{noise:floor}

Nashville's indie showcase

2007-08-10T14:25:00.000-06:00

More and more local communities are developing mini-SXSW's. Here's Nashville's.

Next Big Nashville: "Q&A with NBN creator and producer Jason Moon Wilkins: Q: What is the purpose of the event? A: 'The inaugural NBN was conceived and executed in three and a half weeks in 2006 as a way to celebrate what was a banner year for Nashville's rock/pop/indie community. It was originally meant to be just a one-night party, but it quickly grew into a three-day festival that drew nearly three thousand people. Obviously, this year has expanded exponentially, which is a reflection of how dynamic Nashville's music scene is at the moment. The basic reasoning behind it was that it seemed like we needed an event like this and the artists, the industry and the city as a whole have overwhelmingly agreed with that assessment. It's a truly exciting time to be a part of the music community in Nashville and to be living in such a vibrant and growing city. More than anything else, I wanted to build an event that echoed that excitement. Nashville is evolving and expanding beyond its former image into something more cosmopolitan and eclectic but still decidedly southern and I wanted to create a musical reflection of that.'

Is this a showcase/industry event or a public festival?
A: "It's both. It's an easy 'one stop shop' for any out-of-town or in-town industry professional interested in what is happening in Nashville's music scene at the moment. It's also a chance to showcase the growing community of industry professionals who work outside the Music Row mainstream but whose work helps tie Nashville to the international arena. And it's an opportunity for Nashville music fans to see their favorite acts play together in a festive and communal atmosphere and hopefully to be introduced to their new favorite band along the way.""

Is this a good scene?

2007-07-26T12:01:00.000-06:00

Here is a review of an underground music festival in Baltimore. I'm not really sure if it is meant to be a good review or not. You decide.

Pitchfork Feature: Live: Whartscape Music Festival: "But enthusiasm is one of the only real unifying factors at Whartscape: Performers ranged from the folk and lo-fi beats of Lizz King (who hopped around on a sprained ankle as big as an orange) to the shoegaze synth-punk of Videohippos (who played in front of three projection screens) to West Coast spazz legends xbxrx to, well, a band like Santa Dads, who wallowed in a 20-minute prog-folk number with a whole faux-liturgy to go along with it; it was like a nursery school doing a rock opera. Dig a stroke deeper though, and the connections are clear: Baltimore's foreboding landscape and rotted-out, no-bubble depression is just the place for a bunch of wayward kids in neon avoiding the bodice of career, pulling shifts at Whole Foods between their self-directed studies in the occult. The filmmaker Jimmy Joe Roche, who screened videos on Friday night, told the Baltimore blog Butter Team, 'The wizards of Baltimore and Wham City deal powerful magic, we'll need it soon, the dawn of this post-postmodern age is upon us.'

There's no sense of cool, there's no spiritual sobriety. There are a lot of very bright colors. There are machines modified to blare industrial light at changes in synthesizer frequency. "

The economics of a folk festival

2007-07-24T12:24:00.001-06:00

Folk festivals spin off profit for both artists and venues -- Vancouver Sun, 7/13/07: "Though Canadian folk festivals are grassroots affairs where lots of patrons reflect the ideals of the 1960s, they nevertheless generate big dollars.

The Edmonton Folk Festival, largest in Western Canada, attracts 85,000 people for a box office of $1.4 million. It has sold out all its tickets in 11 of the last 13 years. The smaller Winnipeg Folk Festival draws 60,000, but 40 per cent of the audience comes from the United States, resulting in an economic spinoff to the area of about $20 million.

The three-day Vancouver Folk Music Festival, which begins today, attracts people from all over B.C. and the U.S. (Americans make up 30 per cent of the audience), and even some from Europe and Australia. Smaller than events in Edmonton, Winnipeg and Calgary, last year's Vancouver festival operated on a budget of $1.2 million, attracted 30,000 people and took in $551,000 at the box office.
Dancing at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Dancing at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Peter Battistoni/Vancouver Sun

One lucrative side business at folk festivals is on-site CD sales. Festival patrons prefer buying recordings directly from the artist or the artist's label on-site because more of their money goes to the music's creator. These sales won't show up on SoundScan or Billboard, but they nevertheless add up. At last summer's 17 western Canadian folk festivals -- which include events in Vancouver, Victoria, Salmon Arm, Duncan, Comox, Mission and Harrison Hot Springs -- CD sales amounted to $754,594.

At the 2001 Edmonton festival, the Waifs from Australia sold 1,000 CDs in a single weekend, a figure matched by Xavier Rudd one year at the Calgary Folk Festival.

CD sales at last year's Vancouver Folk Festival totalled about 15,000. A top artist can sell as many as 700 CDs in a single weekend at the Vancouver festival....

VANCOUVER FOLK FESTIVAL

Attendance: 30,000

Box office: $551,000

CALGARY FOLK FESTIVAL

Attendance: 48,000

Box office: just under $1 million

EDMONTON FOLK FESTIVAL

Attendance: 85,000

Box office: $1.4 million

Winnipeg Folk Festival

Attendance: 60,000

Box office: $1.3 million

All-ages venues doing well in Seattle

2007-07-24T11:27:00.000-06:00

This article reviews a number of all age-venues in Seattle.

Entertainment | All-ages venues popping up all over | Seattle Times, 7/20/07: "The number of youth-friendly shows in Seattle has steadily increased since the demise of Seattle's restrictive Teen Dance Ordinance in 2002. The rules governing such shows became less severe with the current All-Ages Dance Ordinance, and a plethora of new venues are reinvigorating the scene.

While it is dominated by indie-rock and punk, kids can also get live doses of metal, hip-hop, ska, alternative, rap, jazz and open-mic nights.

There's also a thriving underground, do-it-yourself movement, including popular house venues like Camp Nowhere in the U District. Even bars that are normally off-limits for under-agers — like Chop Suey and Neumos — are hosting some all-ages shows. Nectar Lounge plans to start an all-ages lineup beginning in late August."

Live music in a small Texas town

2007-07-24T11:21:00.000-06:00

A small town in Texas Hill Country, about 30 miles from San Antonio, is seeing an expansion of venues, which might make it a significant stop for Texas music lovers.

'Cowboy Capital' could be a new Branson -- San Antonio Express-News, July 22, 2007: "... the self-proclaimed 'Cowboy Capital of the World,' long known for live country music in rustic venues and a picker's paradise for its come-one-come-all jam-session attitude, is busting out all over....

While Bandera County is one of the fastest growing in Texas, the farm and ranch community's official population is 957 ..."

Where did rock start?

2007-07-19T18:19:00.000-06:00

Cradle of Rock? Two Towns Stake Their Claims - New York Times, 7/10/07: "... officials and residents in Wildwood, which in recent years has put a high polish and a healthy dose of kitsch on its 1950s- and ’60s-era motels to promote tourism, are saying that their town near the southern tip of New Jersey in Cape May County is the birthplace of rock ’n’ roll.

After all, for a few summers Dick Clark held record hops in Wildwood while he was the host of “American Bandstand.” And there are plaques where the HofBrau once stood, as well as the site of the former Rainbow Club (now a nightclub called Kahuna’s), where Chubby Checker first performed “The Twist.”

But Gloucester City, another New Jersey town, about an 80-mile drive northwest of Wildwood, wants to cut in right there. And on Saturday, Mr. Richards and other Comets plan to headline a show in Gloucester City, in Camden County along the Delaware River, to commemorate an 18-month span in the early 1950s when Mr. Haley led the house band at the Twin Bar."

The piano bar as neighborhood hangout

2007-07-19T11:50:00.000-06:00

This venue is closing, a victim of rising real estate and fewer people stopping in, but places like this are still needed.

Singing a Sad Song for Their Piano Bar - New York Times, 7/19/07:There was the story, for example, from about 10 years ago, where a glassy-eyed gentleman wandered in, steadied himself against the bar and with little ceremony unburdened himself with the force of a racehorse.

Kristine Zbornik, a professional singer and actress, was at the microphone at the time. When the gentleman’s stream advanced toward her, she raised her left foot and switched songs midway through and started belting out, “Cry Me a River.”

When news of the closing of Rose’s Turn spread last weekend among the bar’s longtime patrons, many say they felt devastated. Susan Finkelstein McElroy, 50, a regular patron who lives in North Babylon, on Long Island, received a diagnosis of breast cancer in 2004. She credits song-filled nights at Rose’s Turn with helping her endure the rigors of chemotherapy.

When she read the bad news in an e-mail message on Saturday, Ms. Finkelstein McElroy wept.

For 56 years, since it opened during the Truman administration, 55 Grove Street in the West Village has been a piano bar, cabaret and comedy club for the quick-witted and full-throated. First it was Upstairs/Downstairs, then the Duplex (which remains open at another location), and finally it became Rose’s Turn."

Travel lightly or not at all

2007-07-07T16:02:00.000-06:00

This article criticizes Live Earth, and particularly the stars appearing in it, for by hypocritical by wasting so much energy to get to these events. It does mention what some of the venues are doing to offset the carbon emissions and trash, but overall it does not consider this event to be environmentally friendly.

There's something to be said for keeping live music local -- going to see local bands who don't tour, and using public transportation, to see them. Now we just have to get the local music press and the fans on board to give props to bands that refuse to tour.

Live Earth is promoting green to save the planet - what planet are they on? | the Daily Mail, 7/07/07: "A Daily Mail investigation has revealed that far from saving the planet, the extravaganza will generate a huge fuel bill, acres of garbage, thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions, and a mileage total equal to the movement of an army.

The most conservative assessment of the flights being taken by its superstars is that they are flying an extraordinary 222,623.63 miles between them to get to the various concerts - nearly nine times the circumference of the world. The true environmental cost, as they transport their technicians, dancers and support staff, is likely to be far higher.

The total carbon footprint of the event, taking into account the artists' and spectators' travel to the concert, and the energy consumption on the day, is likely to be at least 31,500 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to John Buckley of Carbonfootprint.com, who specialises in such calculations."

A film about classical music in unusual venues

2007-07-05T16:18:00.000-06:00

The End of New Music - Free Speech Zone - Music - Column - New York Times, 7/04/07: "The film ['The End of New Music] documents a 2005 tour of rock clubs and alternative spaces by Free Speech Zone, a collective founded by Mr. Greenstein, David T. Little and Missy Mazzoli. In it, these three busy, highly regarded composers, whose boisterous, attractive music is influenced by neo-Romanticism, Minimalism and rock, forcefully reject the standard conventions of concert halls and academia....

“The main thing is understanding that you can actually take control over the way that your music is heard,” Mr. Greenstein said. 'Once you see that you had that power all along, then it suddenly doesn’t become ‘you versus the system’ anymore. It’s just you behaving as an adult, going out and making decisions in the world.'"

San Francisco's Music Scene in the 1960s

2007-07-03T12:00:00.000-06:00

Rolling Stone : San Francisco: The Start of the Revolution: "In San Francisco in October 1965, some Red Dog veterans, now calling themselves the Family Dog, staged an evening of bands and dancing at the Longshoremen's Hall; billed as 'A Tribute to Dr. Strange,' it featured the Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane and the Great Society. The event spontaneously fused the lenient spirit of the Acid Tests with the Red Dog's focus on dancing and proved a pivotal occasion in the psychedelic scene's history. Over the next two years, San Francisco dance ballrooms--primarily the Avalon and the Fillmore--became not merely a central metaphor for Haight-Ashbury's reinvention of community but also a fundamental enactment of it.

The bands that emerged in this setting were made up largely of musicians who had come up playing in the Bay Area's folk-music venues. The folk crowd had been notoriously dismissive of rock & roll; they saw it as unserious and decadent, not at all committed to social or political concerns. But after the arrival of the Beatles in 1964 and Bob Dylan's transition to electric music in 1965, Bay Area folk musicians began to see how electric music could incorporate substantive themes and poetic language."

Huge arenas no longer is demand as music venues

2007-07-03T11:35:00.000-06:00

7/01/07 - The Enquirer - Huge venues are vanishing: "Live Nation, which posted more than $3.5 billion in revenues last year, bills itself as 'the world's largest live music company.' It owns or operates 131 venues. Increasingly, amphitheaters sitting mainly on interstate exits and beltways outside of cities, find themselves in areas that have become prime real estate. Live Nation is selling off amphitheaters where established stars such as Buffett and Chesney may be the only guaranteed sellouts.

Just last week, Live Nation ended a management deal with the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater near Kansas City, Mo., plunging that outdoor venue's future into uncertainty.

While it divests of amphitheaters and other aspects of its business - including its Broadway Across America series that comes to the Aronoff Center for the Arts - Live Nation is beefing up its live music promotion and focusing on smaller venues. The company recently acquired the House of Blues chain of 10 clubs for $350 million.

Smaller performing venues are more attractive to artists as well as presenters, says [Gary Bongiovanni, editor-in-chief of the concert trade magazine Pollstar], because all seats are reserved. In 1994, touring groups including the Rolling Stones shifted to 'tiered pricing,' charging a premium for the best seats. But in the amphitheater world, the largest capacity is the lawn, which are the cheapest tickets.

'The artists will tend to demand that the presenters pay them a lot for that lawn capacity, whether they sell it or not,' Bongiovanni says. 'But if you only have 6,000 reserved seats, it's a safer bet. And artists generally like to play venues they can fill. No one likes to play to an empty or half-empty facility.'"

Do free concerts hurt clubs or build audiences?

2007-07-03T11:11:00.000-06:00

This article suggests that while the free jazz concerts in Chicago increase the popularity of jazz, they hurt small club discouraging fans from going to them and by driving up prices for artists.

Chicago Tribune news, 7/01/07: Scatting from clubs to larger concert venues: "Perhaps no one did more to affect that change than Lois Weisberg, commissioner of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs under Mayor Richard M. Daley and a cultural advocate in previous administrations. By steadily expanding free concerts in Grant Park and helping to transform the old Chicago Public Library building into the bursting-with-music Chicago Cultural Center, Weisberg put the city's muscle and money behind music.

'There's no other city in the country that does so much free music,' says Weisberg, noting that the city now spends about $2 million a year on various music events, much of it jazz.

Furthermore, by joining forces with organizations such as the Chicago Jazz Partnership -- a collection of blue-chip corporate foundations that committed $1.5 million to Millennium Park's 'Made in Chicago' jazz series and other jazz events -- the city has leveraged additional resources to jazz concert-going."

More on environmentally friendly events

2007-07-03T10:56:00.000-06:00

I'm a bit skeptical that the event industry is the second-largest contributor to carbon emissions in the world, but it's still a good thing to be environmentally friendly.

7/1/07 --Rock bands find new ways to go green: "'The event industry is the second-largest contributor to carbon emissions in the world, next to construction,' said Joseph Malki, vice president of business development for green events consultant Seven-Star Inc., which will be overseeing the environmental efforts of four of the Live Earth concerts taking place around the world July 7.

Adam Gardner, guitarist-vocalist for the Boston-spawned band Guster, became so interested in finding ways to reduce his band's carbon footprint that he and his wife, Lauren Sullivan, both Tufts University graduates, began Reverb, a nonprofit green tour-consulting organization, in 2004.

Reverb does everything from offering suggestions to providing full-service consultants who will coordinate backstage recycling and biodiesel refueling for trucks and buses, set up 'ecovillages' at venues, and more. The group has assisted the Chili Peppers, Lavigne and Jones in the past, and is working with the Fray and Mayer this summer."

Boulder Music History

2007-07-02T21:25:00.000-06:00

Here's a good article, from 2002, about the history of music in Boulder dating from the 1960s.

Boulder Musicians Make Music and History: "For years, Boulderites have bemoaned the fact that the town, nestled against the Flatirons, never developed the music scene they expected. But the truth is, Boulder has had an impact on the national music industry ever since the Astronauts launched their career from Tulagi on the Hill in the mid-1960s, and Boulder's local recording and live music scene has been a thriving, vital cultural force despite the moaning and groaning."

