AFTER A DECADE OF STRUGGLE, A HOMEGROWN MAGAZINE THAT COVERS THE ALTERNATIVE MUSIC SCENE IS FINALLY HITTING SOME HIGH NOTES
The sign reads “Haven of Rest” a remnant of the days when the building was occupied by a Christian ministry. But these days, in addition to providing a dose of irony, the only sign outside the Silver Lake headquarters of alternative music magazine URB serves a more practical purpose. It throws off the teen-aged and 20-something readers who might otherwise hang out to catch a glimpse of their favorite DJ or snag a free club pass or CD.
Inside the building, the stereo volume is cranked up, and the atmosphere is much more industrious than restful. After a decade marked by equal amounts of success and struggle, publisher Raymond Roker is finally convinced he has URB on track.
The Los Angeles-based underground youth culture magazine has long enjoyed critical acclaim and credibility among fans of techno, dance, hip hop and other emerging musical styles, but the road to financial stability has been anything but smooth.
URB, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, has branched out in the past two years, starting a record label, a marketing company, party promotion business and a radio program. The results have been dramatic. After posting its best year ever in 1999 with revenues of $1.5 million, URB and its related businesses expect to take in about $2.4 million this year, Roker said.
“Everybody talks about the music, and that’s what we’re about, but we’re also really proud of what’s happened with the business,” he said.
Filling a void
For the initiated, Roker’s story has taken on urban legend proportions.
Now 32, he was a graphic designer for Music Plus when he and friend Mark Bankins started URB in 1990 out of Roker’s Hollywood apartment. They drained $3,000 from Roker’s savings to get the free, tabloid-style magazine off the ground. The pair worked nights and weekends and often at their day jobs to put it together.
Roker’s modest vision quickly became more ambitious when he realized that people like himself were desperate for news, photographs and opinions about the burgeoning alternative music scene.
“At the time, there wasn’t anything in L.A. except the LA Weekly. A legitimate voice for the ‘underground’ was lacking,” Roker said. “Besides club listings, they wouldn’t touch on raves or hard-core no one was talking about the warehouse parties that were going on.”
The national magazines were even more barren as far as alternative movements went, Roker said.
Bankins bowed out within six months but Roker quit his job after the first issue to devote his full attention to the magazine.
Finding advertisers was never a problem. Buying space in URB was cheap, and it was generating buzz among the young people who were picking it up at record stores, hip fashion outlets and wherever else Roker could convince business owners to stock it.
“URB is the Rolling Stone of the new youth culture, it’s just that simple,” said Brian McNelis, general manager of Marina del Rey-based Hypnotic Records, a longtime URB advertiser. “They’re it, if you want to reach that audience. They are the national brand for that culture.”
By 1995, URB was publishing about 50,000 copies, 10 times a year. Still, Roker had minimal financial acumen, and the magazine did little more than tread water for years.
Hoping to reach a wider audience, Roker made a distribution deal to take URB national. “It was a heavy learning experience, an extremely tough transition,” he said. “It wasn’t very well planned.”
Borrowing from grandma
In addition to alienating some readers by charging for URB, Roker soon found that national distribution created as many problems as it solved. Finding outlets to carry the magazine proved harder than expected, and new advertisers meant new demands
A spiral of debt followed URB’s distribution deal, with Roker maxing out a collection of credit cards and borrowing $40,000 from his grandmother the only outside investment URB has ever had.
Roker switched to a smaller format to save money, but practically every dime the company earned was needed to get out the next issue. “Within reason, it was beg, borrow or steal,” he said.
It wasn’t until 1998 that URB really found its stride. With dance and techno music exploding into the mainstream, advertisers began to beat down URB’s door.
As revenue grew, URB got creative. It released a popular CD compilation in 1997 and subsequently started its own label, URB Music. In addition, URB began producing parties and marketing products for a wide range of businesses interested in tapping into its youthful audience.
In the past year URB entered the world of radio. Its “Essential Mix” program is syndicated to college radio and a few commercial stations around the country. Next year, URB.com is set for an overhaul that will boost the magazine’s presently low-key Web presence.
With plenty of mainstream clients joining the small record labels, audio equipment makers and underground fashion labels that have long advertised in the magazine,
URB is now running about 150 glossy pages in each issue and finally making a profit.
Perhaps it’s age, but Roker, who insists he never had much interest in the bottom line, said he’s enjoying running URB more than ever now that each new day is not a matter of sink or swim.
“When we started, we had no idea we were going to be filling that kind of void,” Roker said. “Now, we’re ambitious. I don’t want URB to be second fiddle to anyone.”
