cene Crumbling?
The Outhouse, located on 15th Street four miles east of Massachusetts Street was once a nationally-known punk rock venue. Now it sits abandoned. It has been closed to live acts for more than three years.
but I think Lawrence was passed over by the national press."
Becker points to the major-label signing of local bands Stick and Paw as pivotal moments in the scene's evolution or devolution.
"When you have bands that got signed to major labels in this town, and they received absolutely no support from their labels, that's going to really discourage people in general," she said.
Stick was dropped from its contract with Arista Records after the label expected the band to be overnight stars, Becker said.
Paw, Lawrence's most recent rock casualty, recorded on major label A&M Records. Fortier said A&M hadn't given Paw adequate support, resulting in mediocre sales of its two LPs.
Mosiman pointed to the closing of popular venues, particularly the Outhouse, Benchwarmers and the original Hideaway, as reasons for the decline. At some point, the hoopla faded and the major label representatives disappeared from town. Insiders from the coasts agree the music business has little interest in Lawrence's scene.
Madina Salaty, an agent from Leave Home Booking, a medium-sized Los Angeles agency specializing in punk rock and representing bands such as NOFX, Rancid and the Offspring, said the industry buzz on Lawrence's scene has subsided.
"I think the excitement among inside industry, meaning New York and Los Angeles, especially at record companies may have faded somewhat because Lawrence was a hotbed for A&R people around the time Paw and Stick were signed," Salaty said.
Doug Richards, or "Skinny D," was the lead singer for Slackjaw, a band that epitomized the energy of the early '90s scene before breaking up in 1994. Richards said it was difficult for him and others "from the day" not to be disillusioned by today's local scene.
scene. "The corporate feeding frenzy that kicked off with the advent of Nirvana and the whole Seattle scene just really soured the whole pot," he said.
After Nirvana's Nevermind became as mainstream as Mariah Carey, and every grunge band was automatically cool, people began looking for the next big local scene.
Richards said. Some pointed to Chapel Hill, N.C. Some pointed to Champaign, Ill. Some pointed to Austin, Texas. Others pointed to Lawrence.
The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire,the center of Lawrence's music scene,doesn't sell out shows as often as it did three years ago, said Brett Mosiman, owner.
Being singled out may have been the worst thing for local bands, Richards said.
"That's partially what ruined it because that's what people started to focus on," he said. "It definitely changed the mentality."
Led by such bands as Stick, Paw, Kill Creek and Slackjaw, alternative music primed Lawrence for national attention. To their similar shared punk values, the bands added intelligent songwriting and heavy guitars. It all added up to the "Lawrence sound," Richards said.
The development of different genres played a major role in undermining the unity of Lawrence's scene. The "Lawrence sound" has been lost in a shuffle of other choices, Fortier said.
"It really boils down to all the different cliques and genres and subcultures that make a good part of the music scene," he said.
The Lawrence scene, according to Fortier, has split into distinct areas including rockabilly, punk rock, metal, folk, ska and hip hop.
Roger the Dodger, a disc jockey for KLZR. 105.9,a station that supports area bands, agrees the regional music scene has divided.
"There's a lot of different-sounding good people around here," Roger the Dodger said. "And I think that's probably one of the big problems happening right now if you perceive a decline. It's not so much the fact that nobody's made it yet; it's just that it's not one sound. It's a whole bunch of sounds."
Fortier said Lawrence may be sacrificing its home-grown talent in exchange for bringing big national acts to town.
"The growth of the national scene became so strong, and Lawrence became one of the 40 stops in America," he said. "I think a lot of people made a decision that they didn't want to go see some local band for three bucks because they were saving the 10 bucks it took to go see Anthrax."
Mosiman said the agents who sold shows to production companies such as Pipeline didn't help the local situation because bands coming into town commonly bring
two bands with them, taking away a viable slot for new local bands.
But Lawrence's music scene remains strong when compared to towns of its size, said Jeff Shibley, a staff writer for Pitch Weekly.
"We're incredibly lucky," Shibley said. "We're ahead of a lot of places per capita in the number of gigs we have, the amount of open-minded promoters, and we have so many talented musicians. I work with a lot of bands. Everyone wants to play in Lawrence."
For Lawrence's size, Becker thinks it probably is still the best scene in the country.
"A good scene takes a venue, a newspaper, a radio station and kids to support it," she said. "We've always had all those things going for us."
Although locals no longer talk about Lawrence being the next huge site for alternative music, the scene continues to be respected nationally. Lawrence still makes noise, even in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles booking agent Madina Salaty said, "I talk to people all over the country booking our bands. If I ever happen to mention Lawrence I get the same reaction. They always say 'Oh, I hear there's a great music scene there.' That happened to me as recently as yesterday. So it seems the rest of the country takes awhile to catch up with what the industry thinks.
"A lot of people still say Lawrence has a viable scene."
Kelly Corcoran, a disc jockey for KJHK, is optimistic and says he looks forward to seeing what direction the scene will go next.
"I think the scene's actually on the move up, and the last two or three years it's been pretty stagnant." Corcoran said. "There's some local bands who do have a lot of potential now, like Kill Creek. They just have to go out and take care of business."
Becker says a younger crowd could bring the scene back to where it once was.
"We're kind of hoping and waiting and keeping our fingers crossed that the kids living in Oliver and the little high schoolers in Johnson County are forming bands and want to come play Lawrence once they're good and ready to have a solid following. We just aren't seeing a lot of that right now."
September 12, 1996 The Hill
The City Scene
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