Athens GA still a big music town

2007-06-24T23:09:00.000-06:00

Macon.com | 06/19/2007 | Years after R.E.M., Athens music scene still hot: "In a town of roughly 100,000 people, Athens - home of the University of Georgia and just south of the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains - has an estimated 500-plus music groups. At that ratio, metro Atlanta would have about 20,000 rock bands and New York City would have more than 40,000....

'In Georgia, probably most of the artistic and eccentric and creative and interesting people gravitate to UGA,' said Fred Schneider of The B-52s, whose group returned to its roots in Athens last month to record their first album in 15 years. 'It's an easy place to live, prices are reasonable and there's a lot to do and see.'"

When your music scene is miles from anywhere

2007-06-24T23:05:00.000-06:00

Here in Colorado bands complain about how hard it can be to tour since it's usually a day's drive to get to venues in other states.

But it is a minor problem compared to what Alaskan musicians have to deal with.

Willamette Week Online | Music | A Great Place To Leave • Alaska to Portland may be the great music migration. | Sunday June 24th, 2007: "For musicians in most states, relocating to a bigger city may be a good career move, but it's hardly vital—after all, a band can always tour. But if you're a band from Anchorage, Alaska's largest city, the nearest major American city is 2,350 miles away—about the same distance from Portland to Detroit! And Alaska's music scene isn't just isolated: A serious shortage of venues and the absence of label scouts mean one of the largest Alaskan music communities isn't in Alaska at all. It's here in Portland.

In the past year and a half, there have been at least 10 transplanted Alaskan bands based in PDX (though three broke up in 2006). There are also several Alaskan solo artists, a couple of predominantly AK bands (the late Konami Defense System was half Alaskan, as is Day of Lions), and a handful of bands with members from the 49th state, including the Joggers. Even here in the City of Transplanted Roses, that's a lot of musicians from one state—especially a state that has only about 100,000 more people in it than Portland itself.

For many Alaskans, Seattle comes off as an impersonal monolith, and between the landscape and the cultural differences, California might as well be another planet. But the greenery, temperate climate and laid-back populace of Portland seem just right. Since 1996 (when 36 Crazyfists moved to PDX after a fruitless year in Seattle), Portland has become the primary destination for young Alaskan musicians. This history provides a ready-made (if modest) fan base for new expat bands, and an existing social network, too."

Turning a barn into a venue

2007-06-24T21:03:00.000-06:00

A family of torning bluegrass musicians decided to lease a barn (which already had seating from its previous life as a melodrama theater) in Kansas and turn it into a music venue.

Born in a barn | lawrence.com, 6/24/07: "He lists the things the Bluegrass Barn Theater has going for it:

• There are 1,000 campsites at Perry Lake, with no other entertainment options.

• Topeka and Lawrence are only a half-hour away, with other smaller towns even closer.

• Bluegrass fans traditionally travel a long way for festivals. With gasoline prices increasing, they might look for options closer to home."

Music festival sponsorship

2007-06-24T19:59:00.000-06:00

A discussion of how sponsors are maximizing their sponsorship London's Wireless Festival.

I find far more articles about sponsorship in the British press than in the American press, which has been the case for quite awhile. For as much sponsorship as you see in the US. there still seems to be more focus on sponsorship there than here.

BBC NEWS, 6/21/07| Why just a logo is now a no-no: "Existing users could receive a barcode by text message, allowing them access to a VIP area with a bar and music.

Other offers included text messages containing news and gossip from backstage, while onstage performances were recorded and have been made available via mobile on the network's Wap site, advertised under the banner, 'Relive it'.

'It has gone beyond mere badging an event with our logo. We want to drive an emotional connection with our customers,' said the network's head of sponsorship, Amanda Jennings.

'I hope that everyone had a good time at Wireless, but that if you were an O2 customer, that you had an extra good time.'...

Digital consultant Ben Carter says that a brand can only bring its sponsorship to life by encouraging the customer to engage with it.

'Having exclusive content is a must-have,' he says.

'Signing up to sponsor a festival, concert or act is a very good way of securing the content that your customers want.'

Creating such 'exciting, original' content is a priority for broadband provider Tiscali UK, says its head of entertainment Rob Andrews.

It broadcast sets from the main stage at the Wireless Festival live on its website, which was viewed by 'thousands'.

And it also held 15 backstage gigs, each for less than 100 people, with acts including Badly Drawn Boy, newcomers Scouting for Girls and a rare acoustic set by Faithless.

The performances will be made available on the web and, eventually, television.

Arts as a way to attract tourists

2007-06-24T19:39:00.000-06:00

This article mentions a number of ways Vancouver artists groups are trying to boost the city's arts visibility among tourists.

Arts Features | Artists court tourist dollars | Straight.com Vancouver, 6/21/07: Sarah Kirby Yung, director of marketing and corporate sponsorship with Tourism Vancouver, insists that's happening. "It [culture] is a very important part of selling the destination," she says. For the past five years, she notes, Tourism Vancouver has operated Tickets Tonight, a community box office that offers half-price, day-of tickets. The agency also offers a variety of packages to visitors that can include discount tickets to cultural events in the city. Organizations have to sign on to be involved in those promotions, and a Tourism Vancouver membership is required to get in on the agency's direct-to-consumer marketing. That involves a fee, but Kirby Yung says the agency does not publicize its membership rates....

With his limited marketing budget, [Howard Jang, general manager of the Arts Club Theatre] has had to be resourceful in attracting visitors. For example, the Arts Club operates a concierge program with 78 local hotels: in exchange for directing visitors to performances at the theatre, concierges pick up a small commission and are invited to attend shows for free. It's a tactic borrowed from the local restaurant industry–which, incidentally, is enjoying a worldwide reputation."

Where to put some music venues

2007-06-21T22:09:00.000-06:00

I've started to do a bit of research for a project I am working on. And I just discovered this. It's a good place to find info on what Denver urban areas are being redeveloped.

DenverInfill.com: Downtown Denver and Its Urban Infill and Redevelopment Projects

Why have a festival

2007-06-21T11:53:00.000-06:00

For all of those musicians who have wondered if SXSW, MOBfest, and similar festivals are good career moves, here's an opinion.

Chicagoist: MOBfest ... BLAHfest.: "Their mission statement, according to the MOBfest website, is: 'We are a three-day music business seminar focused on building a buzz, aiding in awareness, and peaking the interest of the music business community ... Networking, schmoozing and simply attending the panels can be a great way to make new contacts, secure current connections and start new relationships.'

... none of the above really happens. Instead we get the usual suspects within the local scene congratulating each other, attending shows at only the largest venues, and largely ignoring the majority of the schedule. And why wouldn't they? Even we, who are neck deep in the local scene, are hard pressed to recognize more than a smattering of bands on their schedule....

In the end we are withdrawing our support for MOBfest because we honestly can't see how the whole thing is helping anyone out, except for possibly the bands being managed by the folks at the top of the MOBfest food chain, and even most of them can't seem to get signed to any sort of sustainable career .... It's not as egregious as, say, Emergenza, when it comes to taking advantage of the naivety of hopeful bands, but they have no problem spreading the belief that by associating yourself with MOBfest you still have a chance a label will walk into their show and sign them on the spot."

The importance of critics to the arts community

2007-06-18T23:43:00.000-06:00

Each Friday and Sunday, as I sit down with the Denver Post, I am grateful for all the arts coverage: the theater reviews, the art show reviews, the architecture discussions. I also like thumbing through the arts section in Westword.

I am much more likely to go to a music show than a play, but it makes me feel good that local media covers all aspects of the local arts community because it gives me a sense of being in an exciting place.

Below is an excerpt of an article written a Minneapolis actor who talks about how important critics were to his career and how they aren't covering the smaller venues these days.

I suppose that if art criticism in print declines or disappears, the Internet will take up the slack. Lots of bloggers are happy to offer their opinions. But still, there is something rewarding in seeing local papers devote space to the arts. Plus by being in the paper, these events are visible to people who are casually thumbing through the pages, whereas they might not see them in niche online sites.

Michael Kennedy: The fading away of the critics is a blow to us all - Minneapolis Star Tribune 6/18/07: "These days, all we seem to hear about is the Guthrie, recently so overpriced that nobody can afford to go. The Fitzgerald may as well be the only arts organization in this city -- if you listen to MPR. As far as art goes, we have the Walker and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. When the folks in the media want to get funky, they mention Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the Children's Theatre Company or the Weisman.

Yes, we have the smaller venues, but do you hear about them very much? Not really. We hear more about television shows, movies, traveling Broadway shows and what to wear to a nightclub than we do about the fine arts in the Twin Cities.

This city is in a quiet artistic crisis. With all of our small theaters, small galleries, music groups, dance companies and literary venues, we should be getting clear, serious criticism. We should have people working full time covering all of the theaters they can seven nights a week. There are tons of art galleries that most people have never heard of. Musical groups are everywhere.

We need the critics. Their opinions are one thing, but the fact that they can go into these small places, consider these artists and watch these performances says that the arts are a serious part of this community."

Environmentally friendly festivals

2007-06-17T20:55:00.000-06:00

Summer of Love's spirit blossoming in green movement | Reuters/Billboard, 6/16/07: "Willie Nelson's biodiesel company (we predict) will influence virtually every tour to travel green within five years.

MusicMatters introduced 'carbon offsetting,' planting trees and supporting alternative sustainable energy sources equal to your sins of emission.

The Vans Warped tour is using solar-powered sound. Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza give prizes for recycling. The Hove Festival in Norway has pledged 100 percent carbon neutrality. The Wakarusa Festival will include a sustainability symposium. And on it goes."

Events and music in Vail

2007-06-15T22:09:00.000-06:00

Events and music have been used to draw visitors to Vail and Summit County during non-skiing months.

Summit Daily News -- High Country Business Review, 6/11/07 High Country summer keeps sizzlin’- "In Vail, the Ford Amphitheatre acted as a marketing tool as well, when it opened in 1987 with 12 shows. This year, it hosts 74. The BRAVO! music festival also began in 1987, and the Vail International Dance Festival followed a year later.

'Those three things have been an unbelievable influx of changing how the summer guest looks at Vail,' said Ceil Folz, president of the Vail Valley Foundation. 'It really just became a concentrated effort in the late ‘80s and reached a high point (of focus) between 1988 and 1993.'

In 1999, voters passed a 1.4 percent lodging tax to market Vail between May and October. Since then, revenue has increased at a steady pace, to $1.9 million, said Kelli McDonald, economic development manager for the town of Vail.

'We’ve seen more businesses remaining open in between seasons. There’s more business coming in May. Prior to marketing, we didn’t see it,' McDonald said, adding that the effort focuses not only on drawing individuals, but also groups.

The town has a separate budget of $750,000 for event seed money, from the Teva Mountain Games to the Fourth of July parade and Oktoberfest."

AEG's Plans for Denver

2007-06-15T02:15:00.000-06:00

This article is about promoter Chuch Morris becoming the head of AEG Live's Rocky Mountain office. He left Live Nation to do this and brought several others with him. And before that, he ran his own promotion company.

One of the big local stories has been the venues that Live Nation and AEG have been booking. And the fact that AEG wants to put in yet another venue.

Rocky Mountain News - Denver and Colorado's reliable source for breaking news, sports and entertainment: Other Business: "With a changing concert demographic that is skewing to midsize venues, AEG looks to build a 6,000-seat amphitheater with a retractable roof for year-round use.

'What they're doing is the future of our business,' Morris said. 'We'll only build a building that is mind-blowing and makes sense economically. If that doesn't happen, we won't be building. That's going to be one of my many challenges.'

AEG has built buildings and entertainment districts around the world, from the Staples Center in Los Angeles to the new Wembley Stadium in England.

'If the right location happens and the right finances happen,' Denver will get a new venue, Morris said. 'If I can't create something that's never been done before, we're not going to do it. If I can, I'd love to be part of it.'"

Music Festival Sponsor Promotions

2007-06-14T17:38:00.000-06:00

This article reads like a press release, but does give some ideas of what sponsors do at festivals to maximize their investments/associations.

::UTalk Marketing, 6/12/07:: Analysis: Experiential Marketing at Music Festivals: "Music festivals are hot property for FMCG and telephony brands. You’ve got access to an audience of thousands of predominately youthful and early-adoptive consumers with a high-disposable income.

The other bonus is they’re in a relaxed and fun frame of mind meaning they’re all the more receptive to brand trial.

Get a brand in their hands, get consumers to associate it with a good and pleasant experience and chances are they’ll try it again following the event. It’s not rocket science.

So who’s getting busy at festivals? What are they doing and why?

At O2 Wireless London Festival this weekend the principal sponsor will be erecting a bubble structure, working with experiencial agency, Sledge.

It’s designed to treat O2 customers to an experience above and beyond the main festival environment. The area will only be accessible via a text message barcode mechanic, available only to O2 customers. Comfortable tiered seating areas and deckchairs will give a great view of the stage.

Once within the bubble structure, customers will be treated to a fully stocked bar, DJ’s and live acts playing on rotation and seating areas where lucky O2 customers could enjoy the hi-tech, exclusive environment and entertainment.

External minibubble structures will offer consumers further entertainment in the form of starring in a pop video and free CD giveaways with consumers’ photos being used to create the cover insert.

The O2 VIP area, located directly behind the main stage, will offer selected guests a stylish and tranquil area to see and be seen....

In a bid to associate themselves with the greatest legends in rock music, Ray-Ban are presenting ‘Never Hide’, an area offering a VIP retreat from the main stage action.

There’s a lounge to chill out in, a garden and a Studio where a photographer and professional stylist will help festivalgoers recreate their own iconic rock picture

The brand is also offering 150 people attending to exchange their old sunglasses for new pair of Ray-Bans.

Meanwhile at the same festival the Fender Experience is giving the public a chance to get up close to the worlds most famous and recognised guitars.

There’ll be tutors on hand for beginners to get them playing their first chords on the electric guitar!

Games company, Ubisoft will be at Wireless and Creamfields this year with a new and unique gaming truck hosting 2 x 68 plasma screens....

As the ‘Official Beer of Live Nation’, Tuborg will be presenting stage 3 at the 02 Wireless Festival London, showcasing a wide range of musical talent.

The brand is also taking advantage of social networking by taking photos of festival-goers and posting them at myspace.com/Tuborguk.

Tuborg has also set up a dedicated website to promote their association with music events this summer, tuborgmusic.co.uk

Broadband, telephone and media company, Tiscali, will be webcasting acts from the main stage of the show in Hyde Park as the official internet partner for the O2 Wireless Festival.

Visitors will be able to view the exclusive webcast content on the official Tiscali festival microsite tiscali.co.uk/wireless over the course of the festival and exclusive edited sessions will be made available after the event.

The brand will also be hosting an exclusive Sessions Tent backstage in the festival's VIP area....

San Antonio Music Venues

2007-06-14T15:13:00.000-06:00

San Antonio has several new music venue offerings: a ranch, a cowboy bar, and an amphitheater.

Area's music-venue options grow by three - MySA.com: Music, 6/12/07

Branding Detroit

2007-06-14T14:29:00.000-06:00

Here's more about Detroit's branding campaign. Commercials will run on MTV and the Comedy Channel.

Detroit is hip, you should visit, ads say - Detroit Free Press, 6/14/07: "The Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau announced plans Wednesday to market the area to young adults in Grand Rapids and Cleveland, using three TV commercials touting Detroit as a hip and exciting destination.

For the first time, the organization is trying to attract more visitors to southeastern Michigan by going after 21- to 34-year-olds who live within a 5-hour drive of Detroit. Most of the visitors who come to the area for leisure trips live in western Michigan and Cleveland....

