S.A. Sebastian: A View From The Bottom

Almost monthly, a group of professional bass players gather in NYC for the Bass Brunch. I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in this gathering. Hosted by Mike Visceglia, the Bass Brunch “has become somewhat of an established means of networking and exchanging ideas in the bass community.” It’s also a great opportunity to eat lunch and drink beers with some of the most experienced working bass players (Mike plays bass for Suzanne Vega, among others) in NYC, and get an earful of their experiences, hear their road stories and find out that despite some of their high profile gigs, they are just like me - always looking for the next gig.Our last gathering, at the beginning of the summer, took a more formal turn when Mike asked us to participate in a discussion for an article he was writing, called “Zen & the Art of Bass Tone,” for Premier Guitar Magazine. The topic of tone, what’s good and what’s bad, is always good for starting an argument, but Mike managed to keep this civil, and we had an excellent discussion of people’s preferences, opinions and experiences. Mike’s article does a really good job illustrating that; tone is a matter of preference, and everyone has a different preference, and handles it differently for every situation. What’s my preference? Read the article! If you are a bass player, any instrumentalist really, you should check the article out at Premier Guitar Magazine; and look for me and my buddy Bradley, from the band Leroy Justice in the group picture (numbers 8 and 9). 

James and I have spent the last few months locked away in his apartment, or my studio, writing songs for the next Atomic Brother album. Since March we have about 12 or more new songs in various states, plus a few written while we were gigging last year, and a couple others we wanted to put on See Me Comin’, but just didn’t have the time. So, we decided we had enough of just the two of playing, and gave our drummer Rob a ring and hit the studio in NYC tonight to work out the songs like a proper rock band!

We got a late start thanks to the LIRR, but, once we got going the new songs sounded really excellent played all loud, with the band. We hammered through only about 6 of the songs, and ,of course, since this was the first time we played these, things were a little rough; but fun and excellent, none the less. We’ll be posting clips of some the songs to our video podcast, Wastin’ Time With Atomic Brother in the next week or so.

This past Saturday I finally got my studio back in action, after being out of commission for over a year, due to flood damage. The NYC-band, Blueberry High Heels came in to record tracks for a demo. The band is fronted by Didi Delicious on lead vocals and bass guitar, with Dylan Mitchell (my band mate in Scratcher) on guitar and Greg Jacob (of the Rubber Room Rats and trip with the Teacher) on drums. The band describes themselves as, “a post-punk, powerpop trio of rockers cut from the old school NYC rock and roll cloth.” After spending several hours with them, I’d say that’s a fair assessment. Didi has long been a part of the New York City punk rock scene, seen regularly at CBGBs, Coney Island High, the Continental, Scrap Bar and more, either writing for NYRock.com and the NY Waste or playing with any of her different bands. So, for this session, we really wanted to capture the raw, punk-rockness of the band, so with Dylan taking the lead as producer, we decided to record the band old-school - all together in the same space, playing live, bleed and all, going back later and re-cut vocals.  You can hear the song “Dice,” recorded and engineered by me, and mixed by Dylan, on the band’s MySpace page. 

For a long time thse of us in bands in NYC laughed at our Los Angeles counterparts for having to pay to play in bars and clubs. Well, it’s time to stop laughing. Pay-to-play is alive and well, and thriving, in NYC and in the surrounding suburbs. Despite what people are saying about NYC there are plenty of places to play, and it seems like there is a new bar or club opening every week that has live entertainment. Even 3 new high-capacity venues, the Blender Theatre, Terminal 5 and Highline Ballroom opened in the last year. There are so many places now that the clubs and bars are stacking bands 6 or more per night, and charging them $100 or more to play, which guarentees them $600 before they even open the doors. And yes, like, L.A., these are places where you have to buy tickets from the club in order to play, which is something you used to only have to do to get on a bill with a famous band at a big venue.

But now pay-to-play in NYC has a new face in the form of “minimum draw.” Sure, almost all venues have had a minimum draw requirement, but that minumum used to be about 10 people. Now because NYC is so saturated with bands that have relocated here to “make it”, and the audiences are smaller and smaller, the minimum draw requirements in many places have gone as high as 40 people, with the bands typically getting only 1-2 bucks a head. Sure, some places are more generous, going as high as $5, but the catch is that some places pay starting from person 41 that’s a $400 pay-to-play fee! Per band! That’s a lot of money, but only if the bands can draw that many people. And right now in NYC, there are very few bands that are able to draw enough to cross the payment threshold.

How are the clubs and bars getting away with it? And why are we paying to play instead of being paid to entertain?

There are 2 reasons. First, like I said earlier, NYC has reached its saturation point with bands. NYC, like Los Angeles has been a place where people go to ive out their dreams to be a star. But, since so many bands have “made it” out of Brooklyn the past few years (Yeah,Yeah,Yeahs!, Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, We Are Scientists, etc…) bands from all over the world — each one either sounding more derivative and boring than the next, or trying to be as “clever” and “artistic” as possible — are moving as close to Brooklyn as they can so they can be the next Brooklyn band to be discovered. Look at the entertainment ads in the Village Voice. On a Monday or Tuesday night in Manhattan you can find close to 100 bands playing. Add Brooklyn and Queens, you get close to 200. On a Friday or Saturday more than 200 bands between the 3 boroughs. With all this competition bands are undercutting each other, to get the gig. Which, of course is the real reason there is no music scene in NYC anymore. But that’s a subject for another time.

