Other than the newly reopened Sail Inn, downtown Tempe doesn't have music venues anymore. The strip's been colonized by chains (that decline was documented in the film Mill Ave Inc.), and even the headshops seem stressed to be paying the rent in a neighborhood with American Apparel, Urban Outfitters, and a slew of trendy college bars.
Likewise, the industry that bands once toiled to break into has pretty much disintegrated. The major-label model doesn't work anymore. The biggest-selling album of last year came from a guy who made his name circulating free mix tapes on the street — but how is Lil Wayne's marketing plan supposed to work for anyone else? The music industry, it often seems to me, is slipping into anarchy.
And so it is that on a recent Friday night on Mill, people stick their heads in a hole cut in a painting of a dog's ass, posing for pictures while a band called Darkness Dear Boy performs acoustically atop ladders. Around the band, local standup comedians and artists hand out fliers to a show at Last Exit. Some hold protest-style signs that say "Support Local Music," "Support Local Arts," and "Support Local Comedy." A guy named Ted Organ, playing his guitar on the highest ladder, fronts the Tempe-based Darkness Dear Boy, and this demonstration is by his design.
Darkness Dear Boy isn't a particularly gimmicky band — they play the same solid, post-grunge alt-pop you'll hear from Nada Surf or The Eels — but this little happening is one of many stunts Organ has cooked up to promote the band. Here on Mill, scene of the biggest musical triumphs the Valley has seen, he's hoping to help rebuild camaraderie in the scene and, perhaps, find a way to "make it" in the post-label era.
"I think, for every band, it takes a little bit of delusional-ness to think you're going to make it, but even more so if you think someone else is going to do it for you," he says. "This is us completely scratching at every opportunity, knocking at every door."
The fact that DDB is asking people to pose with their head in a dog's ass just shows how far they're willing to take it. It also shows how far the local music scene — and the music industry, for that matter — has fallen. It's not that there aren't great local bands in Phoenix, and it's not that local bands aren't making it. It's that the scene is fractured. There's no strip of nightclubs, so bands are forced to play on musical islands across the Valley, working their niche and marketing themselves online. You can't really blame them — it seems to be what works nowadays.
Look at the two local bands that have received the most national ink in the past year, The Medic Droid and The Maine, Alternative Press cover boys this month. Both bands have relatively small local fan bases, building up their national followings on the Web. The Medic Droid, an electronic duo, played their first gig at New York's Bowery Ballroom before ever booking a local show. The Maine, an indie-lite act with pop sensibilities, has more than 10 million plays of the single "Everything I Ask For" on MySpace, yet they're still playing the Clubhouse. You don't see those guys handing out fliers on Mill or, perish the thought, playing on top of a ladder.
That's the Web for you. I still remember the first time the Internet and music intersected for me: It was 1995 and I was in eighth grade, poring over the liner notes to Radiohead's The Bends when I came across an address for a Radiohead Web site. I'd never been online before but I decided to ask my buddy Richard to pull up http://musicbase.co.uk/music/radiohead (yes, that was the URL of their official Web site — if you have a first edition of The Bends, look it up) on Prodigy. Ironically, 14 years later, the band used the Internet to bypass record labels entirely, staying independent after their contract expired and releasing In Rainbows through radiohead.com.
If going label-less works for Radiohead, I have to think it'll work for other bands. And if there are no labels to impress, why don't more bands rustle up fans the way The Medic Droid did, flexing their marketing muscle online instead of with fliers for tiny local shows? It seems to be the obvious move.
Still, you have to appreciate what Organ wants to do: rebuild the pecking order of the local scene. "Really, what we're trying to do is a resurgence. We want to keep it from going down anymore so we can get it going up. That's what we're doing: Putting the rings on it and trying to pull it up again."
It's a worthy goal. I've heard stories from New Times contributor Chris Hansen Orf about when every band on Mill (including his band, Zen Lunatics) got signed, during the heady days of the Clinton administration. Everyone knew everyone, from the Gin Blossoms on down. Bands like The Refreshments were name-checking other bands in the scene, like Dead Hot Workshop, in their songs. It was a wonderful time, he says, until everyone got dropped. But Orf's band is still together, and he's still friends with the guys he played with back then. By contrast, The Medic Droid broke up after their first headlining tour (which is why they're not playing a South by Southwest showcase this week). That's what happens when you don't pay your dues in local clubs.
If Organ has hope of rebuilding, it's through the pleasant quaintness of his monthly BFLS ("Best Fucking Live Show") at Last Exit. His project — Doggass Productions and the BFLS — started after Organ posted a rant about the local music scene on craigslist.org and received an enthusiastic response. He decided to build a show around his manifesto.
The BFLS has four bands and four comedians, so there's something going on at all times. Doggass doesn't book based on genre or "draw" (how many people a band brings in) and everyone is expected to chip in with marketing efforts, handing out fliers and the like. Each $5 ticket comes with a program, so the crowd can figure out who's onstage. Doggass is militant about the start time for every set, and it expects everyone in a band to stay the whole show.
"If nobody else shows up — if it's just the bands and comedians there supporting each other — there's 25 people you're playing to," he says. "I think creating a music scene starts with the bands, the commitment to get there early and stay through the whole time. The other bands support you, you support them."
"It's the opposite game plan of every other promoter in town. They run off 500 fliers, and they sit at the door and take people's money," says DDB drummer Aaron Bland. "You know from us exactly when you play and what you'll get paid."
I'm not a promoter and I'm not in a band, but that sounds pretty good to me. Certainly, it's the most positive action I've seen from a band tackling the many problems with the local scene. (I can't attend a show without someone bending my ear about the scene's problems.) Too many people spend their time bitching about media coverage, making fun of the bands that do get covered, and publishing stupid 'zines to further fragment things. They complain yet don't attend shows where their friends' bands aren't playing, and they hardly ever venture beyond the same few venues. It's no wonder a city the size of Phoenix — a city with a lot of young and creative people — hasn't boosted more bands to the big time.
It's funny: I go to both Hollywood Alley and Modified Arts fairly often, but I hardly ever see the same people at both venues. Yet I see plenty of repeat customers at both. The naysayers are wrong: People in Phoenix care about local music; they just don't seem to care about local music outside their preferred niche, which is why they're left looking for a crowd. Maybe they'll find one this Friday at Last Exit.