Marketing research found that Detroit's auto attractions, casinos, music and sports activities particularly appeal to adults in that age group. And though they spend on average about 25% less on a typical trip than older adults, they travel more frequently."

Bumbershoot and AEG

2007-06-14T14:13:00.000-06:00

I thought I posted this when it first came out, but looking through my blog, I couldn't find it. At any rate, here it is. AEG has been moving into the festival biz, most recently getting involved with the Monolith Festival at Red Rocks.

Bumbershoot hopes new partnership will bring big headliners: Local News: The Seattle Times, 2/20/07: "One Reel, the non-profit arts organization that produces Bumbershoot, has announced a five-year deal with national concert promoter AEG Live, hoping it will bring more headline acts to the annual arts festival at the Seattle Center.

Under the agreement, AEG will share the financial risk (and profit) of booking music headliners, help secure sponsors and become an underwriter of the three-day fall festival. It is unclear what effect, if any, the new relationship will have on ticket prices....

Bumbershoot will remain independent and is not merging with or being 'bought out' by AEG, nor will AEG be billed as a title sponsor — as in 'AEG presents,' Scoleri said.

'One Reel is still going to book Bumbershoot,' said Scoleri.

As the concert business has consolidated, it has become more difficult for annual festivals to compete for major rock acts. In the past, Bumbershoot has booked artists on the way up or established acts without a recent popular album. One Reel also enjoyed extra booking clout when it presented the Summer Nights concert series. But that series was sidetracked last year when a lawsuit prevented it from being held at Gas Works Park and there are no plans to hold the concerts in Seattle this summer.

With a promoter such as AEG sharing the financial risk — and the profit — major pop music acts may become more available....

Bumbershoot turned a profit last year of $200,000, even after shortening the festival from four days to three. It drew about about 40,000 people a day, according to estimates. In 2005, because of bad weather, the festival lost close to $300,000.

Radio at Bonnaroo

2007-06-14T13:52:00.000-06:00

A good article on the radio set-up at Bonnaroo. It might give other festivals some ideas. Read the entire article, because I have only quoted parts of it here.

Nashville Scene, 6/14/07 - Radio Daze: "...roughly 30 Bonnaroo acts will record three-song sets and give interviews that will be broadcast throughout the weekend to about 30 of the country’s biggest rock stations, including KFOG (San Francisco), DAVE FM (Atlanta) and WXRT (Chicago), and in Nashville, on WRLT Lightning 100. It’s all part of Bonnaroo’s unique approach to radio outreach, designed by Asheville, N.C., music marketing company Music Allies....

Imagine a reality show called Build a Studio. That’s how carpenter David Gehrke describes the task ahead of him—building the recording and radio studios essentially from scratch. 'Every year they throw changes in,' says Gehrke, drummer for The Bees (U.S.) and co-owner of Niko’s bar in East Nashville. 'This year, I’m doing a proper control-room window. I’m really polishing a turd...trying to make a room that is in no way, shape or form acoustically fit for recording, trying to make it sound, look and feel good.'...

According to Gehrke, the setup is just as much a boon for the artists and radio stations as it is for Bonnaroo. “When you’re on the road pushing a record, you usually have to do a bunch of radio interviews, and it’s exhausting. Here, in 20 minutes, they can do one interview that’ll go to the biggest stations all over the country, then they can go watch the other bands. The artists love us. And the stations have access to all these artists in one space, and can reap the benefits of each others’ questions.'...

These segments will also be broadcast on Radio Bonnaroo, which airs 24/7 to the campgrounds and surrounding area for the entire festival. 'We lease a local radio station [Manchester’s Fantasy 101.5] for five days and put a frequency on the air,' says [Music Allies CEO Sean] O’Connell. 'And we have speakers all throughout the campground. When you’re crawling into your tent at 5:30 in the morning after seeing the Flaming Lips do a late-night set, and that hot sun is starting to come up on the horizon, you may hear Brian Eno holding a note for 20 minutes. We want this to be part of your dreamscape. Nobody has the luxury to program a radio station like that.'"

The Family Dog in Denver

2007-06-13T22:11:00.000-06:00

The Family Dog was famous for bringing so many 1960s acts to Denver (many of the collectable posters from that era were for shows there) and for giving Barry Fey, Denver's most famous rock promoter, his start.

My college roommate worked at the Family Dog and I used to go there. The only two shows I can remember were the Doors and Canned Heat (the night they got busted for the Denver police).

Denver's Family Dog had roots in, like, the Summer of Love RockyMountain News, 6/8/07: "It was 40 years ago on June 7, 1967, that Fey flew to San Francisco to meet with the Family Dog folks in what would mark the genesis of The Family Dog concert venue here at 1601 W. Evans Ave.

Fey was looking for a place to feature original music when he contacted Bob Cohen with the Family Dog. Cohen liked the tape of local band Eighth Penny Matter so much that he flew from San Francisco to Denver during the Summer of Love.

'That's how the Family Dog was born,' Fey said. 'That was the most important day in Colorado music history.'

Denver's Family Dog opened with Big Brother and the Holding Company, featuring Janis Joplin. Others who graced the stage were Blue Cheer, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, The Doors and Buffalo Springfield.

The club, which never made any money, in part because tickets were $3.50, eventually morphed into The Dog until it closed with the return of Joplin in June 1968. 'The week before we closed Bobby Kennedy was shot,' Fey said."

Gangs and free concerts

2007-06-13T21:34:00.000-06:00

Denver has lots of free concerts. The City Park Jazz series has been going on for 21 years and draws as many as 10,000 people to hear the weekly Sunday concerts. It's been considered a family-friendly event.

However, this year there are reports that gang members are using the event to show their presence.

More police to patrol at jazz series - Rocky Mountain News, 6/13/07: "Denver resident Dana Alexander has crossed the City Park Jazz series off his family’s calendar this year. ...

During the first two weekends this month, gang activity tarnished the popular jazz series, a normally peaceful and family-friendly event."

Colorado Music Scene History

2007-06-13T15:29:00.000-06:00

Right now is probably the best time ever in the history of Denver rock. There are a ton of great local bands on the scene. And the major label success of The Fray has finally gotten the labels (what is left of them) to actively look at Denver bands to sign.

This is a look at Colorado music from about 1980 to 2000. It's not comprehesive (because no person could have been everywhere and involved with every band), but it's one man's look

The Colorado Music Scene - History

Festival VIP passes

2007-06-12T12:54:00.000-06:00

This article mentions that there are a group of affluent music fans who want to attend festivals, but want to minimize the hassles involved. Offer them good parking, clean bathrooms, a nice place to stay, a VIP bar, and they will pay for those extras.

Older, wealthier fans go VIP at music festivals - Music - MSNBC.com, 6/12/07: "... access to a real bathroom, enjoy free and discounted food and drinks and then he’ll be driven to a hotel 30 miles away from the festival site in Tennessee....

Bonnaroo draws 80,000 people to a farm in rural Manchester, 65 miles south of Nashville, but not all of them want to sweat through four days of music under sometimes inclement weather, crammed into the crowded tent city....

At Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park, private cabanas on the shore of Lake Michigan cost more than $32,500 for a party of 30. Air-conditioned viewing stands were available for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Bonnaroo artists will perform a private show for VIP guests on opening night Thursday."

The experimental music scene in different countries

2007-06-11T13:17:00.000-06:00

A discussion of experimental music and jazz in Philadelphia, France, and the rest of Europe.

The Paris Experiment :: Music :: Philadelphia City Paper, 6/7/07: "[Jack] Wright finds a similarity in the explosion of young, enthusiastic improvisers in France, playing anywhere they can, from established venues to house shows, similar to what's happening now in Philadelphia, with one important exception — the makeup of the audience. 'The audiences that I experienced there were pretty much mixed, with children and older people. It wasn't a 'scene' audience like we have in Philadelphia. There was always a lot of curiosity because this music was completely new for these people.'"

Concerts in the Apple Music Store

2007-06-11T12:39:00.000-06:00

Leaving New York: Goodbye Apple Store And So Long SoHo - Gawker, 6/11/07: "I'd of course heard of the Apple Store having concerts. But since I'm usually only in Manhattan from 9 to 6, Monday through Friday, I never actually happen upon these things. So this was the first time I'd seen a concert at the Apple Store, and it was totally a spectacle. There weren't just bouncers, there were security people there. The people who were there for the concert looked different (younger) than the people who were there to shop. Some hapless dude looking for a laptop bag had made his way upstairs, and the security force was all like making that direct pointing and 'outta-there' thumb motion usually reserved for mosh pits. A security guy at the top of the stairs escorted the hapless geek downstairs.

The clerk returned with my screen cleaner and rung me up from a handheld, wireless register (had not done this before, must say it was pretty cool). While she was doing this, I looked to the front door of the store. Owen Wilson and a friend (or dealer, perhaps) were being shown in and were heading right upstairs to the show.

So when the Apple Store has a concert, not only do they have bouncers and security staff, they've even got a VIP protocol. I was reminded of last summer, when I saw Lansing-Dreiden play at the 'Starbucks Salon' (also in Soho, just down the street from the Apple Store). I remember when I went to shows at venues that didn't sell grande chais and laptop screen cleaners. Surely those kinds of places still exist, and surely that's where new bands play, and where new music fans go to see them. Those are the kinds of places I went seven years ago, when I first moved here, and surely they still exist."

Selling music venues for real estate value

2007-06-11T12:09:00.000-06:00

Live Nation has been trying to sell off some of its music venues -- primarily the ones that are worth more as real estate than as a venue. But there have no offers for the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Indianapolis.

The beat goes on at Verizon center -- Indianapolis Business Journal, 6/9/07: Live Nation is interested in selling only for redevelopment, not to another promoter, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor in chief of Pollstar, a trade publication covering the concert industry. Bongiovanni expects the company will be willing to wait to get its asking price, which local brokers say is about $100,000-per-acre too optimistic.

So far, Live Nation has sold an amphitheater in Nashville, Tenn., and is exploring the sale of others in Columbus, Ohio, and Tinley Park, Ill. In a phone message, a corporate spokesman said no transaction has taken place for Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville. A local CB Richard Ellis broker who is marketing the property did not return phone messages.

'Maybe they keep Indianapolis because they can’t find anybody to come up with the money,' Bongiovanni said.

The sale strategy is designed to generate cash for a company that has struggled since its 2005 separation from San Antonio-based Clear Channel. Another reason is a changing concert industry. These days, fewer acts sell enough tickets to justify shows at large venues such as Verizon, which has 6,000 reserved seats and room for up to 18,000 on the lawn.

Amphitheaters also provide only seasonal revenue and don’t offer the tiered, high price seating potential of enclosed venues. Smaller concert venues are in, and Live Nation is betting on that business. In Indianapolis, Live Nation manages shows at the Murat Centre and the Lawn at White River State Park."

Marc Ribot: The Care and Feeding of a Musical Margin

2007-06-11T11:40:00.000-06:00

A detailed article about the need for subsidies for music clubs -- particularly jazz and new music clubs.

Marc Ribot: The Care and Feeding of a Musical Margin - All About Jazz, 7/7/07: "The market is failing as a means of funding downtown new music venues. The venues have either abandoned new music booking priorities (like Knitting Factory did at the end of the '90s), switched to being subsidized by musicians (like Tonic and the above mentioned new venues are doing now) or both. Musician benefit concerts and recordings, once a 'special' situation, are being normalized as a means of funding....

New music composers of the '40s through the early '60s didn't expect to make money through the live performance market; many taught to earn a living. John Cage's income wasn't based on packing a nightclub with door-fee paying, drink-buying customers; many of his history making premieres were attended by fewer people than attended an average gig at CBGB. He was supported mainly by commissions and performance fees, by grants from private and public foundations. In experimental jazz, things were much the same, although less generously funded; avant gardists through the '70s played a 'loft' scene not known for generating big bucks. Cecil Taylor worked as a dishwasher while developing his history-changing style. And when he was able to quit his day job, it was due to the backing of mostly European, subsidized festivals....

The idea behind European public arts subsidies, the reason why NYC jazz/new music artists for at least the last 40 years have played Paris, Cologne and Zurich many more times than they've played Hartford (and how many have ever played Des Moines?) is a doctrine called “the European cultural exception”, a set of government policies based on the concept that, even within a market economy, art/culture is to be treated differently from other commodities."

The blurring of genres

2007-06-10T21:44:00.000-06:00

Bang on a Can - Music - Review - New York Times, 6/5/07: "When Bang on a Can was founded, the purpose was to provide a home for music by Mr. Gordon, Mr. Lang, Ms. Wolfe and their colleagues: an eclectic post-Minimalism that openly acknowledged an indebtedness to rock, jazz and a variety of world-music idioms. Two decades later these composers still haven’t entirely entered the concert-music mainstream. Still, this year’s marathon indicated that they may have achieved something even more meaningful.

It wasn’t just that contemporary-classical adherents shared space with alt-rock fans here. Rather, what seemed clear was that Bang on a Can has played a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn’t concern itself with boundaries among new-music composition, the pianist Vijay Iyer’s sophisticated modern jazz, the Uzbek folk ensemble Mashriq’s eloquent meditations and innovative post-rock experimentation from groups like he Books, Clogs and D�lek. The prevailing tone was that if music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come."

The growth of mid-sized venues in NYC

2007-06-10T21:39:00.000-06:00

Here's a bit of an overview of Bowery Presents, a promoter that has grown enough to take on Live Nation and AEG in NYC.

Bowery Presents - Concert Industry - Music - New York Times, 6/7/07: "It started with the 250-capacity Mercury Lounge on East Houston Street, which opened in 1994 for $250,000, some $35,000 of which came from the maxed-out credit cards of Michael Swier, one of the Bowery Presents partners. Four years later came the 575-capacity, $1 million Bowery Ballroom, and in 2004 the company began booking Webster Hall, which fits 1,400. Last year it acquired Northsix in Brooklyn, which will open in September as the Music Hall of Williamsburg, and the 3,000-capacity former Exit dance club on West 56th Street, to reopen as a rock hall in October."

Rap-Vermont style

2007-06-02T12:12:00.000-06:00

Yo, Vermont, What Up? These 3 Dudes, for Starters - New York Times, 6/2/07: "The rap, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL7uW4TYqbs, pokes fun at Vermont institutions and stereotypes like dairy products and snowplows.

“Green Mountain State, where we roll on skis, don’t mess with our cows or we’ll break your knees,” go the rappers, who perform under the name X10."

Melbourne losing music venues

2007-06-02T09:55:00.000-06:00

Live venues hit rock bottom | Herald Sun, 5/31/07: "WITH the number of live venues dwindling fast, Melbourne's music industry is on the verge of a crisis.

Melbourne's live venues seem to be dropping like flies, Melbourne losing two rock rooms last week alone.

The 1880-capacity Palace will close in two weeks to make way for the $300 million redevelopment of the St Kilda triangle site.

And Fitzroy's Spanish Club, which holds about 500, will close on June 23 after a long stoush with residents, council and liquor licensing....

That means Melbourne will be without a 1800-2500 capacity standing-room live venue for the foreseeable future, with the Forum the closest candidate at 1500.

"

America's 40 Best Music Venues

2007-06-02T09:34:00.000-06:00

Paste Magazine :: Feature :: America's 40 Best Music Venues: "Sometimes it’s the view—you’re at Denver’s Red Rocks, your eyes darting back and forth from the band to the landscape, and the music seems changed by the surrounding beauty. Sometimes it’s the history—a young band, onstage at The Fillmore, stands on the shoulders of the giants whose music helped reshape the world. Sometimes it’s the sense of discovery—you’re at L.A.’s Hotel Cafe, and you suspect the night’s opening act is headed for stardom. And sometimes, like with The Bowery Ballroom in New York, it’s simply the fact that on any given night, you know they’ve booked another great show.

