Early in my career, I was banned from playing at Rockwood Music Hall. My sins? First, in a woefully miscalculated attempt to sell merch, I’d sung an ad hoc novelty song called “Buy My Fucking CD,” which somehow did not endear me to the mild-mannered, slender teddy bear of an owner, Ken Rockwood, who was running sound that night, as he often did in the early days of the club. Then, I canceled a gig (or possibly two?) on just a few hours notice; I’d lost my voice doing a weird Hell House reenactment at St. Ann’s Warehouse—a story for another day. Whatever. The details are fuzzy. When I learned that I was no longer welcome to play at the venue, I tried to brush it off. But after a time, I realized what a singular treasure the place was, and groveled to Ken, begging him to give me a second chance. Mercifully, he did.
Now, Rockwood Music Hall is fighting for its life. Last week, Ken, with the help of Sara Bareilles—one among dozens of now prominent artists who got their start at the club—launched a campaign to save the venue. Like so many independently owned venues around the country, Rockwood has struggled to find its footing in a new post-pandemic reality. People are going out less, and drinking less when they do. No-show rates among audience members have leveled off at around 10%, considerably higher than in pre-pandemic days. Bands are also cancelling shows more often, whether for financial reasons or due to illness.
But what’s really killing these cultural landmarks is the same thing that’s killing small businesses throughout the economy: a perversion of free-market capitalism in which government thumbs the scale in favor of hulking conglomerates, which swallow or otherwise undermine competition. See, for example: Live Nation/Ticketmaster, whose vertical integration means that venues, ticketing, and promotion are all handled by a single entity. Today, Live Nation controls roughly 70% of the live music business and is sitting on massive capital reserves, which enable it to spend lavishly on targeted advertising, steering music fans away from niche artists at listening rooms, and toward larger, better known acts.1
Then there’s the contraction of the music journalism space, which, constrained by a click-based revenue model, tends these days to cover what’s already popular. Where poptimism began as a welcome corrective to a preponderance of sexism and racism in music criticism, it now largely reinforces the one-percent-ification of the music business, creating a feedback loop of popularity. This makes it ever more difficult for emerging acts to gain visibility. And that’s not to speak of what’s happening with streaming services like Spotify, which have adopted Payola-style models that require upfront payments or lower royalty rates to improve the chances of an artist’s music being heard. These are financial investments that the three major labels—each of which is a significant Spotify shareholder—can afford to make. Thus, algorithms, like music criticism, are pointing people toward the same set of already successful artists, resulting in lack of attention for everyone else.
It’s not hyperbole to say that if Rockwood Music Hall shuts down, it would be a tragedy for the ecosystem of music in New York City and beyond. So let me take a moment to tell you a bit about what it is I love so much about the place, and why I think it’s worth saving.
The second chapter of my life at the club—after that relatively brief ban—stretched over a dozen years. In that time, Rockwood expanded from its original sixty-five-person-capacity postage stamp of a venue to a three-ring circus, with two more stages: one next door that could squeeze just about 175 bodies, and another in the basement on the Orchard St. side of the building, a seated sixty-capacity room. These spaces were unified by the presence of dark wood, velvet accents, great sound, and a general sheen of warmth which I like to think emanated from Ken, himself.
At Rockwood Music Hall, anything could happen. There was the time that Jeremy Denk sat in to accompany me in some Schumann songs.
Other nights, Chris Thile appeared with his mandolin, sending jaws to the floor with torrents of effortlessly shaded sixteenth notes played at such speed as to be illegal even in Texas. And then there was the time when Caroline Shaw stopped by to play on a few songs and my guitar strap broke; I ended up singing an entire tune in tree pose, using a thigh to prop up my axe.
But what made Rockwood special wasn’t just that luminaries graced its stages. It was—it is!—a place that fostered a community encompassing all walks of musical life, bringing disparate sonic languages and levels of experience into the same physical space. On the O.G. Stage One, you saw fresh-faced kids playing their first ever forty-five minute set, maybe fumbling a chord progression here or there, but thrilled nonetheless to be playing a gig in New York City. Next door, on Stage Two, the contemporary music ensemble yMusic might be workshopping pieces by Andrew Norman or Missy Mazzoli while eager listeners nursed glasses of beer and whiskey. The distinction between artists and audience was often blurred; everyone showed up for each other, guided by an “all boats rise” philosophy shared by all who crossed from the bustle of Allen St. into that warm sanctum of sound.
A memory: it is September of 2021, and I’m playing my first show in New York since my family’s abrupt decampment to Portland in March of 2020. Sitting in the dressing room, I register the accumulation of voices next door. Something like gleeful anticipation dances in my chest. But there’s a sadness, too, around the edges of my excitement: I’m not a local anymore. This is, for the first time, an away game. Silence that nostalgia, at least for the next ninety minutes. I part the black curtain that separates backstage from the bar and performance area. Here are one hundred-and-fifty strangers, drinks in hand, their faces pink under the stage lights that spill onto the floor.
Between me and the piano, there’s a thicket of monitors, cables, and mic stands. I take pleasure in navigating this obstacle course while the house music thrums, a pedal tone against the din of conversation, the clinking of glasses, the intermittent eruption of laughter. Seated behind the old Steinway, I settle into the intro of my first song: a baroque chord progression masquerading as a slow country waltz, inner voices lazily chasing one another. The chatter dies down, leaving only the drone of the ice machine and the odd metallic riff of a cocktail shaker, sounds I’ve grown to love. I look out into the expectant faces of the crowd and am filled with something approaching contentment. I am, if only briefly, home.
Live Nation is currently under investigation by the Justice Department. We’ll see what happens.
I can think of countless thrilling nights of music across all three stages at Rockwood. And as to the “distinction between artists and audience was often blurred,” that is certainly true. I was only ever an audience member, but for a while it seemed like at three out of every four shows I went to at Stage 2, Sarah Jarosz would also be there, guitar case in hand, not to perform, but just to listen, as enthusiastic as the rest of us.