America's 40 Best Music Venues

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..."

The arts and economic growth

The whole premise of the creative class is that they enrich an area and attract high quality economic development.

Here's a bit on that from the blog that covers the subject in depth.

The Creativity Exchange: The Bohemian Factor:

"Arts, design and related occupations are very highly correlated with regional wages, income and housing values. They are more closely correlated with income than life scientists, engineers, and management occupations. Only two occupations - computer scientists and business and financial professionals - outperform them.

The core arts occupations of fine artists, musicians, dancers, and so on are most important of all. The correlations between them and regional wages, income and housing values are far far higher than for designers and decorators, entertainment and media, and sports where the correlations are low or insignificant.

The top 10 regions for core arts occupations are: New York, DC, LA, Honolulu and San Franciso.

Santa Fe tops the list for fine artists.

LA leads in actors with Orlando second.

Honolulu, San Fran, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City top the list for dancers.

Honolulu, New York, San Fran and Nashville lead for musicians."

economic development
creative class

Reinforcing a sense of community

The music store Amoeba is thriving in LA.

2/5/07, ABC News: Eschewing MP3s for a Modern Music Bazaar: "As owner Marc Weinstein explains, Amoeba's collection is so broad that just about anyone can go there to sell CDs, which drives its reputation as the central music trading post in Los Angeles.

Many of us also go there in search of something new. The store even maintains several unprofitable departments -- like posters and seven-inch records -- simply because no one else does.

Because the music is housed under one very high roof, Amoeba acts like a magnet for die-hard music fans or even casual listeners who want some exposure to coolness.

'There's a huge social event built in. It's the distillation of all the music-loving people around town all in one place shopping for music,' Weinstein said. 'What person from L.A. wouldn't be proud to look out and see all the way-into-music wackos out on the floor of that store?'

'It's like you're in New York,' he said.

What draws people to the store is a kind of network effect. That is, the more people use a certain service, the more useful that service becomes to others. Being around other Amoeba shoppers is desirable on its own."

music scene
third places
Los Angeles

Partying for "art" and maybe music?

Here's an article on the convergence in LA of the art, hipster, and entertainment crowds at various parties.

Local music events could probably learn a bit from this.

But throwing a good party is not easy.

The best parties I have every been to have been in conjunction with the University of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs.

Here's why I think they work:

1. Everyone who attends has been hand-selected and is considered a leader in his or her field. Every year the conference invites about 100 movers/shakers/creative types from diverse fields to a week-long conference where they are put on panels and discuss a variety of topics, all of which is free and open to the public.
Both the level of accomplishment and the diversity of backgrounds are important. This gives you quality interactions that aren't narrowly defined.

2. People are there because they want to be there. Since everyone who is invited to the conference pays their own way, they are interested in participating. This means they are open and eager to meet each other. Few, if anyone, is is standing around trying to be too cool or disinterested to talk to everyone else. And since they know everyone has been handpicked, they make the assumption that they will be engaged in quality conversations with anyone they happen to be standing next to.

3. The group is a mix of familiar faces and new faces. A certain number of invitees have been to the conference before, in some cases for many years. Others are there for the first time. So the old-timers know enough people to give the parties a family feel, but the newcomers trigger new conversations.

I've been to other parties/events that have not been as good and here are some of the reasons:

1. Not an interesting mix of people. If no one has much to say, there's no energy in the room.

2. Too in-bred. If it's a group of people all in the same industry, you pretty much know what to expect in terms of conversation.

3. Too cliquey. Some parties, particularly certain groups of elites/hipsters, are cold because everyone there is trying too hard to be cool. (No pun intended.)

4. No one knows anyone. When everyone is a stranger, there's too much time spent on introductions and trying to scope everyone out. People spend all their time trying to decide who to meet and how to break the ice rather than jumping into a good conversation.

Putting the 'art' in party - Los Angeles Times: "In recent weeks, however, several art-related events — in Hollywood, Elysian Park, West Hollywood and Culver City, respectively — have signaled an evolution in how Los Angeles will party in the name of art.

"Each event derived a cerebral glamour from differing points on the pop-art continuum, crossing time-honored social divides in the process and raising both money for and awareness about Angeleno cultural life in the process."

creative class
Conference on World Affairs
CWA
University of Colorado

YouTube and location images

This article discusses how Downtown Los Angeles is portrayed through the videos people have posted on YouTube.

A community rich in culture can make for more interesting viewing (1) because more artists are there to do the filming and (2) there is more art/culture to be filmed.

LA Downtown News Online: "Type 'Downtown Los Angeles' into YouTube and dozens of Downtown scenes arise from the Internet ether. Some are inane personal vignettes, like a 10-second car ride through the Second Street tunnel. Others are poignant, such as a music video juxtaposing Skid Row with Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

"With images of a colorful, painted elephant featured in the artist Banksy's warehouse exhibit last month, a drive through traffic on the 110 Freeway, military helicopters flying in between the skyscrapers, concerts like the recent Detour festival, rallies and loft tours, the videos capture Downtown's disparate facets, suddenly all visible at once."