To help find America’s best music venues, we went to the experts—you. In addition to our many contributors scattered across the country and many of the artists driving from club to club, Paste readers nominated more than 500 different venues at PasteMagazine.com—from hole-in-the-wall rock clubs to elegant theaters, legendary halls to brand new bars, quiet listening rooms to rock extravaganzas.

We weighed history, setting, sound, character, comfort, atmosphere, vibrancy, uniqueness, and their roles in helping launch careers. Among hundreds of worthy choices, these 40 venues rose above their peers. Our picks for the best music venues in America follow in this special section..."

Leisure: How People Spend Their Free Time

2007-05-29T08:15:00.000-06:00

Here's a good resource to get you thinking about American society and what we do and don't do with our free time.

Focusing on music, or even entertainment, can often be too limiting. If you are selling these concepts, you need to take into consideration all the various activities competing for a person's time, attention, and financial resources. The academic field of leisure studies gives a broad overview of time/recreation consumption.

In particular you might want to look at the PDF file, "Leisure in America: Searching for the Forest Amongst the Trees." It has culled data from a number of different research studies to give you an overview of American culture and leisure time activities.

The Compleat Leader (Getty Leadership Institute)

The economic impact of the arts

2007-05-27T07:33:00.000-06:00

If you want some economic data on the value of arts non-profits, here's a good resource.

Arts & Economic Prosperity III: The Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations and Their Audiences

Here's some of the summary report:

RATIO OF LOCAL VS. NONLOCAL AUDIENCES

While the ratio of local to nonlocal attendees is different in every community, the national sample revealed that 39 percent of attendees traveled from outside of the county in which the event took place (nonlocal) and 61 percent were local (resided inside the county).

VISITORS SPEND MORE

In addition to spending data, researchers asked each of the 94,478 survey respondents to provide their home zip codes. Analysis of this data enabled a comparison of event-related spending by local and nonlocal attendees. Previous economic and tourism research has shown that nonlocal attendees spend more than their local counterparts. This study reflects those findings. Local audiences, who live in the county in which the event occurred, spent an average of $19.53 per person, per event in addition to the cost of admission. Nonlocal attendees, those who live outside the county, spent twice this amount, or $40.19 per person. As would be expected, nonlocal attendees spent significantly more in the categories of lodging, meals, and transportation. These findings demonstrate that when a community attracts arts and culture tourists, it harnesses significant economic rewards.

Attendees are 61% LOCAL / 39% NONLOCAL

NONPROFIT ARTS & CULTURE ATTENDEES SPEND $27.79 PER PERSON PER EVENT

Spending Breakdowns

Residents (Residents are attendees who live within the county in which the cultural event occurred.)

Meals/Refreshments $10.77
Gifts/Souvenirs $3.32
Lodging $1.08
Child Care $0.34
Transportation $1.62
Other $2.40 $3.45
Total $19.53

Nonresident (Nonresidents live outside of the county.)

Meals/Refreshments $16.35
Gifts/Souvenirs $4.78
Lodging $10.91
Child Care $0.33
Transportation $4.37
Other $3.45
Total $40.19

All audiences

Meals/Refreshments $13.00
Gifts/Souvenirs $3.90
Lodging $5.01
Child Care $0.34
Transportation $2.72
Other $2.82
Total $27.79

ARTS & CULTURE TOURISTS SPEND MORE AND STAY LONGER

As communities compete for a tourist’s dollar, arts and culture have proven to be magnets for travelers and their money. Local businesses are able to grow because travelers extend the length of their trips to attend cultural events.

Travelers who include arts and culture events in their trips differ from other U.S. travelers in a number of ways.

Arts and culture travelers:
• Spend more ($623 vs. $457)
• Use a hotel, motel, or bed-and-breakfast (62 percent vs. 55 percent)
• Spend $1,000 or more (19 percent vs. 12 percent)
• Travel longer (5.2 nights vs. 3.4 nights)

A 2001 research study by the Travel Industry Association of America and Partners in Tourism indicates that:
• 65 percent of all adult travelers attended an arts and culture event while on a trip that was 50+ miles away from home.
• 32 percent of these cultural travelers stayed longer because of the event.
• Of those that stayed longer, 57 percent extended their trips by one or more nights.

Creating IPod Tours of Your Music Scene

2007-05-27T06:08:00.000-06:00

Here's a site that makes available audio tours via iPods. Some people sell them, others give them away for free. I don't see a lot being done with music yet, it would be make sense. Combine a tour of local venues with music from local bands that play there frequently. Find interesting little facts about the venues that would appeal to tourists and locals who want to know more.

Denver would be a perfect location because some of our hippest venues are in colorful parts of town and have long histories as converted bars, failed past music experiments, etc. For example, the Family Dog, which existed briefly in the 1960s and featured the Doors, Janis Joplin, and the like, is now a strip club.

And Denver, famous for "On the Road," is intrinsically colorful anyway.

AudioSnacks.com: Podcast and MP3 Audio Tours for Travel, Museums, and More!

A showcase for teen art and music

2007-05-26T16:04:00.000-06:00

5/19/07, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER'All Ages Art Night' offers teens space to make music and fashion statement: "In one corner: teen bands covering Nirvana and The Killers.

In another: a hip-hop fashion show with local youths in their modeling debut.

In between those two areas: spoken-word performances, masters of ceremonies spitting original verse and 60 community organizations that brought together hundreds of teens from all over the city.

'Seattle is really successful at creating innovative programs to work with teens, but there are not a ton of places to show what they've done,' said Jennifer Bisson, who organized the annual 'All Ages Art Night' at the Central Library and helped transform it into a performance venue Friday afternoon and night. 'There are so many negative images about teens. This is a positive thing in a public forum, which is serendipitous, because it also builds community.'

Under thousands of diamond-shaped glass panes in the Fifth Avenue lobby, roaming bands of teens wandered to tables piled high with information and talked with helpful volunteers from groups such as Readergirlz (a local writers collective for teen girls), Youth Speaks and Emerging Voices (poetry workshops for teens), Skate Like a Girl, the Girl Scouts, the events-and-program-packed Redmond Old Firehouse and the Richard Hugo House.

Programs such as this, Bisson said, give them a sense of ownership, especially with the Teen Advisory Board the library created to help bring more teens into the system."

How a jam festival got started in NJ

2007-05-26T02:19:00.000-06:00

Drew Wajnert started out as music fan who decided he could improve upon the festival experience. One of his complaints was the lack of portable toilets. At his own events he has gone so far as to set aside some just for women and others just for mothers and kids.

Phanphest Takes A Leap Of FAITH on UpstageMagazine.com, 5/25/07"Phanphest Entertainment started out as a backyard tradition in late 2002 as Phan Phest 1.0; an intimate group of friends from The Gathering of the Vibes message boards were encouraged to gather on one acre of property for a barbeque, some keg beer, and some great music. Attendees were invited to camp out overnight on the property. Everybody had a great time, and the feedback encouraged the group of friends to do it again six months later but this time with two days of music.

Phan Phest 1.5 was held in May of 2003. Featuring two bands on both days, as well as many other acts, the backyard party maxed out the little acre with 62 tents. A larger, extended group of friends gathered for the event and were pleased with the results. But, it was pretty clear that the event had to move.

Friends helped make Phan Phest 2.0 happen in October of 2003, and realize the dream of a three-day music festival, so the event was moved to 2 acres. Thirteen bands played over 3 days on a stage that the company constructed.

The following May, Phanphest put together a festival featuring 22 bands over a 4 acres area. This was the show that truly launched the company and solidified its future. The festival was such a success that Phanphest began searching for a larger location to work with. They began producing indoor festivals and regular weekly shows in Asbury Park, NJ. Steadily, they were assembling a roster of acts dedicated to the Phanphest mission. Acts that will now be rewarded by a spot in Phanphest 3.0 this August.

Phanphest 3.0 will be held at Indian Lookout Country Club in Mariaville, NY. This was the location for The Gathering of the Vibes for the last several years. When that festival decided to move on, Phanphest eagerly moved their festival to the location.

'It's 200 plus acres of property,' said [promoter/creator Drew] Wajnert. "We're shooting for 3000 people. Our vision for it is to be family friendly. We're going to welcome Deadheads and Phishheads with kids who want to bring them to a safe environment. There's a great security solution that's already built in and they have existing facilities. This is the total package. It allows me to be the talent buyer and just focus on the production.'"

Another way to market local music

2007-05-25T23:47:00.000-06:00

NYTimes, 5/25/07 - Facebook Expands Into MySpace: "In its new effort, which was to be unveiled on the site Thursday night, Facebook will be relying on the work of entrepreneurs like Ali Partovi, the chief executive of iLike, a company in Seattle that gives users the opportunity to hear and buy the music their friends are listening to.

Facebook does not have a music feature, but iLike, which along with Amazon and Microsoft was one of 65 companies that appeared at Facebook’s event, is one of several that plans to make music-related tools available on the site.

If users choose to add iLike to their Facebook pages, the software will automatically see where they live and what bands and songs they say they enjoy. It will then recommend songs and local concerts.

ILike will get a commission if the user acts on either recommendation, and it will also show its own ads."

The lure of the live music experience

2007-05-22T23:05:00.000-06:00

San Francisco Bay Guardian, 5/23/07 - Show me: "Pavlov's e-mail robot knows what gets me salivating — aside from those wolf beach towels on Amazon.com (wintry wolves and hot sand go together about as well as infants and live grenades): namely, live music. Drive blearily into the Mojave for Coachella, jump through hoops to get to Seattle for Bumbershoot, make the red-eye to Austin for South by Southwest, take the midnight train to Tennessee's Bonnaroo, hock yourself for England's All Tomorrow's Parties, hazard reindeer sashimi for Reykjavik's Iceland Airwaves — take note of the chart; I have a history of doing anything for a life-altering show."

Creating a music promotion business from the ground up

2007-05-16T00:40:00.000-06:00

How a college student went from club booker to full-time music promoter.

Promoter helps rock scene thrive - Chico Music Guide, 5/16/07: "Devil Kat Rock Productions founder Katie Perry has always been passionate about music, but it wasn't until she moved from Redding to Chico to attend college that she found her ardor for music promotion.

'I love rock 'n' roll,' Perry said. 'I honestly think I would be entirely lost if I didn't do this.'

Perry is a music promoter who promotes, stage-manages and books various music talents, both local and national, to perform in Chico and Redding. Since starting in 2002, she has had a full calendar of shows. On top of her 40-hour-a-week day job, she pumps out another 30 to 50 hours under her alter ego Devil Kat Rock Productions....

'Having shows is like rolling the dice, I really don't know how many people are going to come,' she said. 'Some people are going to talk shit and critique - telling me how I should do things - these people are generally the ones that don't get off their asses and do something.'"

Happenings in Baltimore

2007-05-16T00:25:00.001-06:00

This is an excerpt from a long article on an art/music collective, its performance space, and how it gave rise to much of the current indie music scene in Baltimore. It's quite a good profile of how a group of friends can have a significant impact on a community.

Feature: Wham City Doesn't Want To Take Over The World--But It Just Might Anyway | 5/16/2007 | Citypaper.com: "... Wham City was a rented industrial loft space squatting somewhere between Mount Vernon and Charles Village. (Its members have requested we don't divulge the exact location in print.) In its first incarnation, it was often filled with garbage. Smashing plates in a sink with a baseball bat was a popular activity when bored. But especially after it moved one floor upstairs in the same building, it was a crucial local space for "music shows, variety shows, TV talk shows, video productions, theatrical productions, lecture series, potluck dinners, photo shoots, fashion shows, [and] dance parties" in the words of Wham City member Adam Endres. Wham City united many young people in the Baltimore art and music scenes who maybe didn't even know they needed uniting

In fact, the Wham City collective is but one spiky tip of a massive, tangled ball of creativity currently lurking just under Baltimore's liquor-licensed layer of legit bars and venues, galleries, and theaters. Bands are multiplying like sui generis bunnies in little warrenlike warehouses all over the city, and they're being formed by folks either too young to be squatting and making a racket five years ago, or not even living in the city, or both. These bands do intersect occasionally with the city's longstanding free improvisation/noise crews, but with their vestigial connections to punk rock and their continual reification/recycling of the pop-cultural junk they grew up on, they're not really experimentalists. They're making pop music that bends at various wonky, acute angles.

And though the music is the loudest and most obvious manifestation of all this energy, you can feel it in everything from local T-shirt designers to zine makers to video artists to sculptors to performance-art shenanigans yet to be named. More often than not, they're the same kids in the bands. Wham City has been, if not quite at the center of all this attention, certainly a central node.

Since you can hum along to some of it, the indie-music world outside Charm City is taking note of Baltimore's young underground. National media outlets have started to glom onto Wham City and its satellites as another installment of the Baltimania that's given us a hundred half-assed articles on club music and The Wire in the last 18 months. Just a week ago, Deacon was featured in the The New York Times, where he was hilariously described as a 'sensitive electro-party rocker.' Baltimore bands recently swarmed the annual South by Southwest music industry clusterfuck in Austin, Texas; Deacon played no less than five shows that weekend.

Locally, evidence of this explosion is increasingly easy to find on the records released by labels such as Wildfire Wildfire, Creative Capitalism, and recent Washington transplant Carpark (which is sucking up Baltimore bands at a quick clip); at exhibitions and performances at Current Gallery; at the biweekly Are We Not Men? dance party at the Depot; at the Talking Head club until its closure; at shows in the artist-riddled H&H Building; at house parties and one-off loft gatherings; at Baltimore institutions of 'high' culture like the Walters Art Museum; and at Wham City itself, until recently. See, all this celebration comes at a strange time, because Wham City, as it was, is no more.

All illegal venues live on borrowed time; last September--after a string of shows plagued by assholes pulling fire alarms, smashing windows, and setting fires--Wham City was forced to stop holding shows following alleged complaints by the fire marshal to the building's management and threats of eviction from the building's owner. The collective rallied and is hunting for a new, potentially legit, space, but at the moment there's a feeling that the local arts community has lost something important just as its intensity is peaking.'...

The collective initially formed around six friends, but its ranks have swelled to include anywhere from 16 to 24 people in Baltimore, and 11 of them are here today. It's two days before everyone has to be out of the building for good....

Stranded in a city where they knew almost no one, the Purchase kids developed a drunken bunker mentality, holed up in the space that would become Wham City with no phones, blowing what little money they had at the local liquor store, and destroying personal property when boredom threatened.... [But, as the article explains, things got better.]

The past six months alone have already seen a Wham City theater night, a cross-country tour, sundry live shows around town (and their attendant poster art), two episodes of in-house talk show The Ed Schrader Show, several records released by various WC-related bands, a gallery exhibition, a museum showcase, various videos, two issues of Catatac (a traditionally folded-and-stapled zine published by Kate Levitt, Mark Brown, and Kevin Sherry that's full of contributions from Wham members), and a bunch of stuff not yet ready for prime-time consumption. "I know of at least two board games that are being developed," Connor Kizer says. Sure, not all of it needs to be documented, but the irrepressible, overwhelming mass of stuff that Wham City churns out is always impressive."

Putting jazz clubs into perspective

2007-05-15T23:57:00.000-06:00

An interview with Branford Marsalis.

MetroTimes Detroit, 5/16/07 -‘Jazz has never been popular’: "Marsalis: Jazz music has never been popular. I think that we need to get away from that lie. Jazz clubs back in the day, were considered places of counterculture. If you listen to records like John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard and Bill Evans Live at the Village Vanguard, what you will hear is a lot of people talking and treating the music with relative indifference. In the '50s, if you wanted to go to a cool place to hang out and have some drinks and talk, you went to a jazz club. Where were you going to go? Lawrence Welk didn't have a club where you could go to. Now they have all kinds of clubs that didn't exist back then. Whoever heard of a cigar bar or a wine bar?"

