Will the Stink of Success Ruin the Smell?

Christopher Tipton, who runs the U.K. label Upset the Rhythm! and releases albums for several Smell-fixture bands like BARR and Lucky Dragons, booked No Age’s birthday party–themed secret

show in London. “Musically there’s no real common thread, but that is what makes it great, seeing that a scene can become more than just a signature guitar sound, for example. There is also a generosity from [the L.A.] scene — artists who are supporting each other, supporting people who work to allow them to make music.”

Timothy Norris

The Smell of Abe Vigoda: Juan Velazquez, Michael Vidal, Reggie Guerrero, David Reichardt and Dane Chadwick play to a packed house on January 25.

Timothy Norris

The no-VIP area: The Smell's back alley, where band members and clubgoers mingle day and night.

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More About

• Randy Randall
• Jim Smith
• No Age (Band)
• Dean Spunt
• Mika Miko

“I don’t want to bring too much attention and pressure on the other bands and the other people. Like what about Bi Polar Bear, who have been playing The Smell for years, too?” Randall notes. “You know, are we assholes because we’re doing stuff and they aren’t?”

Is the scene treating them any differently?

According to Spunt, it’s not so much the kids as the other bands — No Age started getting many more requests from people who wanted to open their shows than they could accommodate. “And we had to say no to a lot of bands. And it sucked. You know, when the kid in the audience yelled, ‘You’re on MTV!’ all you can do is say, ‘Yeah!’ Jim thinks it’s funny. Our friends get it and think it’s funny, our parents think it’s neat, but then in the bigger picture, people might think it’s lame.”

It is January, the first time No Age have been home for more than two weeks in almost a year. Their year was capped by an event Randall characterizes as “utterly surreal” — their album, Nouns, was nominated for a Grammy. Granted, it was for their record’s art and packaging rather than its music, which includes a photo of Randall with an anticorporate screed scrawled on his face. “I know everyone says this, but it’s an honor to be nominated,” he says, laughing about the curious places their talent and hype are landing them. “It’s weird that something I think is good is actually being recognized by other people as being good.”

Since being home, No Age have stayed busy, ping-ponging between their little scene and the macro. Spunt and Randall have been trying to reconnect with their personal lives and friends, who have spent the past few months on hold while the two toured the U.S., Europe, and the U.S. again — they’ve just finished helping to record, mix and master the new Mika Miko album. They’ve started writing a new album and have done a deal with Emerica to design a No Age shoe. They are even back to hitting up shows at The Smell.

“I have been trying to get down there when I can and appreciate the time I can spend there,” Randall says. “It’s ironic, the more attention we get as a band from this scene, the more opportunities and tours we get, which take us away from here. I think people identify us so much with this place, that we’re still playing here every weekend or something . I’d be candy-footing if I just said, ‘It’s great!’ But there is a real sadness that we aren’t here so much anymore.”

It is Jim Smith, more than anyone, who insists that all the attention on No Age and The Smell is not having a corrosive effect. Despite what naysayers may predict, The Smell isn’t losing its vortical tension. While a lot of the regulars insist that shows regularly sell out now — which would have been a freak occurrence in the past — Smith is reluctant to cop to any discernible shift, in attendance or otherwise. “Sure, The Smell is in transition,” he says, “but it’s always been that way, since the beginning — evolving and growing. Fundamentally nothing is different. We still operate on the principles by which it was founded. The energy is still there. We have remained intact.”

“The Smell is still dirty and uncontrollable,” Pocahaunted’s Brown says. “Sure, some of the bands have found success, but you know, it’s still grungy and it has its low nights, when it’s just family and a few people — and you wonder if anyone even knows it’s there. But no one wants it to be a party spot.”

Such scene consideration and pragmatism are surely informed by The Smell’s context in a city and a music underground where “being someone” and wrestling your due fame like Jacob did the angel are the convention. But convention has never been The Smell’s practice. “At a certain time on the Sunset Strip,” Brown says, “it was like this — everyone knew each other. You can look at the clubs in Silver Lake getting blown up and stupid, and we can look at The Smell and go, ‘That can’t happen to us.’ We can’t predict, so we’re just trying to have that not happen. It wouldn’t be a catastrophe, but everyone wants to preserve their little slice of the underground here. It helps that you can’t just identify this place as one thing, as a single scene — once you do, it doesn’t get to keep its anarchy. Everything in L.A. gets tagged and gentrified, and we still keep on getting all this attention, but everyone here is still having the times of their lives.”