Reviving the Roxy: Can the Strip Follow?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/06adler.html
By TRICIA ROMANO
Published: December 4, 2009
LOS ANGELES
THE stage at the Roxy Theater was a blur of tattoos, platinum hair
and black leather pants. Two rock stars, Dave Navarro of Jane's
Addiction and Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses, watched the show from the
V.I.P. section. Devil horns the international symbol of rocking out
were thrown triumphantly in the air.
The band on stage was an all-grrl cover group, the Chelsea Girls, who
marched through songs by Mötley Crüe, the Cult and Quiet Riot, groups
that played the Roxy during glam metal's glory days. Welcome to the
jungle, the 2009 edition.
At least one person got the irony: a D.J., Riki Rachtman, the former
host of "Headbangers Ball" on MTV, wore a shirt that read: "Has Been."
The Sunset Strip long considered a seedy tourist trap is in need
of a makeover, and the Roxy, an anchor of the Strip, is trying to
lead the charge. Rather than becoming a West Coast version of CBGB,
the ossified punk club in the Bowery that closed in 2006, the Roxy is
booking marquee acts and marketing them on Twitter.
"Having the Roxy be around another 30 years is important to me," said
Nic Adler, 36, who operates the club, and now owns it with his
father. "I was handed a legend, and I am expected to continue that legacy."
His father is Lou Adler, who helped produce "The Rocky Horror Picture
Show" (which had its American stage premiere at the Roxy) and the
Monterey Pop Festival, and managed acts like Cheech and Chong. Lou
Adler opened the Roxy in 1973 with partners who included David
Geffen, and the club became the center of Hollywood rock 'n' roll.
Guns N' Roses had its start there, and John Belushi partied there
before he met his end.
Back in the day, "we were so successful and we had no competition to
worry about," Nic Adler said.
At various times, John Lennon was a regular, and the Hollywood Madam,
Heidi Fleiss, hosted parties there.
"And then," Mr. Adler continued, "Seattle grunge came in and that
shifted everything. It became uncool to wear latex. And instantly, we
had lost a whole scene just like that."
When Lou Adler ran the Roxy, he was infamous as a partying playboy.
He sired seven children with four women, including the model Britt
Ekland, who is Nic Adler's mother. Another son is Cisco Adler, the
swashbuckling, actress-dating musician from the band Shwayze.
But Nic Adler is the Alex P. Keaton of his rock'n'roll family, and a
club impresario for the Obama generation. A vegan just like his wife,
Alison, whom he married last year after six years of dating, he is
universally described as a nice guy. Sometimes he calls Roxy
employees to thank them for being "awesome."
While the Chelsea Girls played, Nic Adler was out in the Roxy's
parking lot filming for The Real Sunset Strip
(therealsunsetstrip.com), a live Web show. Two hosts, named Lauren
Scheff and the Hawk, interviewed passers-by; by night's end, the site
had gotten more than 30,000 views.
Harry Perry, the Los Angeles version of the Naked Cowboy,
roller-skated over in his turban and played his guitar. Another man
showed off autographs of famous people he had gotten tattooed on his
torso. "My dad's on his back," Nic Adler noted.
The fate of the Roxy weighs heavily on the younger Mr. Adler. He was
three months old on opening night when Neil Young played for Elvis
Presley, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper and Elton John. He hung out after
school in the Roxy's office and played in the kitchen when bands like
Oingo Boingo and Jane's Addiction were sound-checking. He met his
wife at the club (she was a bartender).
"That's our Strip, you know?" Cisco Adler said in an interview. "It
defines us as a Los Angeles family."
The extended Adler family is a who's who of Hollywood, and includes
Daryl Hannah, Peter Sellers and Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats.
Jack Nicholson is Nic Adler's godfather.
But Nic Adler veered toward a more traditional life. After watching
his teenage sisters rebel, he volunteered to go to Colorado Rocky
Mountain School in Carbondale, Colo., a boarding school with 155 students.
"I'm surprised that both of my boys have gone into this," Lou Adler
said. "Nicholai had never made me aware that this was a career he was
going to seek. So I think he was like a sponge, and anything that
went on around him, he just sucked in. It's not like we sat down and
discussed the entertainment business."
In his early 20s, Nic Adler began running the Roxy, but not in any
hard-charging way. "I don't know who was driving," he said. "I was
near the front of the bus, but nobody was really telling the Roxy
where to go."
His wake-up call came three years ago, when Tower Records closed on
the Strip after 36 years.
"It was his kind of come-to-Jesus moment, where it was like, 'If
don't do something fast and drastic at the Roxy, I'm next,' " said
Kyra Reed, a marketing consultant who helped him devise a digital
media strategy.
Reviving the Roxy was harder that it would appear. "We had built such
a perception on the Sunset Strip that we were so passé, so 'a certain
time,' there was so much work to do," Nic Adler said. "It wasn't
overnight. It wasn't going to be like, we're Twittering, so now we're cool."
For one thing, he had to contend with the hipper Silver Lake and Echo
Park music scenes, six miles east an eternity in Los Angeles traffic.
"I watched that community happen and I was very impressed by it," Mr.
Adler said. "At first I was very resentful and felt like, 'Oh no,
they don't know anything about music.' Then the bands left and
bloggers started to move there."
He responded by booking indie acts that would typically play venues
like Spaceland or Echoplex: Weezer, the hipster D.J. Steve Aoki and
Them Crooked Vultures, the all-star band with members from Led
Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age and the Foo Fighters. That show
sold out after it was announced on Twitter.
Mitchell Frank, who books and manages Spaceland and Echoplex, said.
"There are a lot of shows that are going to them that didn't two
years before."
The Roxy still looks the same as when it opened, but its cocky
attitude toward patrons is gone.
Before, Mr. Adler said, "We just felt like 'We're the Sunset Strip,
we're sitting up here on our hill. The phones are always going to
ring, the bands are always going to come here.' And that's not true.
That's like living in some dream world."
He broke his father's rules and allowed fans to photograph shows. He
started monitoring customer complaints on Twitter and leaving free
drinks for people under their Twitter handles.
Mr. Adler also became more involved with his community, attending
city council meetings and serving in the Sunset Strip Business Association.
"We all make the Sunset Strip," he said. "None of us alone would be
able to be here."
.
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