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Business & Tech

Bedrock LA Lets Bands, Pinball Wizards Play

Bedrock LA is everything a musician could ask for: Rehearsal space, recording studio, instrument repair shop, de facto motel and pinball gallery.

Located on Allesandro Street, Bedrock LA is more than your typical practice space — easy for them to say, but it's true. While many practice spaces offer reasonable rates and decent equipment, Bedrock goes a step above by providing a place for musicians to exist.

Built on the location of the first major movie studios, Bedrock provides just about any service a musician could ask for. Its rehearsal studios have eight hourly practice rooms (the cheapest run $15 an hour) and numerous lockout spaces, where bands can store equipment and practice for a monthly rate, but it also offers recording capabilities ($200 a day) and gear rentals (Like Neil Young? Try shredding on the same amps he used.), as well as repairs.

"I think it's just a kind of place where we try to offer substance over style," says Johnny O'Donnell, a local musician who works at Bedrock. "We're just trying to be the place that offers some practicality."

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Artists like the Black Lips, the Submarines and Ferraby Lionheart have all at some point made Bedrock their rehearsal space du jour, but O'Donnell says it's not just for the indie rock brethren.

"We don't really have any pretenses and there's not really any specific type of musician we're catering towards," he says. "We have plenty of metal bands, jazz bands, hip-hop groups come through here all the time, old fogie country singers. We're not interested in becoming stigmatized to one part group, just because that's not really our attitude."

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Bedrock works as a consortium of small businesses with like-minded purposes, with the rehearsal space, repairs and recording studios all owned and operated by different people who work in tandem. For instance: I personally had my early '90s Mexican Fender Stratocaster cleaned, refitted with strings and had the tuning pegs replaced by Bedrock's in-house guitar guru, Gabriel Currie, who has his Reanimation Stringed Instrument Services at Bedrock, not only to make repairs for Bedrock's musicians in need, but also to create custom-made guitars from scratch. A walk through his warehouse reveals guitars in all stages of construction, not to mention vintage amps to test the things the way they were meant to be heard.

"What I try to do is basically take a vintage design and improve upon it," Currie says. "It's just kind of like a hotrod version of a vintage guitar."

The way Bedrock works speaks to the new face of Echo Park: Small businesses working with one another for the mutually beneficial cause of supporting a creative scene. Local favorites like The Echo, Two Boots Pizza and Origami Vinyl are friends of the space.

Additionally, Bedrock has 10 spaces nearby at which touring bands can stay, either separately or as a packaged deal with rehearsals or recording, for a week to six months at a time (rates range from $1,500 to $3,000 a month). The whole thing is collectively dubbed "The Bedrock Motel."

Bedrock also offers plenty of networking opportunities. Bands like it enough to hang around the space, smoking cigarettes outside and chatting. Bulletin boards and posters inside inform visitors about local shows and events. The space holds the occasional show, although they're not typically promoted heavily, and local music magazine LA Record had its holiday party at Bedrock last week.

"I like the environment," says Nik Johnson of Los Angeles noise-rockers Naked Kids. "It feels creative without trying too hard. Other spaces seem to feel boring and uninspiring. The staff is also friendly and helpful, they don't leave you feeling like an idiot."

But perhaps the coolest thing about Bedrock is the least-known thing about it — upstairs from its practice spaces is Pins & Needles, a room full of vintage pinball machines that draws aficionados from all over.

"I'm pretty sure it's the only place like it in the country, especially in a music studio," O'Donnell says. "I was going out to Pins & Needles when it was on Sunset [Blvd.]. They were having problems there and needed a home, and I thought that would be amazing if Bedrock could provide that space."

It's part of Bedrock's vision to be something more than just a place to plug in and practice, but rather to foster community, as well.

Bedrock is located at 1623 Allesandro St., Los Angeles, CA 90026. Learn more at www.bedrockla.com.

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