Underground in the Bronx
Alex Bondarev, lead
singer and guitarist of A Moment’s Worth, likes to tease restless
crowds. And he can, because he’s famous—at least to the fans who swoon
for his music. They’ve got A Moment’s Worth’s name and lyrics tattooed
on their forearms, chests, legs and backs.
Last
August, about a month before the band’s fourth album was released,
Bondarev walked onstage, curtains closed, and performed "A Place Where
There Was…," the synth-laden first track off the new Start Where You Are. For
one minute and 28 seconds, he sang to the crowd, which applauded and
whistled politely until, suddenly, the curtains flew open.
Then
the mass, over 300 strong, went wild—cheering, jumping, screaming,
waving their tattooed arms in the air. The remaining four members of A
Moment’s Worth bounded forward and launched into the album’s title
track: a guitar-heavy punk jam about embracing the past instead of
trying to start over. The crowd sang along to every lyric. They knew all
the words (even though the album hadn’t officially been released yet),
having bombarded the band’s MySpace page to prepare for this particular
August night.
Sweaty,
raging fans stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pressing their torsos toward
the stage, hoping for the godly caress of the lead singer’s hand or,
even better, a stage dive. The scene looked like any other that was
probably happening at dozens of clubs in Manhattan that same Friday
night. Except this wasn’t Manhattan and this definitely wasn’t a club.
It’s a church basement in the Bronx.
In some ways, the Bronx is the forgotten borough. Unlike
Brooklyn or even Queens, a growing Bronx music scene doesn’t come up in
conversation amongst in-the-know New Yorkers. But that’s about to
change.
First,
let’s start with the borough’s musical history. In the 1970s, while the
Bronx was burning as a plague of arsons swept across the borough,
legends like Ace Frehley from KISS and Charlie Benante from Anthrax got
their start. Jimi Hendrix-wannabes flooded local clubs like the Hunts
Point Palace in the South Bronx and Colgate Gardens near Soundview. The
rock was influenced by disco, and both were influenced by salsa and
Latin rhythms from the immigrants who had begun arriving.
The
Bronx is best known for one kind of music, though: as the birthplace of
hip-hop-spawning rap legends Flavor Flav, Grandmaster Flash and Fat
Joe. When locally grown hip-hop fizzled, however, the rock music that
had always been at the heart of Bronx music began to grow. In the last
10 years, it’s become a full-fledged scene with hundreds of fans—and
it’s poised to take over Manhattan and the music industry as a whole.
It’s
6 p.m. on a Friday night and hundreds of teenagers and twentysomethings
line up outside of the First Lutheran Church of Throgs Neck. Flanked by
the quiet and residential Baisley Avenue and the busy Throgs Neck
Expressway, the eager hordes wait patiently for the white wooden doors
to open and their Friday night to begin.
Music
fans from all over the Bronx (and even a few from Manhattan) flock to
the church, which they lovingly refer to as "FLC," for some music,
dancing and a place to see their friends. A girl sees Drew Torres, a
local singer/songwriter, unloading his guitar from the trunk of his
car, so she grabs her friend, points and screams: "Oh my God! That’s
Drew Torres!" He smiles and nods toward her, unfazed by his celebrity.
He’s had a decade to get used to it.
These
shows are booked, planned and promoted by a grassroots do-it-yourself
group called Bronx Underground, which was started by three music-loving
friends in 2000. Ever since its creation, Bronx Underground has been
capitalizing on the unheard and unnoticed rock fans and musicians in the
borough, creating a music scene that’s as vibrant as it is large.
In
the past 10 years, the average size of the shows has doubled from 150
attendees to over 300. The organization used to get a handful of bands
looking for gigs, and now they get hundreds of emails a month about
bookings, which has resulted in a long waitlist.
Bronx
Underground is the brainchild of Dave Rose, Anita Colby and Adam
Fachler—three people with deep roots in the Bronx, who bonded over their
love of music. Colby and Rose met when they were both 4 years old,
attending pre-school in the same church basement— back when it was
called Green Mountain—where Bronx Underground now holds its shows. Colby
and Rose stayed acquaintances until about 1998, when they reconnected
over their love of punk and ska. Colby met Fachler in band class at
Lehman High School, and Fachler met Rose at a gig where both their bands
were playing. The three began to run in the same music circle; all were
playing in rock or punk bands: Colby in What’s Your Problem Brian; Rose
in The Other Nobodies (because there was already a band called The
Nobodies); and Fachler in a variety of groups.
