If you're lucky, some concerts are free with RSVP. This is free if you bring dirty clothes.
Laundry Wand is a nondescript laundromat in Highland Park, on a residential street a few blocks from the trendy bars and boutiques of Figueroa Street. Dozens of coin-operated washers and dryers line the hallways. Vending machines sell detergent and Takis. This Friday night, there's a battery against a wall of dryers. Another is placed on top of a row of washers. The band's t-shirts are scattered on the machines by the entrance. Admission is $10 unless you are doing laundry. Discounted lint and folding service brochures come with admission wristbands. At 8:30 p.m., the first band will play to Laundry Wand's largest crowd since it hosted its first concert last June.
Before the show begins, impatient concert-goers scribble with their fingers on the steaming glass walls. A crowd sporting green hair, skull tattoos and gigantic septum piercings mingle with padded vests, sweaters and responsible earplugs. Even before the music starts, people stand on top of the machines (one person is at a table sink) to ensure the best view. Some have been to the Laundry Wand to see a show, others simply to wash a comforter. Most don't seem to know the bands by name, but the unusual surroundings attracted them.
Laundry Wand attendees looked through one of the round portal-shaped doors to a washing machine.
People wash clothes during the show at Laundry Wand.
Laundry Wand audience members gather wherever there is space, including around laundry detergent vending machines.
“I love live music and I love weird little places, so why not a laundromat?” says William Hourigan, who came from El Sereno after hearing about the event online. He frequents the nearby Lodge Room to listen to live music and, as long as it's affordable, prioritizes seeing artists he's never heard of before.
Before David Mollison, 50, opened Laundry Wand last April, the space operated under a different name and ownership. Mollison, a London-born entrepreneur who currently manages vacation rentals and previously worked in the tech startup industry, had a goal of growing the pickup and delivery laundromat business. He talks about it as if it were a startup: “I wanted the business to get back to 10 times the initial level,” he says. But getting there has not been as easy as expected.
Mollison, who is white, has lived in Highland Park for 20 years and is raising his Latino-Jewish family there. Despite identifying as a local, he faced backlash upon opening Laundry Wand when an Instagram account dedicated to neighborhood news deemed him a gentrifier. He says he received dozens of hate messages, some anti-Semitic, others directed at his children, and blames the post for killing business for weeks. The Instagram post was deleted, he says, but he wanted to find a way to show the neighborhood that he was committed to meeting them where they were. He published business brochures in English and Spanish, but they were continually removed from streetlights. “He was shaking a tree trying to figure out what would work,” he says. He considered offering coffee to those who do laundry. He considered hosting a taco on Tuesday, before deciding it was a “fake” move.
“In Highland Park, basically every other person is in a band. “Kids need a place to play and watch their friends’ bands,” she says. He enters the live shows.
Owner David Mollison at Laundry Wand.
When Mollison walked around the neighborhood with flyers advertising a rock show inside the laundromat, people got excited. “Everyone we talked to came that night. People are dying for these kinds of wonderful and novel things. I wish there were a thousand people who wanted me to make their changes, of course. But at least this place will remain in the minds of many children knowing that it was a welcoming space,” she says.
It is not the first of its kind. Mollison References SaGa Launder Bar and Cafe, a former Chicago laundromat with a bar inside, and remembers attending small raves inside laundromats in the '90s in London. Here in Los Angeles, Club Goyoa YouTube channel, hosts Electric Cleaners, a series of DJ livestreams at an anonymous Koreatown laundromat, albeit without a live audience.
The shows endeared him to his neighbors, some of whom attend while others hang out in the parking lot and collect recyclables to redeem for cash. He says only one neighbor has noise problems. To appease her, she tried to move from punk and hardcore to less aggressive musical genres. At least during some shows.
Muscle Beach is featured on Laundry Wand.
Audience members perform at Laundry Wand.
Muscle Beach is featured on Laundry Wand.
