A Conversation with Luna Lounge Owner Rob Sacher
by Stephen Bailey
February 22, 2005 (with photos from February 26)

Prior to 1995 the building at 171 Ludlow Street was a warehouse filled with Chinese herbs. After that the spices came wafting in the form of quality indie-rock as the Luna Lounge became one of the best spaces for live music in NYC. Thanks to a very discriminating booking policy, and limiting the number of bands to just three or four a night, you could always depend on seeing a great show. Not to mention the fact that there was never a cover. Now they've become the latest victim as the real estate sharks of NY plan to rip down the building and swallow another piece of our culture.

I went there on Saturday 2/26 for a brief visit. I had been sick for a few days but really wanted to stop in for one last drink. The place was packed. So much so that I never got to the back room to see the bands. I had a couple of cocktails and snapped off a few pictures before succumbing to my lingering flu.

As I left and walked around that neighborhood, I was struck by the crowds, the lines and the vitality. I could remember back to when there was literally nothing here. And now, after all of this evolution we’re facing the threat of there being nothing again. Only this time it will be a different kind of nothing. One of wealth and sterility, tedium and high prices as developers ram bulldozers down the streets and put up characterless concrete boxes for the purpose of overly expensive places to sleep. Gone will be the edge that defined Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Now I have been known in the past to be in favor of development. For example the revitalization of Asbury Park. Why? Because there is very little there now and what was there that people tried to save was not working anymore. What I despise is destroying a place that is working, that is important and that does give to the community as is happening here thanks to simple, pure greed.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Luna Lounge co-owner Rob Sacher to get some insight on the situation and his plans for the future. I wanted to start out the conversation with happy thoughts. I figured this is an issue that has been very heavy on his back and a little levity would be a good way to break the ice. What happened was so weird that it almost felt like a set up. But hell, I could not have concocted something like this if I tried.

[sb] One of my best memories of the Luna has to be going to see the Negatones from Brooklyn. I always liked them. The house was always packed as they pumped out an energetic set.

[rs] Funny you should mention that band. They are one of the few bands that I have a real negative memory of. They really screwed us.

[sb] Really? What happened?

[rs] They went and posted hundreds of posters all over the city. We had asked them not to put them on telephone poles or anything like that but they did it anyway. We got like 50 tickets from the city costing us thousands of dollars. When I went to them they got a lawyer who gave us a bullshit answer like it was somehow our fault. I can’t even remember the reason it was so absurd.

[sb] Wow, now that makes for a great start to my article! Well I mentioned them for another reason. Going to see them brought out a feature of the bar that I always liked which was the way the two rooms were separated. When the back room got too crowded, I could sit up front and watch the band on a video screen while still being able to hear them. I’ve been in other split clubs where I’ve missed bands because there was no way to know they had started.

So OK then … a happy memory for you?

[rs] I have to say that this past Friday night (2/18) was one of the best nights we’ve ever had.

[sb] Really, who was playing?

[rs] Two wonderful new bands that are two of the best bands that have ever played at the Luna Lounge. One band is called Motel Creeps.

[sb] Oh I love those guys. I just saw them at Maxwell’s not too long ago. They’re fabulous.

[rs] They’re amazing. The guy’s voice is incredible, great vibe, nice guys, packed room.

[sb] It’s funny, whenever I’d see them hanging out in Hoboken they’d tell me to come see them play and I thought I had seen them before. For some reason I thought they were this really heavy band. I don’t know I guess before I really got to know their faces I must have gotten the names wrong on a night and mixed them up with someone else. Then when I did see them I was like, ‘who the hell is this?’ … haha.

[rs] That happens all the time. I did that with the Walkmen. Early on they did their very first show at Luna. Then years later when I was talking to someone about them I realized I was mixing them up with someone else. That is bound to happen with the like 10,000 bands I’ve seen play.

The other band from Friday was having a CD release party for an EP they put out by themselves. They’re called the Mugs. They’re really good. Sorta like Neutral Milk Hotel maybe the Smiths a little. It was such a great night and it felt great having a night like that so close to the end of our run here.

[sb] So with everything that is going on, are you optimistic that you’ll find a new home for Luna?

[rs] Oh I wouldn’t say optimistic. I’ve been trying to put a positive spin on it. But optimistic would be too positive. It’s extremely hard right now. I feel like we’re one of the last dinosaurs. We’re caught between a couple of things right now. The first thing is that all of the one-story buildings are being demolished and turned into apartment houses. No one wants to have a night club by the entrance of their building or underneath their bedroom. So that makes it really difficult.

The second problem is that the cost of real estate has gone up to the point where they may not be the ability for people to pay us enough income in order to keep the club profitable. I mean how much can people pay for a beer? In the next 2 or 3 years people will have to start paying $8.00 for a beer on the Lower East Side. I’m not talking about in the velvet-rope martini bars; I’m talking about a place like Luna Lounge.

[sb] Right, I noticed that in another way with Arlene Grocery where they started out as free admission and now their up to $7.00 to get in to see bands.

