The Club Scene Rocks Once Again

How cyclical is the L.A. rock scene?

On a recent evening, a VH1 crew was at the Dragonfly club in Hollywood taping bits for a “Where Are They Now?” featuring Taime (pronounced “tie me”) Down, former lead singer of Faster Pussycat, one of the key bands in the L.A. rock explosion that propelled acts from Motley Crue to Guns N’ Roses to global fame a decade ago.

On this night, however, the club was packed with fans and a gaggle of record company execs to see a hot new band, the Newlydeads. The leader of that group: none other than Taime Down, who has put his glam-goth act at the center of the popular Pretty Ugly Club he oversees at the Dragonfly every Wednesday.

“Clubs are starting to happen again, people are starting to get into going out and getting dressed up again,” says Down, 35, who spent the intervening years performing with such influential acts as industrial-rock collective Pigface and making a living as a graphic designer. “Everything’s starting to come around again.”

Indeed, other musicians, club talent bookers and record company scouts agree that from the Whisky and Roxy on the Sunset Strip to the Dragonfly in Hollywood to Al’s Bar downtown to the Glass House in Pomona, the L.A. clubs are rocking again--though they’re all hard-pressed to say why, or to identify any unifying characteristics of the scene.

And it’s hard to find any sense of community, at least the kind that marked such L.A. eras as the late ‘70s punk years or even the recent Orange County punk revival. Nor is there any aura of social upheaval creating a movement, a la ‘60s rock or ‘70s punk.

Still, a new crop of bands is starting to draw intensified public and record company interest, with the focus clearly on rock with a hard edge in the wake of such recent L.A.-based breakthroughs as Buckcherry and Orgy--which themselves came on the heels of multimillion-sellers Rage Against the Machine, Korn, the Offspring and No Doubt.

And if the record-label action isn’t exactly the feeding frenzy of the Guns N’ Roses ‘80s on the Strip or the Nirvana ‘90s in Seattle, it is getting heavier, with ears cocked especially to what is topping the charts.

“The majors are going crazy signing rock bands these days,” says Warner Bros. Records A&R; executive Matt Aberle. “And they all want the rock-rap hybrids, things like Limp Bizkit and Korn.”

Notes J.P., the booker at the Hollywood club the Opium Den, “The industry spent so long trying to kill rock ‘n’ roll, and now they’re spending every resource trying to bring it back.”

A wide variety of rock acts is thriving now, from the latest edge of L.A. punk (given a distinct cultural twist by Los Villains, which features the sons of two Los Lobos members) to the straight-ahead guitar-rock of Serum to the electronics-enhanced sound of the female-fronted Cleaner, in addition to the rising tide of Korn and Rage wannabes.

“If you look at who’s making money now, everyone is,” says J.P. “It’s not like a [coherent] scene, not like the ‘70s punk or the ‘60s hippie thing. It’s a big smorgasbord of likes and dislikes.”

Here are the bands getting the most attention in the L.A.-area clubs:

The BellRays: Based in Riverside, the quartet has been part of the L.A. club scene off and on for most of the ‘90s, but has been earning a solid buzz of late for its punk-related sound and do-it-yourself ethic. That attitude, though, has led the band, fronted by singer Lisa Kekaula and bassist Bob Vennum, to keep some distance from major labels. They don’t even like to put executives on guest lists for shows or to send them free CDs.

“The history is of the record industry strip-mining bands for everything they can get and ending up with control--and we’re not interested in playing into that,” Vennum says. “We want ownership of our own material. That’s the bottom line, and few record companies are willing to do licensing deals and such. They think that if they’re investing money, they should own it.”

Cleaner: When a recording by this band, featuring singer Sarah Meech, was played at a recent Radio & Records convention’s “jukebox jury” session, one person remarked that it sounded “like Tool fronted by [Garbage’s] Shirley Manson.” And though males are dominating the rock scene, this band was recently able to win over a Troubadour audience of young, aggressive guys out to see a couple of bands in the Korn mold.

The Newlydeads: “Taime Down has his club at Dragonfly and by 10 p.m. the place is packed,” says Mark Lord, talent booker for the soon-to-open club Vynyl. “There’s definitely a buzz about this band.”

Notes Jonathan Palmer, creative director at Bug Music publishing, “It’s very dark, but fun--fun-house goth, not downer goth. The band is building a huge following.”

Los Villains: In Los Lobos, L.A. rock already has a band featuring Louie Perez and David Hidalgo. Now it’s got another--but this is Louie Perez III and David Hidalgo Jr., plus the latter’s brother Vincent. The sons of the Lobos members take the music more in a punk direction, filtered through the East L.A. Latino heritage. Epitaph Records, where Bad Religion and the Offspring were launched to wider fame, is reportedly offering a deal, and talks have also been held with DreamWorks and the Internet-oriented Atomic Pop label.

Little Sister: A band fronted by five singing sisters doesn’t fit the standard picture of a hard-edged rock band--especially when the siblings are African American. But the Pacoima-raised Henry family has been drawing fans and A&R; interest on the local club circuit for its guitar-driven, funk-tinged rock. The big hurdle, says bassist Ray Williams (the husband of singer Andrea Henry), is that “labels seem unable to figure out how to market us, since we don’t do the R&B; thing.”

Serum: These transplants from Canada and Oklahoma are gaining attention for edgy rock with mainstream appeal. “They’re great,” says David Andreone, creative director at Warner Chappell publishing. “Almost reminds me of Blind Melon, and [singer Erwin Herceg] kind of looks and acts like Kurt Cobain and writes strong songs.”

Others gaining notice include Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (“A rock band with some vibey, psychedelic elements--very cool,” says Andreone), Professional Murder Music (which just made a deal with Interscope Records), Inland Empire band Alien Ant Farm (which just toured Europe opening for Sepultura), Livid (earning Deftones comparisons) and Bachelor Number One (an alternative-rock band that got a boost by having a song on the “American Pie” soundtrack).*