The front cover of AM New York today questions whether the NYC rock music scene is dying out because clubs in Manhattan keep closing: City’s clubs falling silent: “Buyers, lured by the mystique of the Lower East Side’s arts and music scene, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to live at the center of it. A few years later that same edgy nightclub goes out of business, having received many noise complaints from the new condo owners, and pinched by skyrocking rents driven up by those same well-heeled neighbors.”
Can venues afford to pay the same rents that national chains and expensive co-ops can? No. Indie rock and experimental music are not a big money industries. Is the LES scene dead? No. Or at least, not yet.
While Tonic and Sin-é closed, The Mercury Lounge, Pianos, Cake Shop, The Living Room, The Delancey, Rockwood Music Hall, Fontanas, and The Annex are the venues in the LES hosting live music that I could think of off the top of my head. Sin-é, for one, offered little that’s not matched or exceeded by the surviving venues in the area. Tonic, on the other hand, was a good sized and great sounding room that programmed a solid mix of avant-garde and emerging mainstream music.
But the opening and closing of venues is part and parcel of the vibrancy of New York’s music scene. Take CBGB’s, for example, which ceased to be relevant long before it finally closed its doors.
Besides the venues in the LES, Brooklyn has a hopping scene. Union Hall, Magnetic Field, Southpaw, Trash, Union Pool, Galapagos and the new Luna Lounge are among the conveniently located venues offering interesting shows that I can think of off the top of my head. That’s not even adding in venues further out in Brooklyn, such as the places that Todd P books.

The Washington Post sends world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell to busk in the metro, with his Stradivarius: Pearls Before Breakfast – washingtonpost.com: “It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by.”

The first six seasons of The Sopranos summarized in seven and half minutes:

New episodes of The Sopranos certainly fills up the Sunday void left by the 9 month wait until the next season of BSG.

After dallying with closure last year, Tonic is shuttering next month. Time Out NY Tonic, 1998–2007. Can experimental and avant-garde music create a viable venue? The Knitting Factory remains open, but only after mainstreaming and forgetting about jazz and experimental music.
Sin-é closes this Sunday. I, for one, won’t miss it. With sound that can be either decent or a muddy mess and lacking a full liquor license in the performance room, it is no longer a first-rate venue (if it ever was).
Irving Plaza will become the Fillmore East at Irving Plaza. Live Nation is expanding the Fillmore brand to established venues including Irving Plaza, TLA in Philadelphia and the State Theater in Detroit. Billboard reports: Live Nation Expands Fillmore Franchise In Three Cities

“Bruce Eskowitz, Live Nation’s CEO of North American Music, says the new Fllmores will hark back to that time, with signature “dark, sophisticated” red paint, the Fillmore’s distinctive chandeliers, and vintage Fillmore and Fillmore East posters throughout.
Other improvements to Irving Plaza include upgraded artist dressing rooms, a renovated VIP section with dramatically improved sightlines and the addition of plasma screens throughout the club.”

No indication that the upgrades will be anything but cosmetic and do anything to improve the mediocre sound at Irving Plaza.
And fortunately, despite rumors to the contrary, The Mercury Lounge is not closing.

WOXY has a blog now: The Futurist.

The Armed Forces look to little known and independent musicians to provide entertainment for troops: Rock in a Hard Place: “The group responsible for recruiting these bands is a little-known division of the Pentagon called Armed Forces Entertainment. Last year, AFE sent more than 100 small acts to camps around the world — compared with the nonprofit, civilian-run USO, which last year sent 37 tours abroad, mainly to big hubs like Kuwait City and Baghdad. Recently, AFE has been on the rise, organizing a record number of concerts and ramping up its band recruitment efforts.”
Armed Forces Entertainment
(Title reference: The Simpsons episode CABF12)

I have nothing against the metronome. I certainly could stand to use more time practing with one. And recording with a click track has been a established practice for a long time (though I’m not convinced one way or another whether it always (or never) results in a better-sounding song).
But since when has it been acceptable practice to have a drummer play to a click track during a live show? It’s one thing if the band is using some kind of drum loop, an often-but-not-always dubious proposition (Radiohead has done it well). But just having a metronome keeping the time underneath seems wrong somehow. Not to mention that I’ve seen bands play where you could hear the thing ticking off between songs.
I assume advances in technology have allowed bands of all levels to utilize a computer to help keep the time. For all I know, this practice could have been around among big acts since the 80s. Still, it only seems like recently that I see drummers wearing headphones as they play. Might just be my musical snobbery emerging, but it seems a little weak.
And of course, I couldn’t let this post end without a link to the song Metronome by some band called The Bosch.

I’m not particularly excited by any of these “big” reunions rolling out this year. The Police were a great band, and theirs is one of the few reunions that includes all the original members, but they looked rather pathetic at the Grammys. They were supposedly crummy live back in the day anyway.
The Van Halen reunion is apparently now off. Too bad, since David Lee Roth actually looked somewhat human in the press photo. In the end, I don’t think we’ll ever see a real VH reunion. Eddie is just too nutty these days.
I couldn’t care less about a Genesis reunion. I feel like they never truly went away, even if they offically broke up at some point. Phil Collins has had a major solo career since 1980, so the whole thing seems a little silly.
Speaking of reunions, check out this video showing (three-fourths of) Creedence playing their 20th year high school reunion. Based on the dancing on display here, it’s safe to say that Creedence were the only cool dudes to emerge from their high school.

Tonight (2/21) Die Romantik @ Pianos
Tomorrow (2/22) The Walk Ons @ Pianos
Goes Cube plays three NYC shows before heading off to SXSW and a cross-country tour: 2/26 @ Pianos, 2/27 @ Cake Shop, 3/2 @ Pianos
3/2 Gritty Midi Gang, The Muggabears @ Sin-é
3/3 Die Romantik, Mancino @ Union Hall
3/8 Tigers and Monkeys @ Hiro Ballroom
3/8 The Walkmen @ Bowery Ballroom
3/10 The Bosch @ The Annex
3/12 Heavy Trash @ Europa
3/12 The Raveonettes @ Mercury Lounge
3/12 The Good, The Bad and The Queen @ Webster Hall
3/14 Scourge of the Sea @ Mercury Lounge