Struggling Rockers Find a Home in Valley : Music: Bands used to aim for the hip streets of Hollywood, but many look elsewhere now.

The hard rock quartet Mystic Rose wasn’t getting anywhere in the music business as long as it stayed in Wyoming. That much its members were certain of, even if they already seemed like rock stars at home, where they could have continued indefinitely with small-time gigs at clubs, bars and high schools across the Northwest.

To fulfill its show biz dreams, Mystic Rose had to come to Los Angeles.

It’s a common scenario. Every week, uncountable numbers of singers, guitarists and other would-be rock stars pour into Southern California via bus, plane or something more like the two-car convoy that carried Mystic Rose for its own 1,300-mile trip. Their eyes and egos are most often aimed at the hip streets of Hollywood. But for a variety of reasons, many of these musicians choose to live and, increasingly, perform in the once-stigmatized San Fernando Valley.

For its part, Mystic Rose opted for an anonymous corner of the Valley over some of the lower-rent neighborhoods of Hollywood.

“We kind of wanted to stay away from Hollywood,” said Ken (Trick) Kilpatrick, 20, relaxing in the Van Nuys apartment he shares with band mate Dan Dombovey. “We thought it would be a lot safer to have our equipment out here.”

The unfurnished, second-floor apartment the two share is laid out like a free-form campground, with scattered pillows, sleeping bags, laundry and small stacks of music magazines. On the kitchen counter stand a dozen empty beer bottles, while assorted musical instruments and stage gear are stacked against undecorated walls. The apartment had been a haven from Hollywood, where the band has performed a handful of times since arriving in February. Yet even this part of town offered some distinctly urban surprises for any young son of Wyoming.

“I tell my mom some of the things that are happening just out in the parking lot, and it freaks her out a little bit,” said Dombovey, 19. “You hear a couple of gunshots every now and then. And it’s kind of crazy to see these little hookers everywhere. There ain’t none where we live.”

Cash-poor bands from out of state have always huddled in the cheaper areas of Culver City, Venice and Hollywood. In spite of the long-standing music studio industry in the Valley, the suburban areas north of the Hollywood Hills were long considered the most unhip section of Los Angeles in the minds of street-level musicians looking to Hollywood-bred acts like Guns ‘N Roses and Poison as role models. This attitude has had its price.

Susette Andres left New York for the West Coast five years ago to pursue careers in drumming and modeling. Before later escaping to North Hollywood, Andres said, she lived in the heart of Hollywood with a male roommate who turned out to be a drug dealer, ultimately stealing much of her equipment and maliciously allowing the utilities to be shut off.

“Most of the musicians I know live here in the Valley,” said Mica Sekino, 23, manager of an East Coast band called Bad Influence. “It’s cleaner, it’s nicer, and it’s cheaper for the most part. And it’s not that far. If you have a gig, it’s 10 minutes over the hill. Big deal.”

When members of the Poison Dollys arrived from Long Island two years ago, bassist Mef Manning chose a condominium in West Hollywood, near the fast crowds of Melrose Avenue. She now lives in Sherman Oaks. “The Valley was just more affordable,” said Manning, 25. “All our studios are out here, and all the musicians we work with are out here.”

A change in attitude about the Valley is in part the result of suddenly increased, and seemingly coincidental, hard rock activity at Valley clubs like FM Station, the Sasch and the Palomino in recent months.

The expanded popularity of these clubs owes much to the long-controversial “pay-to-play” requirements that continue on the Sunset Strip. The overwhelming crush of bands competing for high-exposure gigs there has grown so fierce that most groups are not paid directly for their performances. Instead, independent promoters at the Whiskey a Go Go, Gazzarri’s and the Roxy have musicians purchase several hundred dollars in tickets to sell on their own. The up-front cost to a band playing Sunset can exceed $1,000, a major cash outlay that is well beyond the means of many struggling bands.

The Country Club in Reseda is another venue often requiring ticket pre-sales. Most Valley clubs pay the bands that perform, with the amount depending on their billing or draw.

It wasn’t until recent months that groups fighting for position on Sunset would even consider performing at a club in North Hollywood or Studio City, said Andres, now the booking secretary at FM Station. “It wasn’t the in thing; it wasn’t as cool as Hollywood,” she said. “People would rather sell tickets and be in a cool place” than play in the Valley. “But now it’s totally changed.”

Andres, who is also the drummer for the Wyld Hearts, said that as pay-to-play requirements have become more unbearable, Valley venues that pay musicians are looking more attractive to West Hollywood’s headlining bands. The Wyld Hearts’ last show on the Strip cost the band $400 up front. Its members recouped the investment in ticket sales, but Andres said the group has no more plans of contributing to the pay-to-play system.

“When I first came out here, I paid to play a lot,” Andres said. “I ended up breaking even by selling my tickets, but it’s such a big hassle to ask your friends to buy a ticket for $8.”

At the Sasch, management has aggressively promoted the club as a first-class venue for rock ‘n’ roll. In April, the club dropped its format of mostly pop, Top 40 and R & B acts in favor of the hard rock popular on the Strip. Although some headlining groups were slow at first to play the Sasch, the Studio City club’s plush atmosphere, sound system and paychecks ultimately won them over.

“The majority of the scene is still in L. A.,” Sekino said. “But they make it so difficult there to have a good time. It’s expensive in Hollywood, there’s a lot of police and they don’t let you loiter on the streets and hand out flyers any more. And you can’t park unless you have a permit.

“You come out to the Valley and you don’t have to deal with all that.”

Most agree, however, that the Valley music scene is still not a major threat to the Strip, which will always retain the legacy of launching the careers of major rock acts like the Doors and, more recently, Guns ‘N Roses.

“It’s like a disappointment in a way, not that the Valley places are a bad way to go,” said Jason Lord of Jungle Showcases, an independent promoter of shows at various clubs. “It’s just a disappointment that happens when you’re not playing the Roxy or the Whiskey or Gazzarri’s. If you’ve played those, you’ve been somewhere.”

“I think the Valley’s still got a little bit of that stigma left,” Sekino added. “The ambience of Hollywood is still not there in the Valley. I don’t think it’s had enough time to really develop a glamour that the Hollywood scene has. I can see a trend moving toward that, though, because of places like the Sasch, the Palomino and especially FM Station.”

The Sasch has already won over a large regular audience, while occasionally attracting visits from such major rock stars as Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Idol.

“But I can’t see it getting to the point of hurting the Whiskey,” said Mark Yandle, manager of the Sasch. “There are so many groups and not many good clubs. So I see a lot of bands coming over here, but the following month, they’ll be back at the Roxy and then back here again.”

Even in regard to the Valley versus Hollywood, where a band plays and lives isn’t always by choice. The members of Mystic Rose supported themselves on a combination of odd jobs and careful savings back home in Sheridan, Wyo. Not all groups arriving in Los Angeles for the first time are so well prepared.

“I’ve known bands that have actually come here and lived out of a van, with all their gear,” Lord said. “Four or five guys are all cramped in a Dodge van or something ridiculous, and they actually live and eat and sleep out of it.”

As for the glamour of rock ‘n’ roller stardom on the streets of Los Angeles, Andres said it could just as easily be discovered at clubs like FM Station, the Palomino and the Sasch, where her Wyld Hearts will be performing July 26.

“The glamour comes from your audience,” Andres said. “The club is just a club, four walls and a stage. The glamour is the band and its audience.”