For more than two decades, BrooklynVegan was a go-to website for devoted indie rock fans, the ones who can’t get through the day without reading a review of last night’s Grizzly Bear show or a track-by-track breakdown of the latest Guided By Voices album.
While many of its competitors folded or faded away, BrooklynVegan maintained its authority into the 2020s. The breadth of its coverage expanded, moving beyond its original focus to include metal, pop, hip-hop, jazz, classical and comedy. A rowdy comments section kept the energy up.
So it came as a shock to BrooklynVegan’s loyal readers when the site’s newish owners, Veeps, a Los Angeles entertainment company, laid off three of four core editorial staff members last month.
BrooklynVegan isn’t dead, exactly. In recent weeks it has published new articles sporadically, and its Instagram account, with 300,000 followers, remains active. But it is no longer an exhaustive chronicler and guide.
Veeps is owned by Benji and Joel Madden, identical twin brothers who formed the rock band Good Charlotte. Live Nation, the events promoter and venue operator valued at $39 billion, holds a majority stake in Veeps. In addition to cutting the BrooklynVegan staff, Veeps recently laid off journalists at four other publications: Metal Edge, Alternative Press, Revolver and Goldmine.
In an email to The New York Times, Benji Madden said the cuts amounted to a 20-percent reduction across the five publications.
“We acquired these brands because we grew up as fans,” Madden wrote. “The purpose of these cuts, straight up, are to survive, and modernize with a rapidly changing landscape, and as you will see in time, support these beloved publications well into the future.”
Before the layoffs were completed at BrooklynVegan on Aug. 4, the site regularly put up a dozen posts a day. In the eight weeks since then, it has published seven.
Ronen Givony, a writer and concert promoter, said that BrooklynVegan “enjoyed enormous good will across the board” from publicists, bands and fans. “By all appearances, it was thriving,” Givony said. “It didn’t seem like the kind of operation that takes a ton of money to run.”
BrooklynVegan originated as a one-person blog in 2004, when Dave Levine, a music fan and writer, began posting from his Brooklyn apartment about vegan-friendly restaurants and concerts. He soon shifted his focus to New York’s thriving indie scene.
Levine, who declined to comment for this article, kept a low profile, going by “Dave” or “BV” to readers and interviewers. He never presented himself as a brash stylish in the mold of, say, the rock critic Lester Bangs.
“The writing was not their strength,” said Pete Matthews, who runs the blog Feast of Music. “I don’t think that’s why people went there. It was more like documentation.”
BrooklynVegan not only covered culture but to some extent drove it. If the site mentioned a surprise show by Deerhoof or Lightning Bolt, 200 fans would pack the venue that night. The success allowed Levine to make hires and branch out into concert promotion.
“Brooklyn Vegan was the first place to give me a byline, which is everything as a writer,” said the freelance journalist Arielle Gordon, who started writing for the site as a teenager.
In recent years, BrooklynVegan was run mainly by a team of four: Levine; the senior editors Bill Pearis and Andrew Sacher; and the photo editor Amanda Hatfield.
“These are people who went out every night, seeing tiny bar shows and unknown acts,” Gordon said.
The seeds of BrooklynVegan’s diminution were sewn during the Covid-19 pandemic. Ad revenue slackened in that dreary time, and the monthslong shuttering of music clubs did away with the money the site had been bringing in from event promotion. Indeed, the site’s mission seemed in doubt.
In 2021, Levine sold BrooklynVegan to Project M Group, a media company that owned Metal Edge, Revolver and Goldmine. The sale brought salary increases and health benefits for the staff.
For the next few years, BrooklynVegan continued its robust coverage. It also sold vinyl records from an online shop while continuing to promote shows. In addition, the site expanded its social media presence, posted video features and hosted podcasts. And it started covering Taylor Swift and other pop acts.
But then Project M sold the five publications to Veeps, the Live Nation subsidiary. Last month, the ax fell.
The senior editors, Pearis and Sacher, said they were surprised to lose their jobs. Hatfield, the photo editor, had expected it. “Maybe it was just my own pessimism,” she said.
News of the layoffs gave rise to tributes on social media. “Thank you Brooklyn Vegan for writing about my first shows ever!!!!!” Sarah Sherman, the comedian and “Saturday Night Live” cast member, wrote on X.
In a post headlined “BrooklynVegan Layoffs: What Happens When the Promoter Owns the Press,” the music blog Ckord suggested a future in which BrooklynVegan goes on as a kind of ghost site, attracting clicks without offering much new coverage. “What got cut was the reporting, which was the only part that cost anything,” Darko Mijatovic, Ckord’s founder, wrote.
The post How BrooklynVegan Went From Indie Rock Blog to Ghost Site appeared first on New York Times.