MT: In those venues the music is secondary to the ambience and the socializing.

Marsalis: The music has always been secondary; that is why you hear people talking. Jazz has never been popular. I think that is just a common thing to say, and I don't know why. Just for research purposes, you should get the Time magazine with Thelonious Monk on the cover [from 1964] and read the entire article. What you'll notice is there's very little in that article about jazz music. It's more focused on the personality and jazz as a lifestyle. The American aesthetic has always viewed all music as a form of entertainment. Any idea of music as an art has always been something that America has rejected since we have had a country.

Live shows in movie theaters

2007-05-15T23:43:00.000-06:00

Movie complexes get in tune, will offer live music shows - BostonHerald.com, 5/15/07: " National Amusements Inc. plans to launch its own branded live music venues within its chain of movie theaters, according to president Shari Redstone.

The Dedham company is developing the concept with guidance and booking assistance from the Bensusan family, owners of the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City’s Times Square and the renowned Blue Note Jazz Club in Greenwich Village.

'What we see is creating auditoriums in several of our theaters that are primarily devoted to live entertainment,' Redstone said....

The as-yet-unnamed venues would be modeled after the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, which offers patrons both dinner and entertainment. ...

National Amusements is testing a live music program at its Showcase Cinemas Buckland Hills in Manchester, Conn., which is being turned into a Cinema de Lux entertainment concept. The venue’s Chatters Bar & Grill hosted a four-week run of a cabaret-style show with Carol O’Shaughnessy this month and last, and is starting to feature live bands on Saturday nights."
"

The Arcade Fire likes churches

2007-05-15T02:11:00.000-06:00

5/14/07, Pitchfork Feature: Interview: The Arcade Fire:"Pitchfork: The Arcade Fire seems drawn to churches, both as performance spaces and as inspiration. Can you talk a little bit about the churches in your life?

WB: ... Most buildings aren't really built with acoustics in mind, and small churches definitely are. Voices need to carry. But also just architecturally-- there's something going into the architecture that's very inspiring.

Pitchfork: Sure. And even taken out of all religious and spiritual contexts, there's something peaceful about being in a church. Church is one of the few places left in America where there's no noise, no television, no radio, no advertising. It lends itself to contemplation.

WB: Right, the purpose of the building is totally different than, like, an office building. It's designed to have an atmosphere. If you think about it, if you've ever been to a Catholic service, it's practically a laser light show. It's very dramatic, very theatrical. The outfits they wear, it's all designed to be impressive."

Concert promotion using mobile phones

2007-05-13T06:15:00.000-06:00

This article discusses how Fall Out Boy and other bands are using mobile phones to promote themselves and particularly to enhance the concert experience. The assumption is that teenagers want to get messages via phone rather than email.

While the idea of taping into cellphones at concerts makes sense since that's the best way to communicate with audiences during the event, some of the other ideas seem a bit too gimmicky and too youth-specific.

My feeling is that mobile promotions are good when they appeal to audiences' this-concert-is-really-about-me mentality (e.g., allowing them to post messages and photos to giant screens during the show), but don't add much when they are just used as a way to create faux intimacy between a band's promotional department and the fans who sign up. It kind of reminds me of those 900 numbers where you could listen to a photo message from your favorite star for a fee.

Rocky Mountain News, 5/5/07 - Bands SPK 2 GR8 fans:

"• One fan will have the opportunity to go backstage and meet the band via a text-messaging contest held live during the performance.

• The band is encouraging fans to take camera-phone photos during the show and upload them to a section of their Web site called "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," text-message shorthand for "thanks for the memories" and also the title of their current single.

• In some tour venues, fans will be able to send the photos directly to video screens on either side of the stage, a multimedia upgrade from the now-common practice of displaying audience text messages.

It's all part of a text messaging fan club campaign the group launched in late March. Fall Out Boy developed a set of five mobile trading cards that fans can only receive by signing up for the service and texting in updates on a regular basis. Each time fans text in a message, they receive one randomly selected card. Some are rarer than others, so the odds of getting the rarest card increase with the number of messages sent.

The trading cards are in the form of Tarot cards, designed around graphic themes from the band's new album, Infinity on High. Once downloaded, fans can use them for their phones' wallpaper images.

After joining the text-message fan club, fans will get updates on Fall Out Boy news such as when the band's next video will premiere, ticket alerts for local secret shows, updates about about the band members, and other information - all delivered directly to their mobile phones....

The group uses Mozes to manage its text-messaging efforts; the Palo Alto, Calif., company claims another 700 artists also use its service.

Mozes CEO Dorrian Porter said Fall Out Boy has signed up 'tens of thousands' of fans since the Tarot card promotion began, and recently had the fifth-most subscribers on the service, after Hinder, Korn, hellogoodbye and Boys Like Girls.

Mozes also runs the backstage pass contest at FOB tours. The company first tested the concept last fall with rockers The Plain White T's. For each show, roughly half of those attending responded to the content to get a backstage pass - a staggering response rate.

'It looked like a sea of teenagers pulling out their phones at once,' Porter said....

Concerts offer a variety of ways for bands and fans to interact using mobile phones. Artists already let fans choose which song they should play during their encore via text-message voting. Or they can remix a song played live that night into a custom ring tone available only to those who attended that specific show....

Kevin Lyman, the brains behind the [Vans Warped Tour] alternative rock festival, has already begun integrating wireless alerts into the tour - everything from announcing the day's lineup to giving a heads up on autograph sessions or exclusive backstage acoustic shows. Eventually, he hopes to send concert tickets directly to fans' mobile phones, scanning a bar code on the phone screen like a ticket to get in."

Auditioning for subway gigs

2007-05-13T02:49:00.000-06:00

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority held auditions to find performers for its subways.

NYTimes, 5/12/07 - It’s Not ‘American Idol,’ but Subway Station Auditions Draw Crowd in Washington : "An average of 700,000 commuters in the greater Washington area ride the Metro to and from work each weekday. Visitors bump that number up considerably on weekends and during the tourist seasons, making the system the second-busiest in the country after New York City’s, which also features performers chosen by audition.

In Washington, performers will need to keep their day jobs — panhandling will not be allowed.

But the musicians will be paid $200 for each two-hour performance. The Arts in Transit performances will begin in early June and last through October, before returning for the winter holiday season. The number and times for performances have not been set, nor have the stations been chosen that will feature the artists. But there will be twice-daily appearances, in the late morning and then again in the early evening, close to the morning and afternoon commutes, at the selected stations."

Mexico City and indie rock

2007-05-13T02:34:00.000-06:00

Los Dynamite Noiselab Mexico City Rock - New York Times, 5/13/07: "Thanks mostly to the downloadable avalanche of globalization and the rise of MySpace the current independent rock scene is full of artists who may be from Mexico City but sound as if they could be from New York, Stockholm or Paris....

The debut of MySpace in 2003 couldn’t have come at a better time for the Mexico City indie scene. In the 1990s major labels could still afford to be interested in a diverse swath of rock and alternative acts, but by 2003 they were no longer signing bands whose sales weren’t projected to reach gold in their first month or who weren’t easy matches for telenovela soundtracks. In response a string of indie labels emerged to fill the void, and suddenly it seemed that there were more bands than ever. There were more young people making music on home computers, more places to play (galleries and storefronts as much as clubs) and more international acts — like the White Stripes, which made Mexico City a heralded early stop on a 2005 tour — coming to town.

Most in the scene agree that the watershed moment came in 2004 with the appearance of Reactor, a taste-making, state-supported radio station. Unlike previous Mexico City alternative rock radio ventures, Reactor made breaking independent and underground bands from Mexico as central to its mission as playing the latest from Franz Ferdinand. 'If a band has a strong following, we take notice,' said Raúl David (Rulo) Vázquez, the station’s lead programmer.

Everything, then, was in place for an indie explosion. MySpace just struck the match.

'There’s always what we call the Mexico City lag,' said Luis Arce, a member of Chikita Violenta, whose debut album, 'The Stars and Suns Sessions,' was recently released on Noiselab. 'In the U.S. there was the college rock boom — Pavement, Sebadoh, even Nirvana — and now in Mexico City we have our own version of that. This is our own ’90s indie boom, just a decade or so late.'...

'In previous generations the goal was to present yourself as part of the city, to define the city and express the city,' said Jorge Hipolito, a veteran of the Mexico City scene who works at Noiselab. 'Now that doesn’t matter so much.'...

One particularly controversial result of Nafta has been the growing number of young bands choosing to sing in English, even if the members don’t speak it particularly well. Most of these bands claim that it’s not a bid for crossover success, but a direct reflection of their musical upbringing. 'We’re more comfortable singing and writing in English,' said Mr. David of Chikita Violenta. 'We’re proud of being from Mexico, but this is the way we like to do music. It would be dishonest for us to sing in Spanish.'"

Alternative venues for indie music

2007-05-13T02:14:00.000-06:00

Music venues have been closing in NYC, but shows in non-traditional locations are doing well.

New York Night Life - New York Times, 5/11/07: "'Anything is a venue,' said the promoter Todd Patrick, known professionally as Todd P. For six years he has made it his mission to program music in far-flung places, from divey bars in Greenpoint to Lutheran churches to private lofts. Now New York’s alt-location guru, he has recently expanded to work with bands on the verge of stardom (Animal Collective, which he booked in 2005) and even nationally known acts (Oneida, Trans Am) at large clubs like Studio B in Brooklyn, winning the attention of the music industry.

But Mr. Patrick’s hallmark remains the cheap, on-the-fly, do-it-yourself concert, promoted through his Web site (toddpnyc.com), his e-mail list (13,000 strong) and MySpace, blog and newspaper and magazine listings. Essentially a one-man band, Mr. Patrick, 31, has interns who work the door (ticket prices rarely go above $10) and stamp hands (he only does all-ages shows) while he helps set up.

'Because the idea is about D.I.Y., I like to show the strings,' he said. 'I want people to come to the show and see me build the P.A. system, see that there’s nothing glossy about what we’re doing. I think alternative venues are a great way of doing that. It just kind of throws it off. If a club is the quote-unquote appropriate place to see music, why do people have so much more fun in a warehouse?'...

Nearby, interns counted the door money; Mr. Patrick takes 10 percent before expenses (security, interns) and the rest goes to performers....

Along with low overhead other common traits of this scene include out-of-the way locations (a long walk from the subway is common), online promotion, candles instead of spotlights and a high tolerance for graffiti: GlassLands, where the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed as part of a video shoot, has two rooms where anyone can scribble on the walls, markers and paint provided. Many places lack proper licensing; Mr. Patrick switches locations often to avoid the authorities. (Don Pedro is a legal establishment with a liquor license; the loft space was not.)"

Using music on Second Life to promote tourism

2007-05-13T01:44:00.000-06:00

This article mentions concerts being conducted at a Second Life site as a way to promote tourism at a real world location.

Lst night three Denver bands played a concert which was simultaneously broadcast live on Second Life and on ManiaTV. I didn't have a chance to watch, though.

Galveston Daily News, 5/13/07 - Site breathes 'Second Life' into isle tourism: "[Galveston.com co-founder Jim] Cordell’s private company has a contract with the Galveston Park Board of Trustees to promote the island through its official Web site, which the company owns and manages. The park board helps pay for advertising on Google but does not otherwise fund the company’s activities, Cordell said....

Cordell quickly learned that joining a virtual world costs real money, lots of it.

His company has spent almost $16,000 so far buying virtual land and paying a designer to re-create the island. Another $1,600 goes for monthly expenses related to Second Life.

Most of the money — $10,000 — has gone to Adam Gillis, a programmer from Nova Scotia, Canada, who has re-created many of Galveston’s treasured landmarks without ever seeing them in real life.

'The entire process was based on photos, photographic replicas for the most part,' Gillis said. 'I can pretty much build anything as long as I have dedicated photos that show the buildings from a good number of angles.' ...

'We are reaching an audience that wouldn’t come to us otherwise,' Cordell said. 'A lot of people don’t even know the real Galveston exists, until they visit us in Second Life. The whole idea is to get people to come here.'

Coachella history

2007-05-11T00:53:00.000-06:00

I just found this, though it came out a few weeks ago. The article gives a good overview of Coachella' history (read the entire article -- I've just included some excerpts). An on-going purpose of this blog is to show how festivals come together: what people have learned along the way in terms of successes and mistakes.

thedesertsun.com 4/27/07| Coachella evolves through the years: "Tollett, a soft-spoken native of the region who wears a trademark baseball cap, had been booking concerts since 1982. In 1993, he and his business partner, the late Rick Van Santern, booked Pearl Jam at Empire Polo Club because the Seattle band didn't want to perform in Los Angeles.

About 25,000 people showed up, but the polo field was so huge, Tollett said the crowd 'looked like 1,000.'

That's when he knew a big music event in Indio could be done. But, could it be successful with less popular bands? ...

In 1997, Tollett sketched some plans for the type of regional festival he'd like to stage.

He and Van Santern had worked the Lollapalooza festivals and knew the logistical problems of a traveling musical marathon. But they saw there was an audience for music that couldn't be heard on radio.

'There's actually a really big crowd of people who like small, different bands. Maybe if you put a bunch of them together, that might be a magnet for a lot of people,' Tollett said.

He began scouting locations, considering the Santa Fe Dam in East Los Angles before returning to Empire Polo Club.

'We were blown away how it was just calling our name to do a festival there,' he said of Empire....

They wanted to pattern their event after European festivals featuring simultaneous acts on multiple stages....

'We just went for it," Tollett said. "We didn't really have any business plan - just do a big show. I'm glad we did now.'

They booked bands they wanted to hear even if they weren't big record sellers or concert attractions like the acts at the recent Woodstock festival. The top bands over the two days were Tool and Rage Against the Machine and Beck and the Chemical Brothers.

'There were two different factors on (programming) - the European festival feel and the rave scene,' Tollett said.

'A lot of that had nothing to do with the Billboard charts. A couple of the bands were on radio, but the other 80 weren't, and I knew it was those 80 that were going to make the show really have a life in the future.'

... 20,000 people showed up the first day ...

'The show turned out so well - not draw-wise, but just how fun it was,' said Tollett. ...

Tollett later said Goldenvoice lost $800,000 that first year."

Revitalizing Denver's "Harlem"

2007-05-10T21:57:00.000-06:00

A new theater is opening in what was once Denver's center for black culture. Now the neighborhood is a mixture of 25% black, 43% Latino, and 27% white, so this theater plans to draw upon its neighborhood history but also expand to showcase a variety of cultural influences.

5/10/07, The Denver Post - New theater opening in Five Points neighborhood: "The Denver neighborhood once called "the Harlem of the West" is enjoying a cultural renaissance of its own these days....

Another person who sees the upside on the cultural front is Denver lawyer Kurt Lewis, who sold his house to open a new live theater, Crossroads at Five Points Theatre....

Five Points developer James Ellis is one of his biggest fans.

'One of the things we really like about Crossroads is that there are no boundaries, and that is implied by the name,' said Ellis, who plans to restore the facade of the historic Rossonian Hotel next door and reopen it as a live jazz venue with an upscale restaurant by summer 2008....

Five Points once boasted more than 50 jazz clubs and earned the city's first-ever designation as a neighborhood of 'cultural significance,' Ellis said. It was not only a favorite destination for such legends as Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday, it was a respite from the racism that pervaded just 10 blocks to the south....

And now Lewis, a white man, has leveraged his future to build an 84-seat, $450,000 theater in a building owned by a black man.

Everyone involved with Crossroads believes the theater, and the neighborhood, can best survive into the future if it celebrates its cultural past while also welcoming, even encouraging, all those who dared not go there before. That means celebrating diversity in a rainbow of colors.

