by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
During my tenure in this business, I’ve met countless musicians who told me they were fed up with Jacksonville’s lackluster live music scene, with only a few clubs presenting original music. They would say that they were moving to New York City or Los Angeles. Months later, I’d see them still here and still whining about Jax’s apathetic music community. However, some musicians actually did pluck up the courage to move to big cities and most of them did well.
Some months ago, I covered Chroma at Freebird Live, where drummer Alex Hayward told me they had decided to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania lock, stock, and barrel–the whole band. Well, they did it and found a row house in West Philly where they set up a studio in the basement. So when I heard they were coming back to town to play a few gigs, I called Alex to get an update of how things were going. If you want to move to the big city–listen up!
“The experience in Philly exceeded our wildest expectations. It’s been expensive but we found a row house in West Philly and since we can get anywhere on our bicycles we sold our cars, but kept our van and trailer. The first thing we noticed was the vast number of live music clubs within walking distance from one another. There are 15 colleges in downtown Philly so there is a big demand for live original music. Young people go out to listen to music, and they want to hear new material. We made friends with other musicians right away, and got plugged into the scene quickly. The city is alive with creative energy.”
“We booked some gigs the first week we were here at clubs similar to the Freebird. But there are many clubs set up like the Freebird in Philly. The standards are high, and we were respected for our original sound. We are getting by on gigs and we are all teaching individually. Also, we set up an ensemble school for musicians who are accomplished on their instrument but need to learn how to play in an ensemble. This has taken off really well. Some of us have the credentials to teach in one of the colleges, if we need to. We just played clubs called The Fire and World Café Live, which is associated with a radio station WXPN. It plays a variety of music. We also entered a battle of the bands and won the first round.”
“The biggest difference between Jax and Philly is the scene is much bigger in Philly with all original clubs. There are no cover bands playing in the downtown quadrant. So, since we are an original band, and always have been, that was nice to find out. We have started a new album just getting the songs recorded in our basement studio, and hoping to record the material in a professional studio. When we first arrived, we took some time to learn about the city–what areas of town to avoid and where the best deals on a places to live were located. Man, bring money. It was costly to secure the row house, but it was worth it. We ride our bikes everywhere. But there is plenty of public transportation in the winter. The one thing we miss the most is the beach and its laidback lifestyle. In contrast, Philly is a vibrant city of mostly young people with many musicians, artists, and other creative people living here. It will be great to get back to Jacksonville Beach. We play the Sun Dog Oct 5th and Ocean 60 Oct. 12th. We took a big chance and it worked out for us.” Alex said.
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