When networking, music, and skill converge there’s passion. A band begins to appreciate how many fliers can be put up in a single hour. When they are ripped down, the band puts twice as many up; that’s perseverance. When more than one person or band does it, they create a community, and when that community is not constricted creatively by any genre or format…you might just have an interesting little music scene on your hands before too long.

The Baton Rouge Organization of Original Musicians (or BROOM) roster boasts 13 bands, but their network of contacts extends far beyond that number. The artists play off of and with each other, but aren’t bound to any certain terms or conditions. They share knowledge, connections, stages, friends, and even band members.

“They” refers to every musician affiliated with BROOM, because there are no officers; there is no president. What they do have, however, is a collection of smart Baton Rouge music veterans who have been playing music here for a long time. Some, like Steven Herring of Syllable 7, have over 20 years of solid gig experience – he told me of a time that his band opened up for Better than Ezra in Tigerland, before they hit the Top 40. Others, like The Broken Rubber Band guitarist Randall Head, aren’t old enough to buy a beer at the venues they play.

All age gaps considered and floor-cleaning puns aside, BROOM is making long strides in the local struggle to reclaim big venues. Having only been loosely organized since September of 2010, they’ve managed to land an all-local music night at the Varsity Theatre – a venue known for hosting most of the touring bands that come through Baton Rouge – for the third time this year, with two of them scheduled within the next three weeks.

To some on the BROOM roster, like Drew Varnado of The Stage Coach Bandits, the organization is a non-hierarchical network of like-minded musicians.

“We coordinate with them,” said Varnado. “We support the same things. It’s not really a membership thing. There’s a meeting every so often where they discuss stuff and get a collection going on, try to coordinate issues that are relevant to all the bands. And we support that.”

The organization aims to help musicians in all genres – they don’t want BROOM to sound like any one thing…besides good, of course.

“At the last BROOM Varsity show, we had a jam rock band. We had Erin Miley, we had a rap artist that came up in between every set…we tried to get every genre we could think of,” said Chad Byrd, drummer for The Broken Rubber Band.

Though they’ve only used Facebook and a few spots on KLSU to advertise their big shows, the guys who founded BROOM have received nothing but enthusiasm for what they’re doing, even since day one – no doubt because there’s a whole new generation of budding musicians ready to hit the ground running.

The road these musicians are aiming for is a well-trodden path in Baton Rouge, and it’s never easy to travel solo. BROOM’s founders are also members of The Broken Rubber Band, and they recall some of the difficulties booking, promoting, and paying for shows in larger venues – especially in the beginning. BROOM’s first three-band show happened at Fred’s Bar in Tigerland, only one month after its inception.

“We printed a lot of fliers,” recalled Randall Head, guitarist for The Broken Rubber Band. Though he is just 20 years old, he seems to know quite a bit about PR for his age.

“Cullen, Carson, and I would go put them up in the Quad, and the next morning they’d all be gone. And we made a beautiful chalk mural…”

“This beautiful chalk mural, as big as a wall,” Davezac added. “And it was gone by 7 a.m.”

“We got VooDoo BBQ to sponsor us for the Fred’s show, but they provided food to sell,” said Head.

“They donated $600 worth of pulled pork,” explained Davezac, “and we ended up selling five pork sandwiches. We had $560 worth of pulled pork in our fridges for two months.”

At the end, they owed the sound engineer $600…and those guys generally don’t accept pulled pork.

Despite the half-success of their first event, they took it as a lesson. Their first Varsity Theatre concert in February featured an all-Baton Rouge lineup, and drew around 130 heads on a Thursday night, with very little media advertising and an empty marquee slot. Because BROOM had demonstrated their roster’s ability to get a crowd out, their next two events at that venue were booked with ease.

The musicians in Stage Coach Bandits have been playing music for a significant period of time, and they know the struggles of young talent first-hand. And because they’re impressed by the new generation’s enthusiasm, they feel compelled to help the newer musicians avoid the common pot-holes that wait for the inexperienced.

“People are getting hungry, especially this new generation,” said Rhett Lamey, drummer for Stage Coach Bandits. “These kids coming up now are good, they’re real good. We’re almost old-timers now in the game – the 26 to 30 cusp, if you will – and you’ve got your 20 and 21-year-olds… and we’re trying to integrate the two groups.”

“Also, they’re students,” added Varnado. “They have the hunger to get out there and push. And we’re all working 40 hours a week, paying rent, supporting ourselves. They have the time to focus on that. So it’s been really nice having the younger bands out.”

“Their enthusiasm for flier-hanging is extremely helpful,” said Lamey.

“And they’re not just enthusiastic for their own stuff,” said Varnado. “They’re enthusiastic about each other, and they’re telling people, ‘you need to hear that band.’ I’ve really enjoyed that attitude.”

Experience rubs off on a blank slate pretty easily, but childlike excitement might be more contagious than knowledge: by the end of our interview, The Stage Coach Bandits weren’t talking about their band anymore, and had instead convinced me that I really needed to hear Captain Green (another band on the roster), because they were too good to be so young.

Chad Byrd of The Broken Rubber Band works as a sound engineer at different venues around the city, and thus has a fine-tuned knowledge of how sound equipment works, as well as an understanding of the price tags involved. The finances of music-making can spell bad news for newer bands who aren’t on their feet financially, but Byrd has been collecting what the industry calls, “backline” – the equipment actually owned by a band or venue. Either can rent or lend out backline to musicians who don’t have their own, which is what Byrd plans to do.

“We’ve been buying backline, got this huge space rig – the Foghat rig – and then we’ve been looking into getting an orange half-stack. We have a bass amp that’s taller than Carson,” Byrd said. “Equipment-wise, we’re pretty good.”

Not only are they investing in their own sound (they’re cutting their first professionally-made EP any day now), but that of BROOM as well, by having everything a band might need to make the show sound as sharp as possible…and sounding awesome live, in turn, boosts the confidence of the younger generation.

Another facet of the ‘overall healthy local music scene’ has little to do with music, but everything to do with networking: buy local.

“All of our stuff is printed here, designed here,” said Varnado. “Our pictures are taken here, our shirts were printed by Storyville here. All that stuff is done in town, on purpose. Those people come to our shows. The more people you can get to participate, the better. So we all try to participate, and we help them, they help us. The more people you have participating, the better off you are, I suppose. And [BROOM] is one way we can all participate. So we do.”

Sweep Up Your Summer

What’s cool about a BROOM show is that there’s a little bit of everything going on. Check out these May and June BROOM event lineups:

May 19 @ Varsity Theatre; 9pm
-Kladni Figures (Throwback Rap/MC Duo)
-The Broken Rubber Band (Melody-Heavy Rhythm)
-The Stage Coach Bandits (Jam Funk Good Stuff)
-Syllable 7 (Hip-Hop Reggae Cali-Circa-1992)

May 25 @ The Dizzy Records: Live Streaming Sets; 5pm
-Squirt Gun Warriors (High-Energy)
-Recurring Dreams (Indie)
-The Broken Rubber Band (Melody-Heavy Rhythm)
…Tune in: www.UStream.tv/Channel/The-Dizzy-Records-Live

June 10 @ Varsity Theatre; 8:30pm
-Motherlode (Just Wanna Rock)
-Onion Loaf (Somethin’delic)
-The Broken Rubber Band (Melody-Heavy Rhythm)
-Captain Green (Tightly-Wound Funky Spirals)