[rs] I think they do that because they also own Sin-é [which] can’t have a full liquor license because there is a church on the block. It’s one of those Pentecostal store front churches. So as soon as you take out the hard liquor, which accounts for a very large percentage of a bar’s profit, you’re screwed. And that guy that has the church is a real estate developer. So he just tore down a one-story building next to the church and is building an apartment house. Because he’s a church, he doesn’t have to pay any taxes on that new building. That’s a whole other story. I found this out when I was researching opening on that block. I’m thinking that this is one smart cookie.

[sb] Absolutely! Makes me wants to start a church.

[rs] Yeah I thought about too. The Church of the Luna Lounge. Haha

[sb] Another thing that I always liked about Luna is, unlike CBs or Arlene’s, you guys never had those marathon nights with 7 or 8 bands.

[rs] Right I’ve had nights with only 2 bands because someone canceled last minute and, instead of just filling the slot with some crappy band in the hopes of getting people in, I’d rather get money in the jukebox.

[sb] That gives you the chance to space the bands out. People don’t have to feel rushed. Plus it keeps the quality of music up too. So then are you optimistic about the original music scene in NY. In Hoboken they’re pretty much back down to one or two places. Do you see deterioration in the NYC scene?

[rs] I think people will go see a band they like in NY no matter what. What I have seen though in recent years is a bunch of inferior clubs opening. Places like Rothko and the Delancey. I’m not knocking the people that opened them; they just are forced to put themselves into places that are not the best to see bands. For example the Delancey has bands in the basement where the ceiling is only 8 feet. It’s like seeing a band in a rec room. Then at Rothko they have like 20 foot ceilings, but no sound-proofing so everything is bouncing around. To do the proper sound-proofing you’re talking about spending $30,000 to $40,000 in there. And they’re in a residential building so my feeling is that it’s only a matter of time before they get shut down soon due to noise violations.

Is that the best we can do? I won’t open a club that’s not as good as or better than what I had before. But you can’t find a really good spot. The building you need doesn’t exist anymore. Some of the new guys are just doing the best they can. So people will go see bands. It’s not like they won’t see a band at Delancey just because they’re playing Delancey.

[sb] Right, unless of course that same band is playing a better room the next week.

[rs] Yeah. And then there is Pianos. They have really good sound, but the room is about half the size of the back room at Luna. And they also do like 5 or 6 bands a night. Not limited to just new bands that only draw 30 – 40 people but to bands that can fill larger rooms. So to go see a popular band, you may not get in or you’re squeezed in there like a sardine. Then the guy comes with the bucket with the empty bottles and shit … ya know? In places like that it’s like every fuckin’ night is New Year’s Eve and I hate New Year’s Eve. But Pianos has decent sound. I think Sin-e actually has the best sound in the neighborhood.

[sb] Do you find that NYC is more centralized and people pretty much stick to their neighborhoods when they go to see bands?

[rs] No I’d say that about 80% of our business comes from outside of our neighborhood. It wasn’t like that when we opened back in 1995. Back then it was just the opposite.

[sb] Why do you think that is?

[rs] It’s because of gentrification. If you lived here in 1995 in your early 20s you could still afford an apartment. But after 1995, slowly at first then much more so by 2000, if you were just coming into the city, you could not afford a place on the Lower East Side. So the 25 to 30 year-olds in 1995 who stayed in the neighborhood could because they had rent control or they bought a co-op or they met a girl, got married and put down money on a studio. But by 1998 to 2000 if you were that age just coming into the city you went to Williamsburg. After that Williamsburg became too expensive so people moved to what they now call East Williamsburg which we know as Bushwick or Greenpoint.

So where about 80% of our business in 1995 came from the neighborhood, between 2000 and 2005 a lot of it comes from Williamsburg or Greenpoint and the rest from everywhere else in the world.

[sb] Do you think there is a neighborhood left in NY that can sustain a live music scene for more than a few years now?

[rs] There are potential places but no one’s gonna wanna go there. You could open up in Inwood. There are plenty of one-story buildings there that look wonderful. My wife used to live up there so we still go for the restaurants. I have a car so we can drive. But you might as well be in Boston at that point you’re so far up.

I could go neighborhood by neighborhood and tell you why a live music scene won’t work. I’ve done a ton of research on this. For example Tribeca is filled with too many snooty people who are not really into music. They’re more into status and fashion. In Soho they won’t even let you open a nightclub because they’re like Tribeca only 10 times worse.

I was seriously thinking of the West Village because it is so centrally located. But nobody wants to go there unless they’re from NJ or maybe the Upper West Side. I looked around at a few places but it’s just tourist hell and there’s no vibe there.

Then I thought about Chelsea. The prices weren’t too bad but there are a lot of really bad Euro-Techno dance clubs and nothing else. There’s not really a scene over there and it would be really hard to get 2 or 3 clubs together to start something.

[sb] It would be almost like you were starting from scratch again.

[rs] It would be worse because at least when I opened here there were a lot of cool people in the neighborhood. Over in Chelsea it’s a lot of families and gay couples that are only marginally into the indie-rock that we’re into.

