The Rock Block
Natalie Spears
On the corner of Stanton and Attorney, a deep thumping sound vibrates through the street. The sun has already fallen behind the southwestern Manhattan skyline and a coolness sets in as passerby approach from Clinton Street — a tall woman with baggy jeans and a lime green beanie, a mother corralling her two tiny children, and a twenty-something man in a brown trench coat carrying a large guitar bag on his shoulder. The women pay no attention to the loud sounds reverberating from the innocuous building as they walk past, but the man stops at the source to join two other men holding their own large instrument bags.
The three musicians stand around and chat outside on this early-November Friday evening, smoking cigarettes with another group of female musicians. They seem unfazed by the low-forties temperature that nighttime has brought on. When the base noise finally subsides, a man walks out of the building and gives one of the male musicians a casual handshake. This is Joe Tenny, a manager, DJ, and self-proclaimed musician babysitter at Rivington Music Rehearsal Studios.
“Alright, you’re up now, guys,” says Joe. “Studio 5.”
Like many small Lower East Side storefronts, Rivington Music Rehearsal Studios is unassuming and almost unidentifiable from the street when musicians aren’t coming and going, or amped instruments aren’t blasting from the studios. The building has chipped mirrored windows and a retro blue sign that does not look to have been replaced since the studios opened in 1988. In the middle of a weekday, with only a few musicians entering sporadically, one might think the studios are either closed or struggling to stay afloat. But during peak hours — six or seven at night on the weekends — a small downtown rock community overtakes the north street corner of Stanton and Attorney.
RMRS studios start at $12 an hour, so the business welcomes musicians from a wide range of skill level and fame. “We get a full spectrum of musicians here,” says Joe. “There are some people who walk in buying their first pair of drumsticks. Then the other week we had Green Day stop by to rehearse,” says Joe.
Joe works out of an office at the front of the building, where boxes of equipment are stacked in all four corners of the small room and dozens of band posters hang on the walls. On a quiet Monday morning, multiple small instruments and hardware pieces lay scattered around Joe’s desk — he is in the middle of setting up a new base drum.
Most of Joe’s duties are managerial, but he also spends time helping clients in the studios. “My favorite part of the job is working with the new musicians and giving them advice,” he says. “Even if it’s something as small as tightening the bolt on a high-hat, it’s fun to help them discover how to work an instrument.” It’s clear that Joe cares about the musicians who come into the studios, which is probably why about two thirds of the bands who book studios come in every week.
As he sits at his desk placing the final screw in the base drum, a young man walks into the studio. Joe glances up and gives the man a quick wave and smile. “You’re all set, dude.”
The unpretentious character of RMRS carries through inside the building. The modest studio rooms house state-of-the-art instruments and equipment for rehearsal but include little decoration and nondescript furniture. Since the space inside is small, musicians walking in usually head straight to their studios with the same casual demeaner they’d have walking into their own homes. The only flashy detail inside the building is the ‘wall of fame’, where hundreds of pictures of musicians hang in the hallway showcasing RMRS clients sitting on their bumper-stickered steps. The wall boasts a handful of notable bands and celebrities.
Some of RMRS’s regular clients have achieved the nearly impossible feat of fame and success as a musician. St. Vincent, for example, a popular artist who headlined the 2018 Coachella Festival. But most of the regulars fall in the more common circle of those struggling to break into a notoriously difficult industry. According to Joe, New York is an especially complicated town for up-and-coming musicians. “The New York music scene is like an onion; each time you think you’ve broken into it there’s a new layer that you have to navigate. That’s what makes it really tricky as a musician. You’ll have a great show one night and then a week later you’ll flop depending on the crowd.”
Joe is one of the lucky few who has made a career out of his love of music by managing RMRS. Most musicians in New York cannot make a living by just playing music, and they need day jobs. Blonde Otter, a frequent RMRS customer, continues to find success as a young rock band booking shows at popular venues like Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge. And yet each band member has a nine to five job in fields like data research and finance. Musicians can make money from performing, streaming royalties, and merch, but ultimately it is extremely difficult to have a consistent and sustainable salary in the industry.
Money does not drive most musicians to practice and perform in New York; passion does. The people walking into RMRS are mainly just looking for an outlet to do what they enjoy and connect with other people who have the same interest. “People come here to decompress. As long as they’re nice, we kind of have a no-questions-asked policy,” says Joe.
The community surrounding RMRS is apparent both inside and outside the building. Inside the not-so-sound-proofed building, musicians draw inspiration from other bands they hear playing next to them. “People come here to get better at their music and there’s cross-studio motivation,” says Joe. “People will run up to me and be like ‘Who’s in Studio 3, I want to play guitar like them!’” Outside of the building, the musicians who rehearse at RMRS have created their own authentic waiting room where they hang out and get to know one another before and after sessions.
At eight on the chilly November Friday night, about ten musicians now stand outside RMRS having finished their rehearsals, including the three-man band from earlier. In spite of the streetlamps and apartment lights, it’s a dark corner, and the musicians with their black instrument bags almost blend in with the night. “You sounded good in there, my man,” says an older man with a salt-and-pepper gray beard. He is looking at a tall, thin man with long hair about half his age.
“Thanks, dude, so did you. You all heading over to Donnybrook?” he asks the group and gestures toward Clinton Street. A few of the musicians nod. “I wasn’t planning on it, but I’ll join,” says one.
More than half of the group start walking toward the local bar one block west, with their large instrument bags slung on their backs. A vibration pulses through the street as another studio session starts, and the thumping begins again.