That's one reason Lewis' 3,600-square-foot theater is opening with an Irish play. 'Bold Girls' will be followed by a one-woman jazz musical, and the world premiere of 'The Sisters, Sweetwater,' the story of two black women in the 1920s written by Hugo Jon Sayles of Shadow, Denver's only black theater company.

But Lewis envisions a melting- pot community resource open all day every day for classes, jazz, cabaret, poetry, fashion shows and even weekly 'open- mic dance.' Theater performances will start no later than 7 p.m., followed by late-night spoken- word artists Café Nuba and late- late-night screenings of the cult film 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show.'

Allowing many visions

'Denver doesn't really have a place that embraces the creative class, and it doesn't have a place that celebrates ethnicity,' Ellis said. 'Crossroads is a place that plans to do that and then some.'

Crossroads board member donnie l. betts said the theater will be unique because it seeks a convergence of creative cultures with differing values."

The World's Top Festivals

2007-05-09T15:20:00.000-06:00

Among US festivals, Burning Man made this list.

The World's Top Festivals -- Country Life:

The Young Season's Pick of the Festival Crop
Stanley May 26
Kimberly June 14
Glade June 22
The Secret Garden July 26–29
St-Tropez, Mykonos, St- Jean-De-Luz July/August
Ibiza (Space Opening Party June 3) August
Lyford Cay August
Burning Man End August

Just think what else the money could have been used for

2007-05-07T23:46:00.000-06:00

In what amounts to a giant publicity stunt, Dr. Pepper is paying for a band to live in a glass bubble in NYC for three weeks while they record an album. We can watch them on-site, on the Internet, and on MTV.

Aside from the fact that I think all those involved (the band, the sponsor, and MTV) will look more desperate than cool, this plan strikes me as a huge waste of money which could have been used to promote music in many more effective ways.

Adweek Magazine In Print 5/7/2007- Dr Pepper Rocks Out With Big Idea From MEC: "NEW YORK A year in the making and carrying an estimated price tag of close to $20 million, Band in a Bubble, a new Dr Pepper reality show and special event created by WPP's Mediaedge:cia, shows just how far some media agencies and clients will go to cut through the clutter....

Dr Pepper is funding the entire project, which accounts for 22 percent of the $90 million the company spent on ads last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The company wouldn't comment on specific figures or say from which budget the money was taken."

How Gen Y consumes media

2007-05-07T23:26:00.000-06:00

This was a survey of more than 2,200 Americans 13-75. Here's the part about Millennials (13- 24) and how the differ from other groups in terms of online use.

TV Week, 5/7/07 - 'Millennials' Defying the Old Models: "According to the survey, Millennials invested 51 percent of their Internet time with user-generated content and only 49 percent on company-generated content. The survey average was 34 percent of time to user-generated content and 66 percent to company-generated content. Millennials, therefore, invest 50 percent more time with user-generated content than the average user.

... In response to the question 'How often would you say you are doing the following activities in a typical week?' the interaction-based activities skewed highly:

Sixty-two percent of Millennials said they frequently or occasionally socialized on the Internet, versus 38 percent of the rest of the participants in the survey, a 63 percent advantage.

Other prominent Millennial online activities include watching content created by others: 71 percent vs. 51 percent (+39 percent); reading or posting on message boards: 51 percent vs. 38 percent (+34 percent); reading blogs: 55 percent vs. 36 percent (+53 percent); creating personal content: 58 percent vs. 34 percent (+71 percent); maintaining own personal Web site: 36 percent vs. 22 percent (+64 percent); and keeping a web log (blog): 35 percent vs. 18 percent (+94 percent).

Among the more mainstream Web activities, Millennials invest significant time in the following: searching, downloading or listening to music, 78 percent vs. 50 percent (+56 percent); visiting gaming sites where games can be played online, 66 percent vs. 49 percent (+35 percent); and watching You Tube or other video-streaming sites, 62 percent vs. 36 percent (+72 percent). Further, almost half (48 percent) visit a television Web site in a typical week."

Limited funding to promote New Orleans music

2007-05-07T22:47:00.000-06:00

New Orleans CityBusiness, 5/7/07 - Sour Notes: "The New Orleans Tourism and Marketing Corp. receives $1 million annually from the city general funds and less than $100,000 went to the music office’s annual budget.

'We didn’t have the money to follow through on great ideas,' [former head of Office of Music Development Scott] Aiges said. 'If you don’t have the money you can’t do anything, and that was before the hurricane.'

NOTMC President Sandy Shilstone said her organization’s budget was cut from $10.7 million in 2004 to $5.2 million in 2006 following the hurricane. Since Katrina they haven’t had any money available to fund a music office even if one still existed.

But the NOTMC hires musicians for events and commercials whenever it can, Shilstone said, and donated $100,000 in advertising to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2006 and 2007. It has also partnered with WWOZ to produce live music shows featuring local musicians to broadcast on 50 public radio stations nationwide for 18 months starting in the fall."

Free digital music with a concert ticket

2007-05-07T22:37:00.000-06:00

Press rlease, 5/7/07 - Ticketmaster Gives The Gift of Music: "With every concert ticket purchased online at Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster is providing a complimentary ten-song digital music sampler showcasing a variety of emerging and established artists. In addition, with the purchase of every ticket to any summer concert scheduled to take place between Memorial Day (May 28) and Labor Day (Sept 3) Ticketmaster.com ticket buyers may download one complimentary song of their choice from the iTunes Store (http://www.itunes.com)."

Marketing New Zealand music to the world

2007-05-07T22:23:00.000-06:00

A good look at government support of the New Zealand music industry and whether it is worth the effort. The justification in doing so is that there are far more potential customers outside New Zealand than within the country.

New Zealand's source for entertainment news, gossip & music, movie & book reviews on Stuff.co.nz - Printable: " This year taxpayer funded NZ on Air will spend $2.15 million helping musicians make videos and recordings. The Music Industry Commission will spend $500,000 helping artists market their products overseas. ...

So far the commission has helped 42 artists with overseas marketing costs through its Outward Sound programme, now 14 months into a three year pilot. Its annual budget of $500,000 is small, but by matching artists' contributions dollar for dollar it gets more leverage.

The difficulty for New Zealand exporters, as ever, is distance from markets. A German artist seeking exposure in Britain can travel back and forth relatively easily. For New Zealand artists, particularly big bands like Phoenix Foundation, the cost and logistics are a huge problem."

Hotels, tourism, and local music scenes

2007-05-07T22:08:00.000-06:00

A big hotel chain may not want to bother with pairing with local musician (too much trouble overseeing quality control as it relates to the brand), but this idea could be used for smaller, independently run hotels. Local bands/musicians could make songs available for guests to download and take with them.

Design: Music: In tune with guest expectations - Hotel & Motel Management, 5/7/07: "Hyatt Hotels & Resorts introduced a digital download music program that will roll out to properties throughout 2007.

Each property will have a unique music library while meeting a set of music standards for the brand, said Walter Brindell, assistant v.p., rooms operations, Hyatt Hotels Corp. Different music collections are used in different spaces of the hotel, so the spa has a different mood than the lobby.

Guests can download the collections from both brands' collections and take their experiences home."

Music festivals are a growth industry in Scotland

2007-05-06T22:16:00.000-06:00

Sunday Herald - The best venue in the world? It’s Scotland: "Experts are even claiming that the events are creating a new social trend of serial festival-hoppers and enriching Scotland's cultural life.

'This summer will be amazing,' said Paul Bush OBE, chief operating officer of Event Scotland. We are keen to demonstrate that, while festivals are economic benefits, they also bring social and even environmental opportunities.

'Festivals are economically important - as a snapshot, the MTV awards, which were hosted in Edinburgh in 2003, brought in £8.8 million to the Scottish economy.

The economic boost that the various festivals will bring is likely to run into hundreds of millions of pounds by September. While a strong appreciation of music and a culture of live bands in Scotland are contributing factors, the boom has also been fuelled by a supportive public sector and no shortage of talented music entrepreneurs.

'Festivals of all kinds are definitely a growth area, and Scotland is very lucky in that local authorities and other public bodies actually want to help events,' said Jane Ali-Knight, head of the festival and events management degree programme at Napier University. 'South of the Border and elsewhere, organisers quickly run up against a lot of red tape. There is encouragement for festivals in Scotland which is a huge plus, and we are also lucky to have entrepreneurs such as Geoff Ellis and Pete Irvine who have pushed and pulled some events into being.'"

Music is happening in Denton, Texas

2007-05-06T21:33:00.000-06:00

PopMatters Music Feature | Could Denton, Texas, be the nation's next hot spot for indie rock?: "Is Denton ready to elbow aside the flashier, bigger cities of Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston and, yes, Austin, to take its place atop the Texas-music food chain?

Could it be a town on the verge? Is the next Seattle or Omaha (home of Bright Eyes and the whole Saddle Creek label scene) brewing right up Interstate 35? ...

There are some who would say that Denton, home to an estimated 104,000 people and three universities, including the well-regarded University of North Texas with its acclaimed music department, already has a national reputation as a music mecca. The considerable roster of past and present Denton residents lends credence to the notion. Artists such as Roy Orbison, Norah Jones and Don Henley have spent time in classrooms on the UNT campus (see story on this page)."

Salt Lake City nightlife, or lack of it

2007-05-06T20:35:00.000-06:00

This article discusses the pluses and minuses of nightlight in Salt Lake City. Some of the challenges are no central entertainment district, restrictive liquor laws, and too many empty streets.

Salt Lake City Tribune, 5/6/07 - In search of Salt Lake's night life: "Once you find the places to go, there are some great places here,' said Allison Martin, a development researcher for the Utah Symphony, who moved to Salt Lake City from Austin, Texas, four years ago. 'It's funny - you go out and you see people you know all the time,' Martin said. 'It's 'Small Lake City.'

The relatively small number of Salt Lake night owls means club owners such as Louise Millington have to work harder to woo customers.

'You have to capture a niche for yourself, and I think that's what makes good night life here,' said Millington, who owns The Red Door, a martini bar. 'You have to know what people want here.'

... the perception remains, said Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, that buying a drink is an ordeal.

'There is absolutely no good modern-day justification for a private-club membership requirement,' he said. 'If you want to go to a couple places during the course of the night to hear music, or dine one place and go have a drink somewhere else, it can be very expensive and a huge hassle. And if we experience that as natives, consider how bizarre and inhospitable this is for people visiting our city.'"

Mixing country genres

2007-05-06T20:07:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting review of the first day of the Stagecoach Festival and the challenge of getting audiences to come for both modern country, and traditional country, alt-country, and bluegrass.

Although I wasn't there (friends including The Railbenders and Angie Stevens were -- the text message I got from Angie watching Willie Nelson was "Wow"), I'm going to guess it's just growing pains. Other festivals are able to successfully mix genres and this one will likely do so too as its reputation spreads.

Orange County Register, 5/6/07 - A hootenanny divided: "There were those who came to spend the day - the whole day, from noon till 11 p.m. - clogging up the Empire Polo Field by sitting in their camping chairs at the main (aka Mane) stage, patiently waiting for stoic cowboy icons Alan Jackson and George Strait to perform. ...

Out of roughly 25,000 attendees, this group accounted for at least 20,000. And they seemed to have a big boozy blast, because they had exactly the county-fair kinda day they had hoped for. ...

... some music lovers who came to this hoping for a completely different festival - a diverse, all-inclusive, history-appreciating bash....

Yet these people at most accounted for 5,000 of the total attendance. Spread them out among three stages and their numbers seemed even smaller.

... the overall failure to bridge gaps between these two camps, alt-country fans and the Nashville-controlled crowd, suggests that Goldenvoice's dream of a cross-pollinating über-country fest is a ways away from becoming a reality."

What's a college town?

2007-05-06T18:48:00.000-06:00

This is a very thorough look what creates a "college town" atmosphere.

Macon.com | 05/06/2007 | Is Macon a college town?

According to Blake Gumprecht, an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire who studies college towns, a college town usually has at least 20% students. But the article outlines other factors that create a college town atmosphere, which could be adopted no matter the size of the school population.

Entertainment/eating establishments that are open past 2 a.m.
Bars and clubs for ages 18+
Low-cost/free entertainment
Small, funky shops
Large college sporting event
Strong independent music scene
College radio station
Community/college partnerships

Also mentioned in the article, but not listed above, is a specific district, within walking distance to campus, that caters to students.

Coachella and its debt history

2007-05-06T04:45:00.000-06:00

Financial risk has played a role in the Coachella Festival. (And according to one account, the first year of the Stagecoach Festival, the country music version that is being held this weekend in the same location, will also start its history with a loss.)

Alexander Haagen III - Coachella - Music - New York Times, 5/1/07: "[Owner of the Empire Polo Club, Alexander Haagen's] first encounter with accommodating a big rock concert was in 1993, when Goldenvoice helped arrange a performance on the polo grounds by Pearl Jam. Six years later, Mr. Tollett sought out Mr. Haagen again when he needed a locale for Coachella. But the first festival posted a loss, forcing Goldenvoice to the edge of financial ruin.

AEG Live, a bigger concert promoter, acquired the company in 2001 by absorbing its debt, which exceeded $1 million, according to executives involved in the deal. Goldenvoice had been unable to mount a festival in 2000, but returned to the polo fields with Coachella in 2001 and has every year since.

... the Haagens ultimately made their reputation by building retail shopping centers in the inner city.

By the late 1990s, though, the company was laden with debt. An affiliate of the investment bank Lazard agreed to purchase a stake in the Haagens’ company for $235 million in 1997, and then bought the family out."

Here's more background. The Billboard Q&A: Paul Tollett

This article says that the first Coachelle in 1999 lost $800,000, and was still losing money after AEG bought it in 2001. This year, 2007, was the first year the event sold out far in advance.

It also mentions how the Stagecoach Festival came about:

"I had seen a small country show at Empire Polo Field in the '90s. It seemed like a fun local event. There were rumors last year that the polo fields were going to be sold, so I talked to the owners and said, 'If I commit to two big festivals, will that be enough incentive for you to not develop for now?' They said, 'Yes,' so we developed the country idea."

How the popularity of rock reunions explains the joys of live music

2007-05-06T04:19:00.000-06:00

Rock Reunions - Music - Column - New York Times, 5/6/07: "In fact, if it weren’t for sentiment, if it weren’t for our strong but ultimately inexplicable desire to be in the same room as people making music, we might not bother to go to concerts at all. In that sense, a reunion show is the ultimate rock ’n’ roll concert: a sensory experience overwhelmed by an imaginary one; a musical event that is merely a pretext for a social one. Those people onstage are old friends, in a sense; they have been living in our heads for years or decades. (That’s why substitutions are so irritating: what’s the point of being reunited with someone you’ve never met?) At a reunion show, those figments turn back into real people for a few hours."

The above column was in response to this column, published several weeks earlier.

Not Reunions, Reinventions (Back and Better. Really.) - New York Times, 4/22/07: "Ashley Capps, who helps produce mid-June’s Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn. — which has booked the Police as one of its headliners this year — put it in a slightly simpler way. 'When I was growing up, the release of an album was an event,' he said. 'We’ve moved away from the notion that the release of a recording is an event. Somebody can release a great album and get fantastic reviews and everybody’s talking about it, but how long does that last? Six weeks? In that sense, live performances are becoming the important event.'

Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the concert-industry magazine, is so used to old acts propping up the industry that he doesn’t believe this year’s picture is substantially different. 'Last year you had Bob Seger, this year you have Genesis,' he said evenly over the phone recently. He is not sure whether new bands — Arcade Fire, say — are striking deeply enough into the soul of the culture to necessitate their own reunions down the road. I think context will determine it. If there are lots of great new bands in the next 10 years, we won’t feel we need an Arcade Fire reunion. If there aren’t, we will.

