There are no "garage bands" in New York City. Unlike some of their suburban counterparts, musicians here have to pay the piper for their practice spaces, which can be hard to find in a city where every no-frills square-foot costs something. In fact, to really be a "garage band" in New York, one may end up paying $225K a year.
The NY Times reports on where musicians city-wide are rehearsing these days, and how it's becoming more tedious to find a space. The bands you see filling up bills at local venues every week are generally paying between $10 to $50 an hour for their practice space, a figure The Times got from nycMusicSpaces.org...but even those figures seem on the low end.
“I would love to have a space just for my band,” said Kara Suzanne, a singer and a songwriter who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn. “It’s just too expensive.” She pays $60 a month for a four-times-a-month share in a rehearsal room near the Smith-Ninth Street stop on the F line in Brooklyn.
If a band doesn't want to lug their equipment back and forth, and rent out the space monthly (instead of hourly) it can cost upwards of $300/month.
In a study released today, NYC Performing Arts Spaces concluded (after surveying 300 musicians) that there is a lack of affordable rehearsal space (surprise, surprise). The Times also mentions they "concluded that unless the city arranged tax incentives similar to those it offers for film and television production, there would be fewer places for musicians to appear." They added there may be fewer performers as bands begin to move to less pricey places. Are Brooklyn bands becoming an endangered species?
Photo of a Brooklyn practice space via Razorbern's Flickr.
