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scott wrote:There are NO places like this in DC. Not even one that anybody could ever tell me about. I fricken hated it!

Bullshit.

There are tons and tons of shitty neighborhoods where one can get carjacked, have one's car broken into, and get indiscriminately towed in DC. Sometimes all at once.

Youd know that if you ever left that house in Arlington. Y'know, the one you practiced in the basement of.

That must have been terribly inconvenient.

endofanera wrote:

scott wrote:There are NO places like this in DC. Not even one that anybody could ever tell me about. I fricken hated it!

Bullshit.

There are tons and tons of shitty neighborhoods where one can get carjacked, have one's car broken into, and get indiscriminately towed in DC. Sometimes all at once.

haha! salut 9th Street! Your simultaneous Eithiopian cuisine and scary street mumblers are unmatched!

endofanera wrote:Bullshit.

There are tons and tons of shitty neighborhoods where one can get carjacked, have one's car broken into, and get indiscriminately towed in DC. Sometimes all at once.

Youd know that if you ever left that house in Arlington. Y'know, the one you practiced in the basement of.

That must have been terribly inconvenient.

Hey eoae... nice try at a cheap and incorrect sentiment, that I spent all my time in my basement and never went into the district!

Remember when I lived in the exact same neighborhood as you for two years? 'member?

If there are 24-hour-access band rehersal spaces where you rent a room from month to month and it's yours to use as you see fit, how come on every occasion when I asked about it, you and everyone else said there isn't a single joint like that in DC? That you need to get a house with a basement? Or rent one of those by-the-hour places?

Fuck yeah I loved that house with that basement. I got really lucky. I'd take that setup again in a heartbeat.

But we're talking about practice spaces. In Chicago. Not basements of houses shared between bandmates, which as you of course know is not an option for all adults, or kids for that matter.

The only places like this that anybody in DC was ever able to tell me about were places where you rent a room by the hour. Which is bullshit, and not worth doing unless you're looking to play once or twice. For a twice-or-three-times-a-week thing, it's ridiculous.

Chicago is so great when it comes to practice space options. It's better now than I remembered it being when I left. Is that joint on Lake street still there (was it called "Lake Street Lofts"?!?! Upstairs from a bakery supply store or something?), the one that's a little bit east of Damen? That one was good. Liked it fine.

And shit, Faiz! Sorry to hear about your bad experience at goofy-eyes-Mark's place. That place on Rockwell, she has so many problems! But I bet you were to make the great music while you were there!

The worst space I was ever in was a converted office space at Grand/Milwaukee/Halsted. Central heat/air with a thermostat in our room!! Astroturf floors! Like a dream come true! Wrong!!!

It was the worst space I ever played in. Too nice. Shit vibe. Dull. Lifeless.

Yeah, the mugging and towing is not good stuff. But the warped wood floors and the roof that drips on you and the disgusting bathrooms and the hallways that reek like grossness, these things all lend themselves toward more rockin rock, I think. A posh environment just doesn't have the right mood. A fair amount of dirt is good!!

scott wrote:And shit, Faiz! Sorry to hear about your bad experience at goofy-eyes-Mark's place. That place on Rockwell, she has so many problems! But I bet you were to make the great music while you were there!

Yeah, the mugging and towing is not good stuff. But the warped wood floors and the roof that drips on you and the disgusting bathrooms and the hallways that reek like grossness, these things all lend themselves toward more rockin rock, I think. A posh environment just doesn't have the right mood. A fair amount of dirt is good!!

I know. I still get sentimental about that shitbox. the grit there is good.

cursedby11... that's a super helpfull post.. many thanks to you.

we are all bike people.. so carjacking is of no concern
hell.. our bikes are hardly worth scrap price
aside from that.. rockwell and north is a walk away for me... and i know most the kids in the area... not much to be afraid of

This is related even though it wasn't directly asked about...

GET RENTER'S INSURANCE. I have a policy through State Farm, same as my auto, and I have a "rider" that covers all of my music gear. It costs next to nothing, and has come in handy two times so far in the roughly 8 years I've had it.

Something that I've not heard a lot about, but have heard some about, is people having their space broken into. If you have any serious $ amount of gear, get a policy.

I'm giving bad guys a good idea here if they haven't already had it, but... the standard multi-room practice space has rooms made only of framing + drywall. If you lean on a wall, it will often seem to buckle slightly. All you'd need to do is put your foot through it, and you're well on your way to making a hole that's big enough to fit through. Check the walls... lean into them a little... knock on them to see where the studs are... if the studs are far apart, which they always seem to be, it's really easy to make a hole big enough to walk through, into the room, to walk off with guitars and heads and whatnot.

I've never had that happen to me. But I've always been acutely aware of how easy it would be to pull off.

Get renter's insurance.

The deductible on my rider is $0. If any of my music shit gets stolen in a fashion that generates a police report, it's replaced free of charge. Same goes for if my amps or computers are destroyed by power surges! I'm not kidding! I had a computer killed by faulty line voltage, and it was replaced free of charge. And the power in rehersal spaces is usually alright, but maybe not the greatest.

Food for thought.

cursedby11 wrote:.

Ashland and 34th in the stockyards in the middle of a fuckin horror movie.
Steve (# unknown) 3 rooms available, 180$, 275$, 350$.

34th and Ashland is not the Stockyards. It is the location of a shopping center and Pepsi Corp trucking center. Curious what you meant by "middle of a fucking horror movie"??

kerble wrote:ah....My bandmate has a room at the ones on Carroll and Sacramento then. they are similar (keyless entry/cameras, etc.) I don't know what their elevator system is though.

Carroll and Sacramento doesn't have keyless entry; there are two entry doors (one followed by another on the loading dock / alley side ) and single doors at both ends of the Carroll Street side.

There are cameras on the exterior, as well as good motion-activated flood lights. There are workmen there during most days, and a security guy is there evenings until early mornings.

All the rooms have steel doors and the walls are soundboard layered over drywall on the inside of the rooms and soundboard sandwiched between two ( and occasionally three ) layers of drywall on the hallway side.

The soundproofing is far better than North and Rockwell or Superior St.; floors and ceilings are concrete, so it's mainly your adjacent neighbors who will bother you ( bass primarily ), as well as whoever you share your
heat ducts with.

The elevator is trickier than some freights and you are discouraged from exceeding 800 lbs on one trip. Biggest pain is that you have to load in onto a dock that is 4 feet above ground level and then roll your equipment to the elevator, 50 yards away.

George is a very decent landlord who will work with you if you have a problem.

I'm a satisfied tenant of that building for 2 1/2 years.

i am a big fan of the "wild world" guy on the first floor of carroll/sac... for 45 minutes his band plays sludgy rollinsy sort of stuff & he gurgles and shrieks... the only words seem to be "wild world" over and over. it's awesome.

hench wrote:i am a big fan of the "wild world" guy on the first floor of carroll/sac... for 45 minutes his band plays sludgy rollinsy sort of stuff & he gurgles and shrieks... the only words seem to be "wild world" over and over. it's awesome.

That's hilarious. I've heard that band, and yes, it is awesome. There is a band on floor three that I like better: the band sounds like Cop Shoot Cop sped up about 28%, and the vocalist sounds like Nick Cave sped up around 44%. They rule. I need to identify them.