It seems now that the audience position for rock is coming closer to that of jazz around the mid-1970s. Most of the forefathers are still with us; increasingly, they seem to have something important to teach us. And we are developing strange hungers for music of the not-so-distant past that might be bigger and deeper than the hunger we originally had. That feeling people talked about during the Pixies shows a few years ago — the word 'eerie' was used a great deal — seems similar to descriptions of the feeling generated in the Village Vanguard when Dexter Gordon played his comeback shows there in 1976, after living abroad. Since then, jazz has advanced into a culture of incessant re-experience, endless tributes. Actual reunions are barely noticed: a huge percentage of the music refers to great moments of the past. Yet that doesn’t mean that jazz can’t still be fantastic, even transformative. It is, all the time.

We have to allow for the possibility that Rage Against the Machine — or the Police, or the Jesus and Mary Chain — could be as good as it ever was, if perhaps a little more wizened, a little more skeptical. (It will depend on their practicing of course.) If you’re still looking for something sacred, it probably can’t be found in their values or politics or cult significance. It’s in you: It is your own reaction to how they sound. Nobody can take that away from you."

Churches make great venues

2007-05-05T23:00:00.000-06:00

Although this article is about comedians who play the church circuit, the points made apply to musicians as well.

Christian comics change lives one joke at time — JSCMS, 4/24/07: "'Nationwide, there are more than 300,000 churches and less than 300 comedy clubs,' said Lenny Sisselman, 49, a booking agent based in Nashville, Tenn., who specializes in Christian acts. And 'some of these churches have better performance spaces than the clubs. They have better sound systems, lighting and more seats. [The audience members] also have longer attention spans. Remember, these are people who enjoy sermons.'

Some mega-churches, like televangelist Joel Olsteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, seat upward of 16,000 and have an architectural style closer to Radio City Music Hall than a traditional church. They even have giant video screens that allow for close-ups of the speakers."

Commutes, radio, and live music

2007-05-05T16:33:00.000-06:00

I stumbled across this article in a blog about radio. That blog suggested that long commutes encourage radio listening because people want to feel connected. By that same token, long commutes probably discourage going out to catch live music because there just isn't time (unless it's a local concert where kids are welcome, which gives families an opportunity to do something together).

The creative class concept, where you encourage people to live at higher densities closer to cultural settings so they spend less time on the road and more time at clubs and in third places, is an attempt to counter the trends described below.

Annals of Transport: There and Back Again: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker, 4/16/07: "Roughly one out of every six American workers commutes more than forty-five minutes, each way. People travel between counties the way they used to travel between neighborhoods. The number of commuters who travel ninety minutes or more each way—known to the Census Bureau as 'extreme commuters'—has reached 3.5 million, almost double the number in 1990. They’re the fastest-growing category, the vanguard in a land of stagnant wages, low interest rates, and ever-radiating sprawl."

Southern Cities for the Creative Class

2007-05-05T15:58:00.000-06:00

This article isn't specifically about music, but cities that attract the creative class also tend to have great music scenes.

Ten Places in the South for the Creative Class: "These places are actively and prominently working to make their communities more attractive to knowledge workers by fostering environments for opportunity, expression and quality of life that creatives expect and demand."

The article lists Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Houston, Lafayette, Nashville, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, Savannah, and St. Petersburg.

Online engagement

2007-05-05T14:35:00.000-06:00

This chart shows the level of participation among American adults who go online. Most people are still passive, either lurking or not even checking out blogs, podcasts, social networks, and the like. They might be considered the traditional music audience -- those who are content to be entertained rather than wanting to be part of the show.

Micro Persuasion: The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR

Here's more about the report that generated the Participation Ladder.

Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Forrester’s new Social Technographics report: "Many companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes social computing behaviors into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term 'Social Technographics' to describe analyzing a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other company pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers' Social Technographics first, and then create a social strategy based on that profile."

One of Denver's legendary music dive bars

2007-05-01T23:27:00.000-06:00

Here's a good profile of Cricket on the Hill in Denver. It's one of those rough-and-tumble neighborhood bars that has attracted its share of "street life" tales, but through it all, it keeps going as a music venue. I'm not sure if Kerouac actually did ever go there, but it is easy to imagine him having spent time in a place like this.

The Denver Messageboard: "Dates and heresay about Kerouac and Ginsberg and Dylan and Hendrix and Judy Collins and Clapton hanging out, here, have been withheld to make a point. I could've killed myself researching such- and I started to- but once my sources proved to be exclusive- and largely irrelevant, upon meeting 'The Man'- I decided to skip all of that."

Organizing a tour

2007-05-01T20:25:00.000-06:00

Cyndi Lauper decided to create the True Colors Tour in support of the gay/lesbian/bi/transgender communities.

Pollstar, 5/01/07 - Making True Colors: "So after another year of preparation and hard work, plus bringing in the Human Rights Campaign (which a portion of every ticket will be donated to), The Matthew Shepard Foundation, PFLAG and the LOGO cable network, they were able to pull it off....

[Said Cyndi Lauper's agent Jonny] Podell said that even when there was some reticence from promoters and venues, it was more about the idea of a package tour than the cause behind the tour.

'I think it was more the fear in the music business about 'Do ensemble shows work?' Does the public see a show with five acts and go 'Oh, we're not getting full performances or is this going to be speeches?' That was the challenge we had to overcome in the marketing and the advertising. But we did it together and promoters and venues were very helpful.'...

'And we're hoping the True Colors tour develops into a full-purpose True Colors brand, including a clothing line and cruises, and that we can do more for the GLBT community.'"

Creating arts events to appeal to youth

2007-05-01T20:10:00.000-06:00

This is an event in Rochester, MN.

Postbulletin.com: Young people plus creativity equals 'Awesome' art show - Tue, May 1, 2007: "Created by the high school intern staff at the Rochester Art Center, the event, which takes place Thursday, combines live music, performance art, a youth art exhibition and video games....

Hopes are that the 'Awesome Young People Art' event will bring in even more teens, and eventually become an annual event, he said.

The inaugural event, which is open to all ages, will feature dancing on the main floor. David Parisi, a college-age intern, will play various styles and genres, and Stulen and his brother, Jared Stulen, will play dance style mash-ups.

If the weather cooperates, there will also be live music outside on the patio.

Popular video games like 'Dance Dance Revolution' and 'Guitar Hero' will be set up in the third floor classroom where some of the interns' art will also be on display."

Marketing music through relationships

2007-05-01T20:06:00.000-06:00

Live music can build relationships. This describes a form of music marketing that creates an "almost live" interaction.

MediaPost Publications - Getting Into The Circle Of Friends - 05/01/2007: "John Huffman, CEO of Real Hip Hop, who distributes indie artist musical ringtones and wallpapers on mobile, continues to push for promotional material that is more sensitive to the specific strengths of mobile. He told me the other day that he is trying to get artists and labels to get beyond their event-based marketing cycles and adopt a persistent connection with interested audiences.

'Marketing should be experience-based,' Huffman said. 'We used to spend four or five months of leading up to a release of an album. But now we should think about someone who shows an interest in your content -- and what mechanism do we have in place via mobile to stay involved and share what they experience. Don't just give me the final version [of the album]. Every other week you need to be thinking about giving me things that will keep me interested in your music.'"

What works for mobile content

2007-05-01T20:01:00.000-06:00

A company that has designed 60 WAP sites shares what drives usage:

Wireless Developer Network, 5/1/07: "Specifically, Trilibis Mobile found that the most popular features (in the order of significance) were:

1. Votes/Polls when:
The poll or vote enables the user to influence the outcome of something he/she is passionate about.

The poll or vote enables the user to compare himself/herself to the overall population with respect to something he/she is passionate about. It appeals to the user's ability to be seen as an 'expert' in the population.

2. Blogs led by experts in the field (such as sportswriters). In addition, if users can contribute to blogs wirelessly, the stickiness of the site is enhanced.

3. Branded storefronts: Branded collections of ringtones, wallpapers, call tones, etc., continue to be popular, especially as the carrier decks continue to grow in size, making the navigation to specific content more difficult.

4. Informational content (e.g.): Most effective if content is valuable when 'on the go' and easily navigated.

5. Trivia: Particularly effective for sports and television shows, where consumers want to test their knowledge on something they're passionate about."

Ways to make money in music these days

2007-05-01T19:20:00.000-06:00

Nothing really new here, but a good summary.

Analysis: What is the Role of the Artist in a Digital Age? | Digital Media Wire

Promoting unsigned artists on radio

2007-05-01T00:08:00.000-06:00

Although lots of radio promotion concepts seem to come with some sort of catch, this sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure why this hasn't been done before.

CHUM Limited | Press Releases | CHUM Television: "Each month beginning May 1, 2007, CHUM Radio programmers across Canada will vote for the best emerging Canadian artist. The winning artist’s song will be added to playlists at all participating CHUM stations, reaching over 2 million Canadians. The initiative will provide independent artists with mass exposure through airplay, advertising time and promotion.

The Emerging Indie Artist Initiative is developed as part of the launch of CHUM’s newest radio station, Calgary’s ENERGY 101.5 FM. During the term of its license, the station will invest $640,000 annually to the development and promotion of Canadian talent."

Heavily targeted online radio advertising

2007-04-30T01:28:00.000-06:00

TargetSpot is a company that will allow advertisers, even very small ones, to buy ads for online radio. The ability to create a drop in an ad to a specific group at the very last minute has its appeal, though it is likely that mobile ads will be pitched in exactly the same way. (For example, if you work downtown, you can get a cellphone ad for special deals from nearby restaurants."

The advantage of any of these concepts for local music is the opportunity for music venues to reach people making last-minute plans for something to do.

A Virtual Ad Agency for Online Radio - New York Times: "'A restaurant near Times Square could realize at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday that it had seven open tables for lunch,' he said, 'and then the owner or manager could go online and target people in the 10036 ZIP code who make more than $75,000 a year.'...

“[A chocolate maker] would be able to advertise to men in certain locales he identified, and select placement next to love songs rather than heavy-metal music,” said [David Goodman, president of marketing for CBS Radio], 'because those listening to love songs are much likelier to buy his product.'...

TargetSpot’s Web site will offer advertisers the ability to record ads by microphone, telephone, prerecorded audio files, computer-generated speech or voice professionals. Sound effects and jingles will be available on the site, as well as images or logos."

Denver indie labels

2007-04-30T00:37:00.000-06:00

Denver has seen an explosion of talented indie bands in recent years and this article mentions some of the local labels working with them

The Denver Post - Local bands in tune with indie spirit

Musical innovation clusters

2007-04-29T04:07:00.000-06:00

The author of this piece hopes to explore creativity in contemporary music.

The Creativity Exchange: It's Only Rock and Roll...: "But musical creativity occurs in sharp bursts, there are cycles of it. Sure, people are developing musical talent all along, but for a variety of reasons due to the social character of innovations, major outbursts of creativity occur in bunches or clusters. Major innovations in jazz for example occurred in the period from roughly 1920 through the 1950s, roughly. In rock and roll, innovation starts in the late 1940s, with upticks in the mid-1960s, and mid-to-late 70s, according to rock critic and social theorist Simon Fricke ....

But these concentrated bursts of transformative energy are not evenly spread across geography. They occur in space as well as in time. In other words, they cluster, concentrate and pull talent into tight spaces or scenes. Just think about the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s, producing a series of stunning innovations in semiconductors, computing, software and the like, all the while informing a much broader process of cultural change and musical innovation, from its vibrant music scene to its advances in commerce and distribution especially with the invention of large music festivals."

Best live music club in Kyiv

2007-04-28T23:15:00.000-06:00

You can find a "Best of" list for many cities, including Kyiv, Ukraine

Kyiv Post. Best live music club

The Toronto Scene

2007-04-28T21:36:00.000-06:00

This email was sent to
Bob Lefsetz He emailed it out to his subscriber list. I don't know that it is posted online, so I am putting it here. I'm going to guess that neither Bob nor its author will mind.

The email touches upon something that I think will come to shape live music, and perhaps our perception of who is successful and who isn't.

Given the increased costs of touring, and the shrinking number of label deals, I think a lot of bands probably will never move beyond their local scenes, but that is fine. It's about creativity and community. So the definition of "the next big thing" may change from who has a national impact to who has a local impact.

___

I've been meaning to write you for a while but only found some time today. I'm at work and everybody else is in meetings so I'm stealing time to do what I want. I'm a musician living in Toronto, trying to balance a full-time job with an obsession with music. This is pretty common practice for me and a lot of folks I know. We all spend 40 hours a week doing jobs that we don't care too much about, dreaming of the whistle at the end of the day when we can go home and create. Nobody I know considers working a day job to be a hold-over before we get rich and famous (as I'm sure a lot of musicians do); most of us have come to terms with the fact that this is the way its going to be for the rest of our lives. And I think, for the most part, we're all okay with that.

I would never assume that we were the only ones who felt this way but I can say that I feel Toronto has a pretty unique thing going on. Let me give you a little background on what it's like to play music here...

This city has experienced a cultural renaissance over the last few years and, even though I only moved here in 1999 and am by no means an authority, it's generally agreed that Toronto's music scene has never been as healthy as it is now. I'm not talking about Nu-Metal bands playing for a line of teenagers at the Reverb. I'm not talking about shined-up rockers who brag about the A&R reps that were at their Friday night showcase at the Horseshoe. I'm not talking about buzz bands that swing through town for a one-off at the Phoenix. I'm talking about the real homegrown community that exists here, that peculates below the surface, sustained entirely by the people who create, contribute to and take part in it.

My introduction to this world came thanks to the Wavelength music series. As a freshly minted Torontonian, the weekly series gave me a window into what was really going on in the city. You could always count on unique and interesting bands on Sunday nights and, as time wore on, I could see what it was doing to help plant the seeds for a vibrant climate for independent music in Toronto. Partly inspired by Jonny Dovercourt and the other folks who helped kick off Wavelength, it seemed that every forward-thinking guitar player or show-goer started to try their hand at putting on shows, putting out records and generally throwing their two cents in the pile. It's continued exponentially since then and now there's almost too much to see or do in the city every week.

Labels like Blocks Recording Club and Fig Records have made it possible to work with like-minded people that live where you live, venues like Sneaky Dee's, the Boat and the Tranzac have opened their doors to the weird and wonderful underbelly, promoters/booking agents like Eric Warner, Keith Hamilton and Steve Himmelfarb have ensured that good bills are happening all the time and new series like the All Caps all-ages shows (booked by Ryan McLaren) and the Poor Pilgrim experimental weekly (booked by Matt Cully) have provided a consistent supply of amazing live music. Surrounding cities like Hamilton and Brantford have come on board too, building strong communities of their own and providing more outlets for people just like us to play.

The masses don't know about this stuff and the weekly papers only just scratch the surface of it but the people who are surrounded by it rarely think of anything else... and I think you'd be surprised how many of us there are. Shows by local bands are constantly sold-out, hand-crafted CDs are flying off the shelves at Soundscapes and Rotate This and people who just live down the street are responsible for the most important pieces in our record collections. Records by Glissandro 70, the Constantines, Rockets Red Glare, Les Mouches and many more are far more important to us then what would normally be considered a "classic" record.

Aspirations for the big-time just don't come into play. Truthfully, the real big-time seems pretty ugly to most of us. In Toronto, we aspire to impress our peers. We set up shows with our favourite local bands and try to out-do one another. Most of the people who show up in the audience are other musicians and the mutual enthusiasm for each other's work is what keeps us coming back. If we do look outside of Toronto, we look to similar communities and people around the world (something like this exists, to varying visibility, in ever city) to latch onto what we're doing and visa versa.

