New JamSpot facility gives local musicians room to rehearse

If you want to be a rock 'n' roll star, first you have to find a place to play. But that's getting harder to do around Boston as rehearsal spaces close or become imperiled. It's difficult to fight gentrification, as landlords look to upgrade their properties rather than allow bands to bang away in their basements.

The Music Complex in Charlestown, one of the half-dozen core spots in the area, recently closed. And there are worries that the RFT Building in the Fenway may be next. It is a popular space with 30 rooms (Bleu, Quintaine Americana, and rubyhorse are some of the acts that rehearse there) and recording studios such as New Alliance and Woolly Mammoth.

"The owners are looking at some offers, so we know our days are numbered," says Alvan Long, who runs New Alliance and is the superintendent of the building. He hears that condos may be the future of the site but says, "We hope to be here for at least the next two years."

Still, he's worried about the overall picture. "The same way that artists are losing their spaces, musicians are losing their spaces, too," he says. "I think Boston is being ruined. They're going to have luxury condos but no culture for the people to go to."

Billy Beard, who books the Lizard Lounge and Toad and drums with several bands, says, "Finding a rehearsal space is usually based on finding cheap real estate, but how much of that is left in Boston?"

Beard, however, is doing something about the decline. He is part of an ownership group that on Monday will officially open JamSpot, billed as the first local rehearsal space to book bands by the hour rather than by the month, as well as offer fully equipped rooms with instruments (compared to the empty rooms in traditional sites). It's an idea that has caught on in the music centers of New York, Nashville, and Los Angeles.

"It's definitely a first for Boston," says drummer Dustin Hengst, of the band Damone. "I've rehearsed in a couple of Fenway spots and now have a space in the Sound Museum in Allston, but something like JamSpot could be a good move. It may be the logical next step for rehearsal spaces."

JamSpot, located in Somerville (111 South St.) near Cambridge's Inman Square, is a state-of-the-art, six-room site designed as an alternative to the "skanky old warehouse spaces" where bands typically practice, Beard says. He has embarked on this new venture with John Mazzone, a former IBM software engineer whose brother performs in several Boston bands, and Steve Folsom, a sound engineer who worked on the road with Melissa Etheridge for 15 years, with John Hiatt for six, and with Boston acts Face to Face and the Del Fuegos.

"We're looking for professional musicians, but also amateurs -- the weekend warriors who enjoy playing but don't want to deal with the hassle of traditional rehearsal spaces," says Mazzone. "And we hope to get young kids whose parents don't want them playing in their basements. The parents can drop the kids off, then go to the East Coast Grill for a couple of hours, then come back and pick them up."

It's a sensible idea, and the new owners have spent a small fortune to make it happen. They took over a former Verizon technical center and carved it into the six rooms. The largest has a recording studio that the owners hope will entice local radio stations to do live broadcasts from JamSpot. And each room is fully equipped with a drum kit, a bass amp, two guitar amps, a keyboard amp, a PA system, and a CD recorder that enables bands to immediately hear the music they've created. Musicians can also bring their own instruments.

The smaller 15-by-20-foot rooms will cost $30 an hour ($25 an hour if booked for at least four hours), and the larger, 25-by-25-foot soundstage room will cost $50 an hour. At traditional rehearsal rooms, a band usually shares a tiny space with another group and shares the overall cost, which runs $400 to $700 per month, says Hengst.

"A place like JamSpot may be better suited to musicians who are more into a casual thing and who don't have their own PA and thousands of dollars of equipment," says Hengst. "Then again, it might be a good place for bands to get started who don't have all of that."

JamSpot has received high marks from some musicians who have tried it out. "It sounds good in there," says Jabe Beyer, a local club headliner who just played there with mandolinist Sean Staples. "All the gear worked well, and the sound wasn't bouncing around."

"It's another piece of the overall puzzle of the rock scene," Beard says.

Still, he realizes JamSpot won't be for everyone. For example, if bands want to play four or five hours a night, the economics won't work for them, Mazzone says, noting that such groups would be better off in a traditional room booked monthly.

If all goes well, look for more JamSpots (the name is trademarked) to open in New England. The new owners recently approached the production staff at Clear Channel Entertainment about the possibility of national touring acts coming in to rehearse.

"There are always people looking to work out a special song for their Boston show, or maybe for their New York show the next day," says Folsom.