In
2000, they were growing frustrated at the horrible conditions they were
forced to play in. Promoters would fail to fill the clubs, bar owners
would take advantage of them by setting up faulty equipment, decreasing
stage time and failing to promote the shows. Manhattan clubs weren’t an
option because they weren’t 21. "The whole scene sucked," Rose, now 32,
says of the time. "We had gotten used to being mistreated by management
of venues, getting screwed or denied stage time in Manhattan."
In
September 2000, all three friends were playing the same show at the
Black Thorn in the Bronx to an almostempty room. Frustrated, Rose said a
bit jokingly, "Why don’t we do this ourselves?" Colby and Fachler took
him seriously and thought it was a great idea. They came up with the
name "Bronx Underground" that night. In fact, Rose had been booking his
own shows at the Bronx House in Pelham since he was 15. He held four or
five events there, each with between 50 and 100 people—not bad for a
kid. "I had some experience," Rose, a tall, blond, blue-eyed
encyclopedia of rock, says. "So we decided to just go for it."
Their
first show was held a month later. Colby, 31, a curly-haired brunette
with piercing brown eyes, booked space at the City Island Nautical
Museum, and the trio spent weeks hanging up flyers on every street
corner in Throgs Neck. "We really wanted to bring this music to
everyone," Colby says. "There was a need for a positive place for kids
to come hear music, but it was a leap of faith."
When
Rose, Colby and Fachler arrived at Nautical Museum that chilly October
evening a decade ago, there was already a line of 200 people waiting to
get in. The show, which featured A Moment’s Worth and six other bands,
was a huge success. Bronx Underground held three shows at City Island
until residents complained about the noise, so they searched for their
next venue. They held two shows at the Shannon Seaview, but attendance
decreased because it was hard to get to using public transportation
(only one city bus makes the trip up and down the peninsula under the
Throgs Neck Bridge).
They
then tried the Manhem Beach Club, which quickly became their favorite
venue, but the beachfront property had too many entrances and exits for
the upstarts to keep track, and people were sneaking in without paying
and bringing drugs and alcohol. Bronx Underground wandered around the
Bronx on the prowl for a new venue until, in 2005, it finally found FLC.
The church seemed like a good fit (it was also where Rose attended
weekly Boy Scout Troupe 182 meetings while growing up), and the church
has let Bronx Underground use the basement ever since.
The
first show at FLC was an album release party for the compilation album
they had recorded at Little Door Studios in Pelham with 15 bands, titled
Our Scene is Cooler Than Yours. Hundreds of people showed up,
more than they had ever had before. Due to file sharing, the album was
less successful, but that didn’t faze Rose. "The point was to get the
music out there, not to make money. It was really successful that way,"
Rose says in an excited baritone. "Everyone in the scene had it on their
iPods."
By 2006,
it was clear that the success of Bronx Underground wasn’t a fad within
the borough; rather, it was a scene that was quickly outgrowing the
guardianship of its founders. So they hired volunteers to work the doors
and act as "security" for the shows. As the scene grew, so did the
music, changing from in-your-face ska and garage rock to lyrically deep
and instrumentally experimental punk-prog rock. While the older bands
grew and matured into a distinct rock sound—often using synthesizers and
hip-hop beats behind heavy guitar solos—new bands arose who emulated
the old sound with a flair for the emotional "emo" lyrics that were
popular in mainstream hits. The music scene became "cutting-edge and
vibrant, waiting for the moment when it could explode from the confines
of the borough to influence music and new artists nationwide," Rose
remembers.
On Oct.
8, 2010, Bronx Underground celebrated its 10th birthday at FLC with an
array of bands and solo artists. An estimated 300 people paid the $9
cover to hear five hours of music in a church basement, including older
Bronx-based bands that got back together for the occasion. A Moment’s
Worth, Frantic Ian, The Kezners (a poppunk ska band that sounds like The
Beach Boys and the Ramones had mated and their spawn was obsessed with
The Kinks), Turns to Fall, Drew Torres, How I Became a Pirate and What’s
Your Problem Brian all played at least 30-minute sets, bringing the
eclectic crowd to its feet.
The
enthusiasm was overwhelming, with fans knocking people over to get
closer to the state. The members of A Moment’s Worth and My Arcadia, a
hard-rocking melodic punk band fronted by female singer Jacqui Sandell,
are local celebrities. Even if you have never heard of them.
Wearing a red, blue and
black-checkered dress with a big white flower in her long, curly brown
hair, Anita Colby doesn’t exactly look like a rock star. But when she
takes the stage to play saxophone in punk-ska band What’s Your Problem Brian?—a band that
reunited for Bronx Underground’s 10th birthday—Colby owns the stage,
putting her all into the performance and making the saxophone look
"incredibly badass," as a spectator describes it.