There's been a lot of international attention put on people like Feist, Broken Social Scene, and Final Fantasy lately but I don't think that would have happened if those people didn't get their hands dirty in this community first. Sure, a couple favourable write-ups in Eye can give way to some coverage on CBC, which can give way to a Pitchfork review (and from there, world adoration), but all of those musicians would tell you that it was the local support that truly launched them. And that's why you still see Kevin Drew or Leslie Feist or Owen Pallett at the Boat on a Friday night or watching some new band at Sneaky Dee's on a Wednesday. They know the terrain and, I think, they're just as eager to boost up Toronto as anybody still operating within it. And the cycle will continue... when the world starts talking about Jon-Rae and the River, Oh Bijou, Great Lake Swimmers or any number of local bands poised to take things to that next level, those bands aren't going to forget where they came from. In fact, they're gonna try their hardest to bring their friend's bands along for the ride.

It's this support system and overall good vibration in the city that makes it easier to play music without making tons of money. Nobody really makes any significant dollars around here, a lot of people lose some with every show, but the reaction that we receive from the crowds or the encouragement we get when somebody says "Hey, I want to help you put out a record" is more than enough.

I guess I just wanted to give you a glimpse of what's going on here, if for nothing else than the fact that it's a pretty remarkable model of where I think things could go in the music "industry". We buy locally, we go out and support our friends, we don't wait for somebody else to put things together for us, we just try it out for ourselves...

Without that, I'm sure we'd all be left wondering why we spend 40 hours at our jobs and another 40 at home recording or practicing every week. With it though, there's really no other way to live. I could work a shitty job for the rest of my life, just as long as I got to play for friends and peers in the city every few weeks.

I don't doubt that this phenomenon is happening in cities all over the world - an alternate music industry that never wanted much to do with the old model. The more that this localization and collaboration spreads, the less relevant big time marketing and publicity stunts seem to matter. I could avoid ever listening to a mainstream pop act again if I wanted to and I couldn't be more thrilled about that. I'm interested in seeing what this community and other like-minded people in suburbs and cities elsewhere have to offer and I spend my time scouring the Internet for the chance. I haven't been into an HMV in 4 or 5 years and I haven't paid $50 for a ticket to a show or a t-shirt since I was 15. It's going to stay that way and I know that there are a lot of people who have made a similar vow.

Anybody that thinks they need marketing dollars and radio plays to feel successful is missing the point entirely. To really feel like you made it, all you need is some supportive people around you and a local community that cherishes its own.

Best regards,
Neil Haverty (of Bruce Peninsula, www.bruce-peninsula.com)

PS - if I've piqued your interest about Toronto, check out these links...

Wavelength Toronto - http://www.wavelengthtoronto.com - weekly music series still going strong

Stillepost.ca - http://www.stillepost.ca - local message board, responsible for a lot of community bonding/bickering

Poor Pilgrim - http://www.myspace.com/poorpilgrim - local avant-garde music series

All Caps - http://www.allcaps.ca - all-ages show promoter Ryan McLaren

Aperture Enzyme - http://www.apertureenzyme.com - local photo galleries

Over the Top - http://www.overthetopfest.com - Eric Warner's annual music festival

Fig Records - http://www.figrecords.com - new label with lots of local releases coming up

Blocks Recording Club - http://www.blocksblocksblocks.com - well-known Toronto-loving label

The Ford Plant - http://www.thefp.ca - amazing all-ages venue in Brantford, ON

Oh Bijou - http://www.ohbijou.ca

Great Lake Swimmers - http://www.greatlakeswimmers.com

Jon-Rae and the River - http://www.theriversings.com

The high-risk, high-energy concert promotion business.

2007-04-28T07:30:00.000-06:00

C3 knows concerts: "Charlie Jones, Charlie Walker and Charles Attal, nicknamed "the three Charlies" in the industry, are gearing up for the outdoor concert season, presenting Lollapalooza in Chicago in August, the Austin City Limits Music Festival in September and the new Big State Festival, with Tim McGraw headlining, in College Station in October. They're also producing shows at the new House of Blues in Dallas, five Harrah's Casinos and at Austin venues ranging from Stubb's Bar-B-Que to the Erwin Center. ...

Jones says his mentor, O'Connor, once said that if Jones wasn't prepared to put half his money in a suitcase and throw it off the tallest building in town, he didn't have the stomach to be a concert promoter. Attal likens the job to playing blackjack 12 hours a day. Sometimes you lose big. But on that recent Tuesday, the three Charlies were on a roll.

Long popular in Europe, festivals are a hot trend in the U.S. concert industry, and C3 owns two of the four most prominent pop music festivals. California's Coachella and Tennessee's Bonnaroo are the other two.

'People are busy,' Walker said of festivals' appeal. 'To go to, say, five concerts in the summer, it takes a lot of time and effort and expense. But with a festival, fans can can block off three days and see tons of great bands.'

A knock on festivals is that they can be at hot, uncomfortable, dusty fields where fans are treated like herds of cattle, a perception Walker said C3 is working hard to change.

"

Music festival crowd control

2007-04-28T05:12:00.000-06:00

Over the next few months I will be researching problems in running music festivals. Here's something I found in referene to last year's Austin City Limits festival.

Music Editor Survives Austin City Limits Music Festival!:

Pluses & Minuses
Pluses: An amazing lineup each day, a mix of stars, known, unknown, cult and locals, remarkably consistent in quality though lacking somewhat in breadth of genres, made possible by the promoters’ good judgment and reportedly a performer payroll of nearly a million dollars (reduced dramatically by paying Willie in weed). Really low ticket prices – hard to pin down after the fact, but it seems it was about $100 for a three-day pass, less for an entire day than you’d pay for one show by one of the bands in a club, maybe even that night in town. Few scheduling conflicts, indicating a real effort to put bands that might draw similar crowds on at different times. Sets that started amazingly on time, though some ended before their scheduled finish time, leaving you to walk up expecting to hear a good 20-30 minutes and instead catching only part of the last song. Nearly perfect placement of stages and monitoring of sound levels, so you only heard who you wanted to hear, yet at sufficient volume. I don’t think I witnessed a single equipment malfunction, except maybe the sound for TV on the Radio. Even more startling – not a single altercation did I see, not even a discouraging word did I hear, with sardine crowds and 200,000 hot tired sweating mostly-under-30s sucking down colossal quantities of beer (think it would be that peaceful in other cities?). It was an overwhelmingly white crowd, so no racial tensions to speak of, and the rowdy youth factor may have been missing because, well, Austin’s just a very laid back place where people, at least at this huge gathering, seemed to respect each other and just be looking for good music and a good time. The vibe was exceptional.

One more kudo for the organizers: they had interpreters for the deaf for at least three quarters of the performances, and they were a smiling, dancing, hip-shaking bunch who added to the good feeling. I spoke to a couple of them, who said it was pretty fast-paced as they scooted from stage to stage to start or relieve in 20-minute shifts, that they had to listen very carefully to catch lyrics (though the Flaming Lips seemed to provide a notebook), and that, yes, they did almost feel like they were part of the band. The best moment I saw was when Terri Hendrix went into a low-growled scat that sent the surprised interpreter into a finger-bending flurry.

Minuses: Besides the few minor points already mentioned, only one other Big Bad Thing stood out: the buses. There was no parking at the grounds, so everyone who didn’t bike (a bit of a ride in nasty traffic) or hike (a very healthy hike, especially considering that’s all you’d be doing for the next 10 hours) or take a taxi, had to come on shuttle buses which all left from one point downtown – not so bad, because people showed up at various times. But they also returned from only one … one … one little curb at Zilker Park, where about 64,850 people were in one line, trying to leave at about the same time. Friday night I did the turtle shuffle for an hour and a half before joyously plopping down in a gloriously chilled bus. Saturday I thought I’d get smart and skip the bus death march for a quick jump into a taxi – what could it be, five bucks for a shared ride back to downtown? – well worth avoiding the infinite line … only to discover that no one else had that bright idea and I was the only one going back to Republic Square. I had to pay the full 15-dollar fare for a solo ride (with a driver with a non-Texas accent who had no clue where the center-of-Austin landmark square was – I gave him directions) – after an hour-plus wait in the taxi line. Sunday it was back to the bus brigade, thankfully not nearly so long because I did the smart thing and … skipped festival closer Tom Petty.

New Orleans Jazz Fest shows off local music scene

2007-04-27T20:06:00.000-06:00

New Orleans Jazz Fest: A celebration of a city reborn - USATODAY.com: "Though shuttered hotels and fewer conventions have hurt musicians, particularly jazz players, the club scene has bounced back full force, with more live venues per capita than any U.S. city....

The 2006 fest crowd was 70% regional. Outsiders hesitated, Davis suspects, because they were uncertain clubs and restaurants were functioning and because media images of Katrina horrors scarred memories....

A recent Mount Auburn Associates study commissioned by Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu estimates that close to two-thirds of the city's musicians have returned [to live there]. "

Using San Diego Music to Lure Tourists

2007-04-27T05:48:00.000-06:00

Local music as part of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau campaign.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Business -- Plugging the music: "As part of the promotion, ConVis created a two-CD set of music featuring San Diego artists who were recruited and licensed through partner Insomnia Radio, a distribution network of podcasts, online publications and alternative media Web sites in major U.S. markets.

The compilation features 22 tracks by local bands and artists such as Burnt and The Shambles, and aims to lure reasonably well-heeled Gen-X males with young families who might want to create a vacation that includes catching a band between family forays to the beach or zoo. ...

Along with national “ahhhhhhh” cable television spots that are now airing, ConVis is working with radio stations in major markets such as New York and Chicago to promote San Diego's music scene.

In conjunction with the promotion on Insomnia Radio, ConVis is also advertising on VH1, the cable music video channel, and its affiliated soul and classical music VH1 channels. In return, VH1 is promoting San Diego through cable spots on its Save the Music Foundation, a nonprofit organization that donates money to enhance or restore music education programs in U.S. public schools....

David Peckinpaugh, president and chief executive officer of ConVis, said the music scene promotion has the dual virtue of novelty and affordability. The bureau is spending about $1.1 million on this year's national marketing campaign, which includes television spots and the Insomnia Radio/VH1 promotion.

'It's groundbreaking, innovative – and relatively affordable,' said Peckinpaugh, whose agency has seen its budget – now at $8.8 million – slashed by 37 percent since fiscal 2003. 'We are trying to maximize our marketing dollars through creativity.'

ConVis has created sandiego.org/music, where music lovers can learn about select bands and San Diego's music venues, purchase music-related travel packages and enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to San Diego.

It is still too early to tell whether the music promotion will lure the coveted Gen-X visitor, and statistics about which advertising might move a potential tourist are fuzzy at best. One minor indicator: So far, more than 3,000 Web site visitors have entered the Soundscape sweepstakes contest.

Some local music-industry experts were skeptical that the campaign would generate much additional tourism, but they lauded the idea anyway.

Harlan Schiffman, president of San Diego's Fineline Entertainment, which provides talent to local music clubs such as Brick By Brick and The Casbah, said that when people travel to San Diego to hear music, it is usually a well-known, national act that draws them.

'Our local music is worthy of mention by all means,' Schiffman said. 'Unfortunately, our proximity to Los Angeles has overshadowed the music scene in San Diego – a lot of bands may start off here, but to get notoriety or exposure they go to L.A. and play the clubs up there.'

Some San Diego musicians who contributed to the Soundscape CD said they have benefited from the exposure and predict San Diego will too.

Bart Mendoza, whose band The Shambles performs its song 'Change' on the CD, said that in recent weeks his group has received 'phenomenal' airplay, signed with San Francisco's Zip Records label, and landed a European tour.

Mendoza has also received e-mails from people in Japan who indicated they were coming soon to visit San Diego and wanted to know where he was playing. He credits exposure from the Soundscape CD for the queries.

A look at the potential impact of the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals

2007-04-27T05:29:00.000-06:00

thedesertsun.com | Marquee weekends: Local economy could get a $24 million boost "With 29 hotels and motels and 2,000-plus hotel rooms in Indio, many visitors must seek accommodations on west side of the valley."

Classical music in non-traditional venues

2007-04-26T23:19:00.000-06:00

The pioneer cellist - baltimoresun.com: "The first time Matt Haimovitz took the stage at the late and lamented New York club CBGB, where the Talking Heads and the Ramones got their first big boosts, he didn't feel entirely welcome.

'I was sandwiched between four or five punk bands, and I could feel a little resistance,' the Israeli-born, Montreal-based Haimovitz says of that night in 2002. 'I think the audience came to see if I would survive.'

Advertisement
The unease wasn't surprising -- CBGB hadn't ever presented a classical cellist.

'I played one Bach suite,' Haimovitz says, 'and I could tell the bands were like, 'OK, kid, get lost,' But I wanted to stay as long as I could. I played another Bach suite, and then another.'

Haimovitz kept on going, even throwing in the world premiere of a piece written for him, before launching into his grand finale, his own arrangement of the legendary Jimi Hendrix version of the national anthem. The cellist won the day.

It has been like that most of the time since Haimovitz, 36, decided to branch out from the more traditional environs of classical music about seven years ago. ...

'...300 people were crammed in a room while there was a battle of the bands, heavy metal version, on the floor below. It was louder than anything I ever heard, but the people just focused in on my cello. It really showed the power of this music to withstand anything.'"

Mobile Phone Marketing

2007-04-24T20:42:00.000-06:00

Sooner or later people will do this to market music clubs.

Product Tips You Can Use, by Way of Cellphone - New York Times, 4/24/07:Philips Simplicity Concierge, lets people send text messages to seek information about popular destinations in major cities — restaurants in Boston, for instance, or spas in London — and get a Yellow Pages-style listing of five options, including phone numbers for making reservations.

The recommendations made by the service, which will be available on the Internet and by cellphone through the end of the year, are being drawn from the content of Condé Nast Web sites. Under the arrangement, Philips is paying $5 million to the Condé Nast Media Group, a unit of Condé Nast Publications that handles marketing and sales for the company’s magazines and Web sites."

Music and the environment

2007-04-21T19:39:00.003-06:00

This a lengthy, but comprehensive look at what bands and other members of the music community are doing to reduce their environmental impact.

Among the tactics:

Using biodiesel in vehicles.
Buying renewable-energy credits.
Using solar generators.
Recycling materials and reducing the use of non-recyclables.
Encouraging more urban music festivals where fans can reach venues using public transportation.

The Austin Chronicle: News: How Green Is the Music?: Festivals, bands, and musicians seek environmental harmony: "[Una] Johnston took part in an internationally representative dais for the key panel discussion Greening the Music Industry. She was joined by moderator Neal Turley, an Austin local who improves the environmental profile of musical events with his company, Sustainable Waves, and operates three all-solar-powered stages that he helped design; Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros and the founder of the legendary Lollapalooza; Frank Mauceri, president of Chicago's Smog Veil Records, which is soon to be completely powered by on-site wind, solar, and geothermal energy; Rick Farman of Superfly Productions, which organizes the massive, jam-band-laden Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in rural Tennessee; Arnt Olaf Andersen, head of marketing for Oslo, Norway's biodiesel-powered, heavy-recycling Øya Festival; and Paul Diaz, owner of Atlanta's Tree Sound Studio, which has gone carbon-neutral in addition to helping bands produce albums in recycled and recyclable packaging.

'Science and technology are in a place now for the world to go though a major overhaul. What's lacking is a change of culture,' Farrell said. 'What I think the music community can do more than anybody else is inform people, act as a catalyst to change the culture,' all while making it 'fashionable, fun, and sexy.' Diaz noted that 'music has the unique ability to transcend cultural and political boundaries.' Added Turley, 'If music can get kids to wear their pants around their ankles, it can get them to clean up their lifestyles.' Turley and others are leading by example with their own increasingly eco-savvy events to create a new green standard in music – one they hope fans will take home from shows and replay throughout their everyday lives."