nyc indie explosion

New York City has always been a hot spot for music. Even after the closing of legendary music mecca CBGBs, New York City is still the home to dozens of popular venues from Madison Square Garden to small, hole-in-the-wall bars, and hundreds of bands from every genre. The City is one of those places, like Seattle or Detroit or D.C. which has just the right recipe for breeding musical talent: venues, endless inspiration from the masses of people, relatively cheap housing, and seemingly unlimited day jobs. Even the mild-mannered receptionist at the Trump Tower may be a rock demigod once the street-lights flicker on.

Two bands that are fighting to assert their dominance in the city that never sleeps are Brooklyn-based noisemakers Man in Gray and Pennsylvania transplanted electronic-psychtrance duo Radioactive Sandwich.

Man in Gray released their first full length album, I Can’t Sleep Unless I Hear You Breathing, this June on Serious Business Records. Called by The New York Press as a “band that spans the space between rock and pop with grace.” MiG writes “songs about mass transit, so let’s give credit where it’s due: we owe the MTA some royalties,” says the drummer, JLM. Other inspirations for the band’s cacophonous songs are “definitely NYC, relationships and observance of other people’s misery,” says vocalist Tina DaCosta. “I’ve learned that it is tough to write a good song when you’re happy.”

The band has recently completed a mini-tour across the United States, sharing their music with people not lucky enough to have access to New York City venues. DaCosta, who has been likened to Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, is the intense front-woman of MiG. “I just try to give out as much energy as the music deserves and hope to get it across to the audience,” she says.. JLM adds, “We [also] win them over by plying them with booze. And blood. We’ve been known to bleed on stage. People like that for some reason—people you wouldn’t expect.”

“I let them see my…innermost soul,” bassist Jared Friedman says about his stage presence. “By ‘innermost soul,’ [he] means his underwear,” guitarist Bryan Bruchman quips.

As a band headquartered in NYC, MiG has been able to make a lot of connections with fellow indie bands including Gold Streets, The Unsacred Hearts, Lariats, Screaming Females, the Muggabears, and Alina Simone. “I doubt we could [have found as many bands to be friends with] anywhere else [than New York City]. Of course, having so many bands in such a small place can make it hard to find your place and an audience.” Bruchman also notes that the music industry has been paying more attention to the New York music scene over the past few years. “It can be frustrating just trying to keep up with so much going on, but at the same time it’s very rewarding and exciting. We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else—besides, all our songs about the subway wouldn’t make much sense if we lived in, say, Kearney, NE.”

Radioactive Sandwich, which is comprised of Slices One and Two, has recently moved to the city from the Philadelphia area: “So far [being in NYC has] been good. We’re really still getting our bearings and networking with people… it takes forever since everyone has their own thing going on.”

The band currently has three self-released albums out, including their most recent full-length release, Spices, a follow-up of to the electronic-psychtrance dance songs on their 2006 releases, Soup…, and The Earls of Sandwich. The band does not tour much, but, according to Slice Two, they “do better on the interweb at the moment,” since they are still finding their niche. “The CD isn’t in stores, so you basically get it straight from us or on the web,” says Slice One. “One of my plans is to hopefully get a street merchandise permit so we can go to Times Square and sell our CD’s on the street to unsuspecting tourists who will buy anything just because it’s on the streets of New York City.” The band has also been getting club and radio play of their remix of popera artist Kelly Sweet’s song ‘We Are One.’

Unlike MiG, Radioactive Sandwich does not feel as positively toward the NYC music scene: “[There aren’t] as many [opportunities] as you think. Yeah, there’re tons of venues and bands, but that’s the problem. There’s so much out there saturating the market that it’s tough to get anyone to give you the time of day,” says Slice Two. “New York is definitely the hub of music, but it’s hard for electronic acts even here...most people want rock bands for venues,” Slice One adds. While Radioactive Sandwich doesn’t have as extensive a list of NYC friends as MiG does, they do spend a lot of time writing new material. As Slice Two says, “there’s always new Sandwich.”

The future of these bands, like so many others, probably lies in “gas stations and seedy motels,” as so beautifully phrased by MiG’s Jared Friedman. While New York City does house many opportunities for musicians, there comes a time in all bands’ lives when they need to expand or die, and hopefully Man In Gray and Radioactive Sandwich will be able to break out of the city before they find it impossible to escape.

You can find out more about both of these bands and purchase their music at their MySpace pages (www.myspace.com/maningray and www.myspace.com/radioactivesandwich) or their individual band sites (www.maningray.com and www.radioactivesandwich.com).

-nicole dietsche '09