Artists and audiences sometimes get carried away with the Laundry Wand.
Much to the dismay of the unenthusiastic neighbor, tonight's lineup is made up of experimental punk and noise artists, starting with Hidhawk & Meanstreetz, who perform an improv set playing drums with everything from bicycle chains to feet. In the middle, the drummer throws a load of clothes into the dryer behind him as the crowd screams.
Next up, Mike Watt, best known as the bassist for Southern California punk band the Minutemen in the early 1980s, plays with his new band, the Mike Watt Quartet featuring Galecstasy and Lisa Cameron. With her face wrapped in a mesh, a female vocalist sings in an eerie tone. A crochet maraca moves along a funky bassline.
Just when attendees who have climbed certain machines think they have the best vantage point, Muscle Beach begins playing from a second battery on top of another row of machines. An amplifier is placed in the middle of the crowd; A guitarist appears in the middle of the crowd by the sink. It looks like a sauna. There are fewer phones than you would expect. Some people do the laundry in silence. Some dance to unpredictable rhythms; others stare. Everyone knows not to attack or damage any equipment. The novelty that Mollison wanted to create is in full force.
Muscle Beach is featured on Laundry Wand.
Muscle Beach is featured on Laundry Wand.
For the record:
14:50 April 17, 2024Spenny Tungate's quotes and actions were mistakenly attributed to Brian Chippendale in an earlier version of this story. Tungate is a fan of Chippendale's, who performed that night at the Laundry Wand.
Nathan DiMercurio was walking his dog just an hour earlier when his friend Spenny Tungate approached him and invited him to the Laundry Wand. “I come here all the time to clean my clothes,” says Tungate, who started carrying clothes before the first band started (and skipped the $10 fee). The two are regulars at Frogtown venue Zebulon, also known for its left-of-center acts.
The music isn't exactly to DiMercurio's taste, but the unconventional atmosphere makes it worth it. “It's a spontaneous Friday night,” he says and shrugs.
Julia Aoun drove from Long Beach to see the show with her boyfriend, who is a fan of the bands. “This isn't my usual Friday night, but I'm depressed,” she says. “It's fantastic how there are children from 12 to 70 years old in this place. “It's a fun and eclectic group, which is always something to delight in.”
Unlike other attendees, Alex Coletto and Tim Roch knew exactly what they were getting into. Members of Orange County-based punk band X-Acto, Roch and Coletto performed at Laundry Wand in January. Tonight, they are standing on top of the washing machines to record the bands using an old Panasonic video camera.
“We played all over Los Angeles. One of our frequent venues is Church of Fun, but we will play anywhere we have reservations. Of course this one is different because it's a laundromat. …Unusual places like this in Los Angeles come and go quickly. This one probably will too; It is already becoming too popular,” says Roch.
Galecstasy on the laundry wand.
Brian Chippendale greets the Baby Aspirin DVD after its performance at Laundry Wand.
Attendees arrive at the Laundry Wand for the evening's concert, or perhaps to do laundry.
They are not wrong. There is a nervous energy within Laundry Wand. There are rumors that it could be the last show, that something so special and serious cannot last. Outside of concerts, Mollison has hosted artists who want to film live streams or music videos in the space; There's a fashion photo shoot on the calendar. She wants to make the laundromat the place where musicians and artists go. A contact she met at a Laundry Wand concert got her a recurring gig picking up bands' dirty laundry at their hotels during tour stops in Los Angeles. She hopes this can generate a steady clientele of rock stars.
But if tonight's show is any indication, crowds at concerts are growing faster than anticipated, spilling into the streets. And not many of them are doing laundry. Mollison plans to reduce and refocus the laundromat's programming so that it is more directly tied to her ultimate goal: more laundromat customers.
“We will find a way to keep these programs happening in some form. Maybe instead of free entry with laundry, you have to bring clothes to enter,” she says.
Continue laundry wand on Instagram to stay up to date with upcoming events.
