Live Music in LA? (Los Angeles, Long Beach: credit, weddings, buy)

[meyia]

Hi, I'm a musician moving to LA from Detroit (shocking, huh?). I play here in Michigan in bars and clubs all the time, and will be doing the same in LA eventually. This is something I've not been able to find anywhere though...to help with my decision of which area to move to, can anyone tell me whereabouts there's a concentration of live music? Downtown? Santa Monica? Everyone advises living close to where you work, and I know that I'll probably end up working all over the place, but any helpful info would be appreciated.

[f_m]

Originally Posted by meyia

Hi, I'm a musician moving to LA from Detroit (shocking, huh?). I play here in Michigan in bars and clubs all the time, and will be doing the same in LA eventually. This is something I've not been able to find anywhere though...to help with my decision of which area to move to, can anyone tell me whereabouts there's a concentration of live music? Downtown? Santa Monica? Everyone advises living close to where you work, and I know that I'll probably end up working all over the place, but any helpful info would be appreciated.

Look in the LA Weekly, they list for most of the live music clubs, etc... Most are along Sunset. Downtown is not really where people go except to work.
Los Angeles News, Events, Restaurants, Music

[uptown_urbanist]

f_m has good advice, although I think downtown has more going on than he or she is giving it credit for. Still, you may be best off living somewhere like Hollywood or West Hollywood where you'd be pretty centrally located. There are a lot of clubs and bars in both of those areas, too, but you'd still be far enough east that it would be easy enough to get downtown, to Los Feliz, Echo Park, etc.

[JohnG72]

You will wind up driving a lot. There are clubs and bars for live music everywhere...

Pasadena
Hollywood
Santa Monica
Long Beach
North Hollywood
All the South Bay cities

And a bunch of places literally everywhere.

[christian2009]

As I´m musician too, I´m quite interested in that topic.
What kind of bands perform at that bars and clubs? Rock, Pop, Funk, Jazz, Coverbands,...? Are there any preferences?

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

All sorts of music in all sorts of places. Your best bet is to check out the club listings in the LA Weekly and read the descriptions or look at the bands' MySpace pages.

Do you play in original bands or cover bands? 14 Below in Santa Monica (I think) and Paladino's in the valley have a lot of tribute bands. There might be other places in the burbs and beach cities but I don't really follow that scene unless it's a specific group with friends in the band.

Hollywood/West Hollywood has a lot of clubs. Once famous places like the Whisky and the Roxy now mostly stack the bills with crummy pay to play bands thus there is no serious music scene associated with them. Touring acts that used to play those places now prefer the Key Club and sometimes the Troubadour.

The more "alternative" bands, for lack of a better term, excluding "rap-metal" is often centered around the Echo Park/Silver Lake area but I don't really know how cliquish or insulated that scene is.

Punk touring bands, often with local openers are more likely to be found at the Knitting Factory or the Key Club.

But there are clubs all over, you really have to investigate yourself and familiarize yourself with the bands playing there in order to get an idea of what fits with the type of music you are playing or your own personal game plan. The rules above aren't written in stone, it's more of a generalization, there is a lot of crossover between genres and venues.

I go to about 100 shows a year at least 2/3rds being club shows.

[meyia]

Awesome, very helpful. I just now figured out how to get back to my original thread, 2 months later. Most of the music I play is music that pays me - not too interested in getting with original acts out there, unless they have some sort of financial backing or high-profile performances. I'll likely be seeking cover bands as well as function/corporate/wedding bands to start anyway as well as starting my own projects and jazz gigs.

What kind of music can be found on the Sunset Strip? Also, besides the tribute bands, do you feel like there are an abundance of cover bands playing around? Any info on where?

Thanks y'all for all the info - it's quite daunting trying to scope out a move to such a massive city from afar.

[Naomi Manischewitz]

i like sagebrush cantina in calabasas. not everyone's cup of tea though. its mainly cover bands. lots of cougars there too.

[SlowMotionApocalypse]

Originally Posted by meyia

What kind of music can be found on the Sunset Strip?

House Of Blues - 1,000 capacity; mostly larger touring bands of all types.

Viper Room 200-ish capacity - small touring bands & local bands. The last show I saw there was The Supersuckers in 2007.

Whisky A Go Go/Roxy - far past their prime, some touring bands, totally mismatched bills stacked with pay to play acts. Rarely ever set foot in these places any more.

Key Club - 400 capacity, smaller touring bands, they get acts that used to play the other places as they offer top notch amenities that the other clubs can't match. I go to a lot of metal shows there.

You will have to have a large following to play these places or buy advance tickets to sell to your friends, the good slots cost upwards of $1,000 and you can't really count on too much overflow from the other bands' draw - they will be outside smoking and hanging with their friends

There is very little free parking to be found.

Also, besides the tribute bands, do you feel like there are an abundance of cover bands playing around? Any info on where?

I don't pay much attention at all, I am sure they are out there, playing private events, weddings and such. But I doubt many can actually draw paying customers on their own merit. The only ones I ever notice are the tribute bands and I rarely check those out unless a friend is in the band or there is some sort of gimmick - Dread Zeppelin, Iron Maidens, AC/DShe etc.

Most musicians I know work day jobs and spend far more than they make, and many of these have several albums out, etc.

[jc76]

Steel Panther plays the Key Club every week I think. But all the times I have been in Hollywood there's always a bunch of crappy kid bands playing the Whiskey. You know, those kids who are destined to be big rock stars. Anyway, seems like Hollywood don't have as much going on as far as big acts lately aside from HOB and Key Club.
If your going to play in cover bands for cash and that's all you wanna do then your gonna end up playing all over L.A. not just in one concentrated area. Make sure you have a good reliable car.