The boys were included in a feature on bands from the suburbs surrounding Manhattan this Sunday. Here’s an excerpt:
THURSTON MOORE isn’t prone to sentimentality, but there are times when what he calls “rightful romanticism” gets him in its grip.
Mostly this happens when he is discussing the backdrop of his career as a pioneering rock ’n’ roller: In the early ’80s, when he left his hometown, Bethel, Conn., to form the acclaimed alternative band Sonic Youth in Manhattan, he found himself in the center of a creative force field so fierce no suburb could contain it.
“The city in those days, especially the downtown scene, was wild territory,” said Mr. Moore, who recently released the solo album “Trees Outside the Academy” (on the independent label Ecstatic Peace!). “New York attracted this dynamic array of people — people from Jersey, people from Connecticut, people from all over who recognized this idea of a bohemian culture and were interested in creating their own experience. It was really kind of cool and beautiful.”
Some of that energy can still be found in Brooklyn, he said, but gone are the days when clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City defined the music scene. Rock acts hoping to bust out of the New York suburbs and onto the charts no longer need to conquer the city first.
Instead of converging in Manhattan to join forces, forge a scene and leave another storied club in their wake, they are making music in their own towns, on their own terms. The Internet has become an indispensable promotional tool and link to other musicians. Web sites like backpage.com, MySpace and TagWorld make scouting for producers or replacing rogue drummers as simple as sending out an e-bulletin; no flier-posting in sticky-floored nightspots necessary.
The new formula for launching a rock career has indirectly delivered a shot of cool to a number of suburbs. My Chemical Romance’s jittery sound comes directly out of Belleville, N.J. Taking Back Sunday’s string of gold-selling albums have issued straight from Amityville, on Long Island. And although John Mayer made a name for himself in Atlanta coffeehouses, he cut his musical teeth in his hometown, Fairfield, Conn., where copies of his first recording, an unnamed eight-song tape made when he had just finished high school, now sell for hundreds on eBay.
While some bands in the past may have been quick to disown their staid suburban roots, emerging from the land of picket fences and Little League fields is now more often a point of pride….
“In the city everybody has their guard up — no one admits when they like something, and that rubs me the wrong way,” Mr. St. Clark said between shows throughout the Midwest to promote the group’s CD “American Anthems Vol. 1” (City Desk Records), released in September. “In the suburbs, people come out to hear rock ’n’ roll. For the band in those smaller-city settings, it’s not about who’s cooler than who, or who can shoegaze best. It’s about playing music.”
Mr. St. Clark, 29, plays a regular gig with his three bandmates at Bar Majestic in Jersey City every other Thursday. When the Milwaukees do play city shows, he said, they are often better prepared than their urban counterparts. “We show up in a van,” he said, “and guys in New York don’t have a van, so they want to borrow all our equipment.”
Also, he said: “In Jersey City, we have our own space, the room where we write and where we became a good band. In the city, we’d be sharing a room with 20 other bands. They’d give us from like 11 to 11:30 on Wednesdays to practice, and that’s not going to work for us.”
If the suburbs are on their way to outshining the city in the race to produce rock greatness — if stability and humility are giving chicness and bohemianism a run for their money — certain regions may not have shucked off all their cool-squelching stereotypes just yet.
“One thing that’s great about being a band from New Jersey is there’s a toughness associated with it,” Mr. St. Clark said, reflecting on why he would never move to Manhattan. “When you tell an audience you’re from Jersey, people automatically assume your dad worked in a factory and drank six beers a night.”
Bands from Connecticut, he said, don’t have it quite so good. “Tell an audience you’re from Connecticut, and they’re still going to think your dad’s the president of Merrill Lynch.” —Tammy La Gorce, New York Times, 10/21/07
