Teens Rock the Scene
Not just fans, young people are now playing in and promoting the band


By RACHEL BAHMAN
Plantation High

Youâre two steps away from sneaking backstage at a concert when a beefy security guard grabs your shoulder. The first thing out of your mouth is, ãIâm with the band!ä

The South Florida local music scene exemplifies a trend evident across the country: Teens are no longer with the band, they are the band.

ãIf music is serving its true form as art, as expression, itâs only natural that a community would form around it,ä said Underfoot Records representative Matt Preira, 16, who attends Miami Country Day School.    

Young people have turned their passion for music into a tangible reality of bands, promotion companies, online magazines, and record labels all under what is referred to as ãthe scene.ä

Local Story, one of many bands involved in the scene, consists of Francisco Decun, 19, Alex Pages, 22, and Nic Speck, 22. Pages and Decun have been playing music together since childhood. After the breakup of Speckâs former band, The Blinking Underdogs, he joined Pages and Decun, to complete Local Story in December. In addition to performing at local venues, Local Story will be touring the East and West coasts.

ãItâs the best thing Iâve ever done,ä Speck said. ãPlaying shows is intense before, during and after.ä

 Underfoot Records is intent on keeping the ardor behind music ablaze. An online magazine and record label, Underfoot acts as a resource for local shows and news as well as a production and release company. Underfoot was started as a platform for a compilation CD of local music entitled God Save the Scene and is run and managed by four people ages 16 to 22. It has yet to emerge as a profit-making business but still generates more than 8,000 hits a day.

ãWeâre all broke here at Underfoot, we donât have any money. We have no choice but to stay in it for the music,ä said Underfoot representative Corinne Rizzo, 16, who attends Plantation High. Underfoot scraped up the money for the recent release of the ska band Bum Ruckus' CD and is working on God Save the Scene 2.     

A key ingredient for drawing a fan base for any band is promotion.

ãA lot of people either ignore it altogether or think that promotion is some sort of a difficult magic trick,ä said Revolver band member Adolfo Dorta, 21.               

Alex Tchekmeia, 16, and Oscar Zabala, 16, run the promotion company Last Rising Star. They promote through fliers, the press, the Internet and word of mouth to draw crowds of 600 to 2,000 in Palm Beach.

Tchekmeia is also in a Palm Beach band, Five Cent Wish, with Matt Finan, 16, Iain Yeakle, 16, and Patrick Bradley, 16. Though the quartet attended kindergarten together, their music must now work around four different high schools. Their pop punk sound is influenced by the bands New Found Glory and Saves the Day. Their CD Actions Speak Louder than Apologies is now available.

However, not all bands follow a specific genre of music.

ãWe just play music. I wouldnât know how to begin to label it since it encompasses whatever we feel emotionally at the time we write it,ä Dorta said.

Miami band Revolver is made up of Dorta, Fernando Galvez, 20, and Renzo, 19. Revolverâs music tries to create sonic representations of the membersâ emotions, focusing on spontaneous expression.

Brought together by mutual friends, Kristopher Pabon, 19, Edward Adames, 18, Howard Johnston, 18, Humberto Castello, 18, and Jorge Rubiera, 18, are the essence of Pygmy, another prominent South Florida band. After the last of the band graduated from high school in June, they were unsure of which path to take. With college acceptances arriving in the mail, the teens were faced with holding onto their band or letting go, and moving on.       

Pygmy decided to continue on a musical path and has released Pygmy Performs, with influences ranging from Sade to Combat Wounded Veteran.

ãA lot of bands copy other bands that fall into a certain genre. You can say they steal from that band,ä Pabon said. ãI guess what we do is steal from a lot of bands.ä

Teens in the local music scene have to deal with more than just creating and promoting a band.

ãPeople think that what happened at Woodstock in 1999 is what happens at every show, which is a commercialization of concert culture,ä Preira said. ãIâve never been to a show where Iâve seen girls getting molested or people getting violently hurt. Thatâs a myth created by the media on the scene. When kids see these things on TV, they come to shows and think that thatâs the way itâs supposed to be.ä

Despite the negativity, teens have created their own subculture complete with style, behavior and language. But there is the belief among fans that any band that signs with a major label has sold out.

ãIâm pretty passionate about the purity of music, so on one hand I find the business end of it very distasteful and outright disgusting,ä Dorta said. ãBut at the same time people are very unforgiving about the fact that musicians are people that pay bills and need jobs. My singer has a wife and a new-born daughter, he needs to get signed.ä

When almost 200 people pack into a local venue on a Tuesday night, itâs a sign that the music community continues to flourish in South Florida.  Music is not confined to what is heard on the radio, seen on the TV, or on the top 10, musicians say.

ãYouâd be surprised how much music there is out there, just on the local level,ä Dorta said.

 ãThe scene is a lot bigger than most people imagine. Just like they have no idea we exist, we have no idea they do . . . unless we make an effort to look harder.ä