[sb] Yeah that area is really not known for live music. Plus where you are now being so close to CBs, you have that sorta punk history.

[rs] And a lot of what keeps people coming down here is the history. But you know that CBs is closing too. His rent is going up to like $40,000 a month and by August he is supposed to be out. Fez is closing and Tonic is closing. Well tonic is trying to stay open; they’re trying to raise money to help pay their debts. They might do it too. Yoko Ono is going to do a show there with Sean Lennon. Of coursed she could just write a check but she’d rather perform. It’ll be like $50 a ticket with the proceeds going to the club so they may be able to stay there.

[sb] Do you have locations in mind for the new place?

[rs] I have a building that I’m very seriously interested in that’s owned by NYC. It’s on Essex Street and we’re hoping to be able to work something out with the city. It’s in a really good building but there’s a tenant in there now who is in bankruptcy and the city seems to really want him out. So if that happens we will approach the city and see if they’d be interested in having us take over the building because we think we could a good job there. Plus it’s only a few blocks away from where we are now. And we have tens of thousands of people that would come to shows there.

We have our fingers crossed but if it doesn’t work out our second choice is Williamsburg because they have a lot of one-story buildings around the first stop of the ‘L’ on Bedford. The problem there is a lot of developers are letting their places sit empty as the city decides on what the zoning should be. So if it is zoned as manufacturing, like it is now, you can’t have buildings higher than one or two stories. But if they re-zone as residential, you could build five or six stories making that property five or six times as valuable. So it’s all chaotic and they want to build an Olympic stadium over there for swimming.

[sb] Just use the East River for swimming.

[rs] Well they’re gonna use the East River for the boating events. I don’t think we’re gonna get the Olympics, but it’s still holding everything up because developers are waiting to see what they can build if we do get them.

[sb] I hope we don’t get the Olympics. No city has ever been able to turn profit off of the Olympics and yet the selling point is always ‘this will be good for the city’ or whatever.

[rs] Oh I agree and by 2012 they should have a dirty bomb ready to use so let Paris get the Olympics. haha …

Oh can you hang on a sec? We’re uploading music to our radio station. Are you familiar with our radio station (Radio Indie Pop)?

[sb] Oh sure. I’ve actually sent you my band’s last CD.

[rs] What’s the name of the band?

[sb] Ya-Ne-Zniyoo, the CD is called All Is Not Lost.

[rs] Did we play it? Was it for the radio station or for a gig?

[sb] I’m sure I sent you one for both, but to be honest my partner and I have had such a hard time keeping a band together that chances are if you called us for a gig it was probably at a time when we were like, “Oh sorry our drummer just quit again or the bass player just left” haha.

[rs] Well if we add it we’ll let you know. We’ve probably got 700 or 800 bands on there now.

[sb] One thing that kinda caught me by surprise, and I never really thought of this, was how many people thought of the Luna as a comedy club. What was it, just on Monday nights, right?

[rs] Yeah it was just one night a week. And the Post ran this whole story on us and hardly mentioned the music. They made the whole thing about comedy. I’ll tell you a quick story about the comedy. I was open maybe two weeks when these guys came into the club. I was in there cleaning up and they were like, “We love this room. We love the fact that there is a separate room and we’d love to do comedy in here.” I said no this is a rock club. I hate comedy and I’m not interested in standup. And they said, “No this is not old school stand-up, this is cutting edge. This is exactly right for the room. You’ll love it. You’ll see just give us one week.” So I said OK we can do it once and Chris Rock was one of the comedians that night. I was like wow these guys are heavyweights. This was not one of those you get seven minutes kinda things. We had real comedians coming in like Janeane Garofalo and John Stewart. They were just working out new material before taking it on the road. It turned out that the comedy, even just one night a week, was just as important artistically as the music.

[sb] I remember now that I used to think you were doing some open mic comedy thing just because you had nothing better for a Monday. Then I read these things recently like the Post article and I thought, “Son of a bitch look what I missed!”

[rs] Yeah you missed it. I never booked it though. We always had an outside promoter and they still do the show just at another place (The Zipper Theater).

[sb] So is February 28th the official closing date for the Luna?

[rs] Yes, but we haven’t heard from the landlord yet. That is when our lease is up. He hasn’t presented us with a notice to vacate the premises yet which he legally has to do. So I’m telling everyone February 28th but it’ll probably be a week to week thing for a little while after that at least.

[sb] Well it was a pleasure talking to you and I wish the best of luck for the future.

[rs] Thank you and take care.

Cheers,
Stephen

Related Links:
Luna Lounge
Motel Creeps
The Mugs
The Walkmen
Neutral Milk Hotel
Arlene's Grocery
Sin-é
CBGB/OMFUG
Tonic
Fez
Radio Indie Pop
Ya-Ne-Zniyoo
Comedy at The Zipper Theater

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I call myself a Cultural Exchange Advocate, which is just a fancy way of saying when
I find something new, I tell people about it. Want to know more? Check out StephenBailey.com