Concert halls as an economic driver

The New York Times reports that five North American cities have unveiled new concert halls this fall, including Costa Mesa, CA; Nashville; Toronto; and Miami. In recent years Philadelphia; North Bethesda, Md.; Fort Worth; and Omaha have already done so. Altanta hopes to do so.
In Cities Across the United States, It's Raining Concert Halls, 9/3/06: "As concert halls have evolved into multipurpose destinations — complete with chic restaurants, bars and the inevitable education centers — local officials and business leaders have come to view them as a chance to revive a downtown or add luster to their city. Orchestra administrators see a draw for new audiences and a means of raising their group’s profile. Music directors envision a platform to artistic greatness. Orchestra members hear wonderful new acoustics. The music-loving public looks forward to more and better concerts.

“'There’s a sense that a concert hall can truly enrich a community,' said Deborah Borda, the president of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. ...

"A look at how the new halls came into being reveals a pattern.

"An orchestra outgrows its old multipurpose hall. A powerful person steps up with drive and money. The planners woo local officials and donors. A celebrity architect is engaged. A large public relations firm begins an expensive campaign trumpeting the architectural and acoustic glories of the new hall."

Promoting local music without radio

After holding the County Music Assocation Awards in New York last year, the CMA is moving them back to Nashville for the 40th anniversary of the awards. The challenge is how to stay visible in major markets when country stations are being eliminated.

Show's back here, but CMA still savors Big Apple - Wednesday, 08/30/06: "The CMA Songwriter Series at Joe's Pub also has kept country artists and writers in front of New York audiences: Tuesday night's edition of that series featured Jon Randall, Lori McKenna, Jamie O'Neal and Jo Dee Messina.

"Despite — or maybe because of — the fact that New York still doesn't have a major FM radio station devoted to the country format, the CMA continues to develop East Coast media contacts that were sparked by last year's show....

"'We're going to beef up our marketing and advertising in New York and in Los Angeles because we don't have the normal outlet of communicating to country fans, which is radio,' [Country Music Association chief Tammy] Genovese said.

"L.A. country station KZLA recently switched formats, meaning that three of the nation's prime markets — New York, L.A. and San Francisco — have no major country station.

"'We hate that,' Genovese said. 'It's devastating to our format. L.A. and New York are top sales markets for our music, and it's astonishing that corporations would make the decision not to feature this music.'"

Have advertisers promote your music scene for you

Toyota featured "tours" of Austin and Los Angeles as part of its advertising.

MediaPost Publications - Cross-Media Case Study: Culture Club - 08/22/2006: "The Yaris microsite provides more reasons to spend time with the brand: music downloads, virtual tours in a Yaris of hot neighborhoods in Austin and Los Angeles, buddy icons, and screensavers.

"'The goal was to provide consumers with a virtual test drive to some of the coolest streets of major U.S. cities, calling out upbeat indie venues along the way,' says Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight. Consumers can interact with vehicle demonstrations, download tracks from local artists, and get guides to cool spots in every city. Toyota dedicated 12 percent of the Yaris media buy to interactive media."

More about Laurel Canyon as a music scene

LA Weekly - Back to the Garden: "Laurel Canyon scenesters found a regular hangout in The Troubadour, which opened as a folk club in 1957. 'It was like the clubhouse,' says the scene’s unofficial photographer, Henry Diltz, who also played on its stage with his band the Modern Folk Quartet. 'It was a place you would go and all your friends would be there. You knew all the groups that were playing, you had affairs with the waitresses, and Harry Dean Stanton would be sitting at the bar.' For ambitious singer-songwriters, this was also the only game in town; multi-night runs bestowed instant stardom on both Joni Mitchell and Elton John. And for the period of time that the scene was small and new enough to be contained inside the club’s doors, the Canyon’s idyllic feel was carried down into Hollywood."

A local music scene in LA in the 1960s that still influences music today

A review of two books which document a particularly creative musical community located in LA in the 1960s. Among those who were a part of that scene: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, The Mamas and The Papas, The Byrds, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, The Eagles, Carole King, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Turtles, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac, Little Feat, Warren Zevon, J.D. Souther, and Gram Parsons.

How do scenes like this develop? From what I have seen over the years in the arts or technology, it takes:

1. A critical mass of talented people, often brought together by some sort of place to create (e.g., a university or research facility for scientists, a foundry for sculptors, a recording studio for musicians).

2. Either financial resources to pay creative types or low-cost living so that they can afford to live there.

3. Some way to spread the word about the creations (e.g., links to people outside the community; a person recording and publishing what's happening there; a patron or development program to launch creative ideas or art).

4. A community spirit that encourages and supports experimentation.

5. Places for people to exchange ideas (e.g., club, bars, or coffee shops; community centers; office meeting rooms; private homes where people "hang" out.)

Some examples that come to mind:

1. Silicon Valley, which grew out of work done at Stanford University and a number of research and think tanks which located there.

2. Boulder, which got a major arts infusion when the Buddhist school Naropa was established here and became a second home to many of the Beat Generation.

3. Loveland, Colorado, which has become home to many sculptors, some of whom originally moved there to be close to several bronze founderies.

4. Black Mountain College, a North Carolina school which existed from the 1930s to the 1950s, attracted such famous artists, architects, thinkers, and scientists as Walter Gropius, Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Alfred Kazin, Merce Cunningham, Paul Goodman, and Buckminster Fuller.

Canada.com, 7/29/06 - Making music in the flower-power era: "It isn't clear why two competing books on the same narrow topic and with the same cast of characters would appear simultaneously more than 30 years after the fact, but Hoskyns's Hotel California and Walker's Laurel Canyon ... both tell essentially the same story of a remarkable period when the hub of popular late-1960s and '70s North American music was in and around the idyllic Los Angeles-area community of Laurel Canyon."