The second reason is astounding. The clubs and “promoters” say that it its to make sure the bands promote the show, making sure that bands can bring a crowd, protecting themselves if there is poor turnout or slow sales. So, not only are we the entertainers (sorry… artists. I don’t want to offend the folks from Brooklyn or the singer-songwriters) paying them to play on their stage, we pay them to be their promoters (saving them money on posters and fliers and advertising that we pay for), and to find people to drink their cocktails. All this and we only to get $1-2 a head?

As result of this oh-so-clever thinking, the quality of bands performing in NYC has gone down the tubes. It used to be that you had to audition to play places like CBGBs (closed), Arlene’s Grocery, the Continental (now a cocktail lounge); you didn’t have to have to have a following to play, you had to be talented and creative and they would groom you and put you in front of an audience, and let you build a following. Now, anyone can play anywhere (including Arlene’s Grocery) as long as they have a few bucks and can bring a bunch of friends to drink beers. In my opinion this lack of talent is one of the biggest contributors to the lack of people going to shows, and death of the NYC music scene.

What can we do about this? Probably not a lot as long as there are bands that are willing to play for free, the bars and clubs are going to keep on getting away with this. We could go on strike. We could band together (I hate that cliche, but it fits), stage a walkout for even just one night, and boycott playing in clubs and bars that do this. Maybe all of them, just to prove a point. Imagine, a Friday or Saturday night in New York City (including Brooklyn and Queens) with not a single band playing. The day the music died in NYC. Maybe even a national band walkout day. Hmmm… interesting idea. Something to think about.

Psychobilly/horror-rock band the HorrorPops rolled into New York City to play the Blender Theater at Grammery last night with the Cute Lepers and the Pink Spiders opening up. I have been a big fan of the Horror Pops since they were still a band from Denmark and it was impossible to find their first album in the States. So, I had high expectations for this show: and the trio did not disappoint.

Surprisingly, the crowd was pretty diverse, filled with rockers, punks, Goths, jocks and “normals,” in addition to the rockabilly crew that is the typical fan of bands like the HorrorPops. I was completely surprised at the huge turnout for this band that I discovered on the Internet 4 years ago - I still envisioned them as a pretty small band. They hit the stage promptly at 10pm, lead by Patricia and her trademark white bass with skulls, red diamonds and jesters, and tore through songs from all 3 of their albums, Bring It On!, Hell Yeah! and the newest one, Kiss Kiss Kill Kill. They were also joined by 2 “corpse brides” who had choreographed dance routines to every song. For just over an hour it was a HorrorPops sing-a-long (even the jocks and normals) to songs like, “Trapped,” “Girl In A Cage,” “Kool Flattop,” “Freaks in Uniform,” “Hit’n’ Run,” “Julia,” “Drama Queen,” “Miss Take,” “Where They Wander,” “Baby Lou Tattoo,” “Heading For The Disco,” Copenhagen Refugee,” “Private Hall of Shame,” and the most requested “Walk Like A Zombie.” On their albums they sound like a mix of the Stray Cats, the Misfits, the Cramps and Madness, but in concert they sounded purely pyschobilly. During “Kool Flattop” the band mocked the obligatory stadium rock drum, guitar and bass solos with drummer Neidermeier playing the sampler’s demo track and then playing a few standard rock beats, followed by guitar player Nekroman grabbing the upright bass and seemingly jumping around the fretboard randomly picking notes and sliding around the neck and licking the strings. The “solos” were finished up with Jessica taking back the bass and making lots of slapping noises before returning to the song. An excellent, fun set!

The opening bands were very good, as well, making for an excellent concert overall. The Cute Lepers played a short set of 70s influenced pop-punk that was totally not like any of the Warped Tour bands. It was nice to hear a new punk band with pop influences that aren’t emo! I mean, I like emo as much as the next guy, (well actually, more. People my age HATE emo.) but enough whinin, already. The band looking like the were extras in the TV show Square Pegs, added a nice touch by having 2 female background singers, looking like they were also out of the 80s in slinky black dresses with bright pink earrings.

The Pink Spiders, looking very much like the Ramones, started out their set playing some catchy 80s influence pop-punk, but quickly devolved into the Warped Tour emo sound. They didn’t play anything memorable, but they played well and were very tight. One thing, though, the Lepers and the Spiders were screwed over by the 4, yes four “sound men” who apparently didn’t know that you need to hear the guitars in a rock show. During the Lepers’ set only the vocals and drums were in the PA, and during the Spider’s set the lead guitar wasn’t in the PA. There were 4 guys at the sound board just hanging around bullshitting, and not doing sound, making the 2 openers sound horrible.