Best neighborhood in Los Angeles for musicians / music career. Koreatown / Hollywood / Echo Park / Long Beach. (rental)

[Edelrhoads]

I’m a 25 year old guy moving to L.A. with my girlfriend this September and I’d like to know what the best place to move is, based on rent prices (planning to spend up to 1.1k a month for rent), crime rate, jobs and lots of musicians willing to start a band with influences of Imagine Dragons, Coldplay, Muse, Foster The People, The Neighbourhood, etc.

I have heard of those 4 neighborhoods and they seem to have what I’m looking for. I have saved to pay up to 6 months in advance to someone who can reduce the lease from 1 year to 6 months as I don’t know if I will spend the whole year in that neighborhood. I’d also like to know how to discuss that with the landlord if you can help me with some information on that as well.

I know that most places require a credit check and I have no problem with that but I’m moving from Mexico City (legally, don’t worry, guys) and I don’t know if the landlord will accept my credit report from Mexico and if they can even have access to that.

Also, I was wondering, how difficult would be to get a job there? Unfortunately I’m not a professional yet, but I’ll have no problems working in anything. I worked in customer service for Scotiabank Canada during 3 years so, I have experience on that.

I really want to make it big in music as millions of people in L.A. but I have faith in this so, I’ll give it all I have to know how to get gigs and meet people in a new city for me. Hope I can find like-minded musicians who would like to pursue the same dream and I would really appreciate if you can help me guys with some information. Thank you!

[socal88]

Echo Park and Silver Lake have been the major musician hubs as of the last several years at least. However, rents have been going up in those areas so if you want to find a decent place for 1.1K/month, you'll very likely need to find a roommate. But Hollywood and Koreatown are doable as well. I'd cross Long Beach off the list.

As far as work, I'm pretty sure you can find a customer service bank job relatively easily if you want something similar to your previous job.

[SpaceMonkyPunks]

Your rental budget is too low for all of those areas (except maybe Long Beach? not sure) unless you get a roommate, but you're still going to be really cash strapped either way.

Tbh I kind of don't get how moving here would significantly help improve odds of making it as a musician? It seems like most new bands get big b/c of the internet, not a physical location. I'm not super knowledgeable about that tho so ...best of luck I guess.

[ryanms3030]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkyPunks

Your rental budget is too low for all of those areas (except maybe Long Beach? not sure) unless you get a roommate, but you're still going to be really cash strapped either way.

Tbh I kind of don't get how moving here would significantly help improve odds of making it as a musician? It seems like most new bands get big b/c of the internet, not a physical location. I'm not super knowledgeable about that tho so ...best of luck I guess.

+1

Bands and musicians get "record" deals without ever playing a show these days. If you are making really great music and putting it up on Youtube you have a better chance of being discovered then you playing places like The Echo these days. Maybe you play a show in LA with a few A&R people in the crowd but you get hundreds of thousands or millions of views on youtube and those same A&R guys who were not impressed seeing you live will be flying to Mexico City to meet you

But if you really want to move someplace where you can network with other musicians, form bands and play live just go to Austin. It's much cheaper and there are so many musicians and venues you can be out playing 7 days a week

[Joe Van Fossen]

Getting hundreds of thousands or millions of youtube views is just about as likely as getting a record deal from playing shows in LA, i.e. not very likely. Moving to LA to become successful in music is probably not a great idea. You're probably better off in Austin or Nashville these days. Honestly, a band doing that kind of music coming out of Mexico City is more interesting to me than one coming out of anywhere in the US. The market here is so oversaturated with bands it will be hard to stand out from the thousands of other aspiring rock stars.