By Jemayel Khawaja FOR LA2DAY.COM 17 Jul 2008Music
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Many visitors to Los Angeles hold some sort of ideal regarding the Sunset Strip being the epitome of Hollywood culture. The Roxy is considered one of the marquee music venues in the area. The club has unquestionable pedigree; founded by a consortium of moguls including Lou Adler and David Geffen, it played host to Bruce Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Guns n’ Roses before any of them had made it big. Frank Zappa recorded a live album there, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson used to hang out at the bar above it, and John Belushi partied there hours before fatally overdosing. It played a huge part in the hair metal fad of the 1980’s, which is an accolade of questionable repute.
Perhaps that’s where things started to go wrong. On most nights these days, you’ll find high-schoolers on stage touting the latest fad on an entirely pay-to-play bill. Y’see, a lot of these sunset strip venues have a set-up where they charge a band an exorbitant amount to perform and then give them compensation tickets to sell, only mildly concerned as to whether or not the crowd is actually there or if the quality of performance is something to be proud of. It makes them a lot of money, but in my eyes, devalues them as a music venue. The Roxy is one of the biggest culprits of this scheme.
The bands that do come through on tour generally aren’t of the highest caliber. Smart labels know to skip The Roxy because the venue hasn’t shaken the aura of all-style-no-substance that it slapped upon itself in the coked out hair band eighties. Instead, major record labels send their latest fledgling pop-punk baby band to play there to test the waters of the teenage girl demographic and sometimes remnants of the nu-metal ‘phad’ shill their wares.
All in all, though, it’s not the worst place to go to see music. The sound set-up is respectable and the intimacy of the venue is pleasant. It’s just that if you want to see good music, this is not the place to go. If you want to pay too much for drinks and play the crapshoot of ‘will this place be packed with 14 year old girls watching that cute guy from bio class play in his band This December’s Dying Day or will it be full of aging bottle-blondes tucking their nipples back into their halter tops while swooning over some asshole in fishnets?,’ then go wait in line to get into The Roxy immediately. So yeah, I told you where not to go. For advice on good places to find one’s self, check back in next week.
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