Word’s out. If you want to have a local music scene, you’ve got to become it.
Cal State Long Beach’s Underground Music Society (UMS) is attempting to create a new scene.
Unless people have money, know how to network, or their band’s keyboardist slept with all the right people, booking a slot may pose setbacks before their band has the chance to completely dissipate, sell-out, or hey, maybe even innovate sound themselves.
It’s rare to mention modern classics like Snoop Dogg or Sublime without Long Beach interrupting the conversation. Truth is, “the LBC” has held its own amongst sister cities Anaheim and Los Angeles, but it seems the tides are changing here at The Beach.
We’re in a time of digital convergence, where physical copy and merchandise has become secondary to live performances. We’re in a time where anyone with GarageBand and a MacBook can rise to radio play. It’s now, more than ever before, that the careers of professional artists fatally rests upon a stage.
And if a band’s looking for a venue in Long Beach, they should try not to get lost in the slew of washed-up karaoke bars or wrapped-up in the city’s Community Noise Ordinance, Section 8.80.010, where residents have even taken action against the ice-cream man, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Aside from the Belmont bar scene and some downtown hotspots, venues here work just as its scene does: Everything relies on word of mouth.
Fortunately, the city’s sound creeps through its community and still manages to cultivate headlining acts despite the minimal promotion done mostly on social media sites and restrictions from local officials.
DiPiazza’s Italian Restaurant and Lava Lounge has become a staple in the Long Beach music-lovers’ locale. Getting their start at Java Lanes bowling alley, Mark and Maralyn DiPiazza branded their name after booking bands like the Offspring and Weezer before mainstream recognition.
“I pretty much controlled punk rock from 1995 to 2000 in Long Beach, which I knew nothing of, but learned very quickly,” Mark DiPiazza said.
Although the original Lava Lounge couldn’t survive demolition in 2004, its 50 year legacy staged many bands selling out arenas today and lives on through KROQ-famous Lit’s music video for their ‘90s single “My Own Worst Enemy.”
The Lava Lounge later reemerged near the traffic circle under the name diPiazza’s. It’s cool vibe, dark tones and low-profile hideout is several drunks and a few flappers away from a speakeasy ambiance. Not to fear, all ages are accepted.
OC Weekly calls them the “Best Rock Club of 2013.”
“If I didn’t have live music, I probably wouldn’t have a business,” Mark DiPiazza said.
Among those mentioned, the Lava Lounge has featured the famed artists, such as Gwen Stefani and Janes Addiction, as well as those recently on the rise like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Slightly Stoopid, yet they still look to lend the mic to you and your friends.
Moving into the art district, Fourth Street’s “Retro-Row” conserves all things antique and vintage — even the death of physical copy. Fingerprints Music is one of few surviving forefathers of CD’s, vinyl’s and assorted merchandise, not to mention, it was exclusively born and bred in Long Beach.
Fingerprints Music Owner Rand Foster originally pioneered the tight in-store sets in Belmont Shore. He’s stayed loyal to locals for 21 years, two-and-a-half of those at the new, elbow-room-friendly location near downtown.
“It’s good for bands to do more intimate shows … The audience feels more of a connection,” five-year manager at Fingerprints Music, Chris Baker said.
The four horsemen have come to claim mega-corporations, reckoning the end of Tower Records stores in 2006 and drowning the final woes of Virgin Records stores in 2009, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
Heeding trends, Fingerprints Music currently stocks its future through vinyl revival and going live.
Often, your ticket to a show is your receipt.
“It’s more incentive for the band to play,” Baker said. “If it’s a promise that they’re going to sell product, they’ll come and do the show.”
This revelation has brought in rising locals like Crystal Antlers and Mayer Hawthorne, as well as veterans like Deltron 3030, Jimmy Eat World, and Foo Fighters.
“There’s a shortage of venues in general.” Baker explains, “So for a lot of big bands to come through Long Beach, there [are] really not a lot of places for them to come play.”
Sharing this strife is Daniel Speer, vice president of CSULB’s UMS. But instead of packing up the van, he suggests grabbing an axe and marching forward.
“Part of the reason I started the club is there’s people who are like ‘Ah! There’s no scene!’ and then they don’t do anything about it,” Speer said.
A San Diego native, Speer commented on the unwritten exclusivity of Long Beach’s scene, its lack of all-ages venues, and how he’s more likely to drive 40 minutes to Pomona’s VHLS Warehouse venue for a Joyce Manor show than sift through the bar scene here. Speer said this is exactly what UMS’s weekly Thursday meetings are trying to prevent.
“I try not to worry about it,” Speer said. “There are people here that are interested and if you can get people together you can get some type of voice together.”
Speer recalls CSULB’s glory days when welcoming Dinosaur Jr. in ’89 and, more recently, Lupe Fiasco wasn’t out of the question. To put it quite blatantly, our campus has the potential to become a driving force in reviving the local scene.
“We’re here to build something,” he said. “We’re here to build a community.”