younger club goers sometimes outgrow their clubs. "'It’s weird,' he said. 'But you know, the way the neighborhood is changing, I don’t know that a place like this necessarily fits in with what the neighborhood is changing to.'”


live music
clubs
music scene