Rock bottom

Suburban sprawl, lack of venues - why Long Island can't seem to nurture a music scene

BY RAFER GUZMÁN
STAFF WRITER. Rafer Guzman is a pop music critic for Newsday.

February 19, 2006

In December, a ragtag local garage-band called The Repercussions unceremoniously broke up. The split didn't make headlines. Despite gloriously sloppy songs like "Heather in Pleather," the band had only a small following. But the news capped off a discouraging year for Long Island's local music scene.

In recent months, a number of up-and-coming local acts - including Lux Courageous and The Goodwill - have thrown in the towel or suffered the loss of key members. Other bands have moved away, seeking greener musical pastures in New York City. And last year, one of the island's most supportive live music venues - The Downtown, in Farmingdale - shut its doors.

If you're not a local music fan, you may not have noticed. But there's a larger issue here. After a recent study found that the Island's population of 18- to 34-year-olds was five times lower than the national average, experts offered various explanations such as high rents, a lack of jobs and fewer births among previous generations. But here's another possibility: Long Island simply isn't fostering the kind of climate in which young people thrive.

Such a climate is a difficult thing to measure, but a vibrant music scene is a good barometer. Music remains close to the hearts of teenagers and 20-somethings, even despite the advent of video games and electronic gadgetry. So far, at least, nothing has replaced the excitement of crowding into a club to see a live band. In any city where you find masses of young people - Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Texas - you'll find nightclubs and bands and local record labels that cater to them.

So what's wrong with Long Island? In terms of music, the biggest problem is a lack of venues. Many bars and nightclubs offer live music, but often only sporadically, perhaps on a slow weeknight or a Saturday afternoon. One exception was The Downtown, a dedicated concert hall in downtown Farmingdale with a high-quality sound and lighting system. Thanks to savvy staffers, the club hosted local showcases and chose "baby bands" to open for big-name acts. Its closure in September, for reasons that are unclear, dealt a severe blow to Long Island music. Local bands are now being forced to head to Manhattan to cut their teeth at small venues.

As any club owner will tell you, live music doesn't bring out crowds the way it once did. Few owners these days are willing to book an unknown act that may not draw enough patrons to cover the night's expenses. The surer bet is to hire a DJ and lure people in with drink specials. Musicians may grumble that clubs are abandoning live music, but a business can't be blamed for wanting to make money.

Long Island does have its share of fans of live music, but they're spread far and wide throughout the sprawling suburbs. There's no central hub where they can gather for nightlife and entertainment. Musicians may have the energy to drive many miles to a late-night show, but fans often don't. By contrast, areas like Manhattan's Lower East Side are nightlife destinations with a high concentration of clubs, and music fans go there to hop from one to the next.

New York City, of course, is boon and curse for Long Island. It's close enough that bands can easily go play there - but often they simply move there. It's easy to see why: more venues, more listeners, more exposure. Still, it's disheartening to hear former Long Island bands introduce themselves as "from New York City."

That brings up another telling detail. Even bands whose members live here will hide their hometown roots when playing Manhattan. They'll hedge, saying they're "from New York." Why the embarrassment? Put bluntly, Long Island isn't exactly synonymous with originality. For years, the area was known mostly for cover bands and second-rate metal acts. And now that it's spawned two nationally known emo bands - Taking Back Sunday and Brand New - it churns out mostly imitators.

The blame belongs partly to those who play the stuff and to risk-averse clubs, but also to local audiences that seem to crave the familiar over the adventurous. Not long ago, we could have blamed rock radio for its homogenized playlists. But these days, rock radio in New York barely exists. Manhattan's "K-Rock" recently became a talk station and relegated its weekly local music show, "Domestic Disturbance," to the Internet. Long Island's WLIR staunchly supports local bands, but it mainly serves Suffolk County. And the area's low-power stations - there's one called "Radio X," for instance - have plenty of creative freedom but little wattage.

Despite all this, Long Island has the ingredients for a booming music scene. For starters, there are bands - lots of them - playing everything from punk to metal to emo. Do a search on the music Web site www.myspace.com and you'll find at least 100 rock bands within 20 miles of this newspaper's office. What's more, they've already formed a community - simply through playing shows together, sharing rehearsal spaces and occasionally trading members. That's a great start.

Local clubs might try supporting each other, too. In Seattle, the bars clustered around downtown's Pioneer Square have an arrangement: Patrons pay admission at one venue, then receive a hand-stamp allowing entrance to several others. That might be a tough sell on sprawling Long Island, but plenty of large cities, from touristy Orlando to cosmopolitan Manhattan, sell package-deal passes offering admission to various attractions. Why couldn't The Downtown have partnered with, say, The Crazy Donkey nearby on Route 110? Both clubs might have benefited.

It's possible that a downtown redevelopment effort might consider creating a "cluster" of music clubs. But if this seems far-fetched - could we really expect merchants to give up their space to music venues? - certainly more civic involvement would help.

Music festivals and band battles on Long Island are often spearheaded by local impresarios - usually from music publications like Good Times or the now-defunct Long Island Entertainment - who possess more good intentions than resources.

Municipalities could help with funding to find food and beverage vendors and security and - perhaps most important - launch a marketing campaign. The annual Riverhead Blues Festival is a good example of what a little civic cooperation can do: Streets are cordoned off, police are present, and local businesses benefit from sizable crowds who return year after year. With this kind of support, the rock-oriented Good Times Festival could become a much larger event.

On a day-to-day level, local venues should be more consistent, offering regular evenings of live music and resisting the urge to pull the plug the minute the register looks low. This is the only way to build an audience.

Bands, for their part, could show a better understanding of economics. For instance, when venues require musicians to buy tickets to their own shows and sell them to fans - a fairly common practice - it's not necessarily a case of exploitation. As the old saying goes, they don't call it the music business for nothing.

And don't forget old-fashioned word of mouth. No matter where a local band may be playing, there's only one way it should introduce itself to audiences: "We're from Long Island."Rafer Guzmán is a pop music critic for Newsday.

Ways for the music lover to keep sane

Long Island has plenty of music to offer - the problem is finding it. Here are a few suggestions:

Low-power station "Radio X" has three FM frequencies on Long Island, WLIX-LP, in Ridge (94.7), W235BB in Hauppauge (94.9) and W238BA, Selden (104.5). Although its emphasis is on alternative rock rather than local bands, it does have a Web site (www.radiox.fm) that offers a calendar of upcoming local shows and events.

Good Times Magazine, a free Westbury-based music publication, recently released a compilation disc, "The Best of Long Island Music 2004-2005," with tracks from 20 different Long Island bands. You can get a copy by sending $1 to Good Times, Box 33, Westbury, NY 11590. Mark the envelope "Long Island Compilation."

Domestic Disturbance, a Web-only radio show hosted by longtime local scenesters Mike Dubin and Christian McKnight, covers music from New York, Connecticut and its home base of New Jersey. Hear it Sundays at 9 p.m. at www.krock2.com.

At www.myspace.com, bands all over the world post songs that anyone can play and sometimes download. How do you find out who's based in your area? Just type in your ZIP code. You can even sort the results by number of listens, which indicates which artists are the most popular on a given day.

The Stony Brook University station,

WUSB / 90.1 FM, broadcasts "Local Insomniac Music" hosted by Rich Hughes, who founded the Web-based Long Island Music Coalition. The show is named for its midnight starting time on alternate Tuesdays.

- Rafer Guzman