Aside
from performing at Bronx Underground shows, Colby is hard at work with
Rose and Fachler to ensure everything goes smoothly. Colby happily
accepts the $9 cover charge and puts wristbands on concertgoers while
working the door at FLC. She still gets a thrill out of overseeing the
scene that she helped cultivate. She smiles over at Rose, who gives her a
knowing nod back, meaning, "Can you believe this is still happening?"
As fans mill around outside FLC waiting for the show to start, it’s a
lot like a high school hallway before the homeroom bell. Girls wearing
skirts and UGG boots chat with boys in baggy pants and comic book
T-shirts. Rose’s job is to herd all the fans into the building as
quickly as possible—a group of loitering twentysomethings can sometimes
get noisy and disrupt the church’s neighbors.
"Line
up to go inside, guys!" Rose yells playfully in his maroon Bronx
Underground "Staff" T-shirt. Other workers help Rose get the kids safely
into the basement. All three founders have day jobs that keep them very
busy—Colby is in market research, 29-year-old Fachler works in sales
support within the music industry (Fachler and Colby also just got
married to one another this month) and Rose teaches music at Lehman High
School—so it’s nice that they can finally afford to hire parttime help.
James Beary, a 24-year-old black man with long braids and an
ever-present bandana, calls Bronx Underground the best job he’s ever
had. After Beary helps Rose round up the stragglers, he disappears down
the narrow staircase to the basement, where he has just as much fun as
the fans. Colby closes up her cash box and follows Beary into the
venue—the music has started, and it’s time to rock.
Marc
Makowski wasn’t sure what to expect when he showed up at the Bronx
Underground anniversary show last year. He heard about the show through
the borough grapevine and decided to check it out. He had his doubts,
but when he entered the FLC basement he liked what he saw (hundreds of
kids rocking out) and more importantly, he loved what he heard (A
Moment’s Worth and My Arcadia).
Makowski
has been an associate director at Sony music for over 15 years and he
truly believes that A Moment’s Worth is going to break out of the Bronx
and become successful in the American music scene. Makowski equates the
Bronx scene to England in the 1960s: "Just like the Beatles, one band is
going to break out and the rest will follow," he says with enormous
self-assurance. Makowski has been at the forefront of Bronx music for 50
years and says the new scene reminds him a lot of his youth.
The
scene gets him so worked up that he’s decided to channel this
excitement into his first-ever documentary. (He owns a film production
company based in Montreal, where he’s made the Slime City movie
series, which has a cult following.) He wants to chronicle what’s
special about the Bronx scene and show that the rockers in Williamsburg
are becoming more outdated than a lot of the mainstream acts his record
label represents (i.e. most of the 1990s boy bands). He wants to focus
the film on the sense of community in the scene and how the fans played
just as big a role as the talent did.
"The
fans have been with these bands for 10 years," Makowski says
breathlessly. He’s talking fast and is running on three hours of sleep
over the past three days. "They continue to be a core audience for these
bands because it reminds them of happier times. Look at that girl out
there," Makowski says, pointing to a young woman walking past the
Starbucks window. "Do you think she’s worrying about how to pay for
those boots she’s wearing? Probably not, because she’s young. That’s
what Bronx music does: It makes you remember happier times. It’s
nostalgia." And it’s a cycle, because in another 10 years, the
16-year-old fans who were 6 when these bands started playing together,
will also turn to this music to remember their youth.
Back at FLC, A Moment’s Worth is tearing through its new album, Start Where You Are, track
by track to fans who already know all the words, as do Colby, Rose and
Fachler. None of them seem to realize that they’ve started what Makowski
calls the "Bronx Renaissance."
"It
feels kind of awkward to claim that we started the movement, because
without the bands to build a scene around, there couldn’t have been a
movement," Rose says. "But, I really do feel that without the Bronx
Underground the scene would have never moved out of the funk that it was
in. I’d be happy taking 50 percent of the credit."
Fans
dance and continue to sing as A Moment’s Worth rolls right into their
next song, the ballad "Dedicate." The fans freak out. This is their
song. Bondarev looks overwhelmed at the response. It’s the first time
playing their Bronx anthem live.
The
bass player for The Kezners—wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Bronx, only
the strong survive"— whistles while Bondarev starts to sing. The Bronx
isn’t just becoming "cool," it is cool—and it’s cool because of the
music.
"Kids today
can’t remember when there wasn’t a great music scene in the Bronx, and
to me that’s funny because we didn’t have that growing up," Colby says
with a smile.
Then you’ve done your job? I
ask. "Yes," Colby says, looking around the dingy basement that’s alive
with stage lights and amplifiers. "We have, haven’t we?"