Discussions
Small Venues, fire codes, the big squeeze
We sent a message to our cyberspace friends, which went like this:
I am literally petrified. Normally when an artists gets asked to give an interview, its to talk about their art - which is relatively easy to do, especially since no one can really contradict you about your own perception of your art. But tomorrow, I have been invited to a live interview on WGBH's Callie Crossley Show to talk about the impact of legislation, zoning, and fire codes on local music. Now I know I stuck my own foot in this one with the email I recently sent about new capacity limitations at the clubs we perform in: I did clearly state a position on this topic. I also know that I could have declined the interview, but in this case there is just too much potential publicity (good or bad, I guess it doesn't matter) from this opportunity. So, at 1:15ish tomorrow I will be asked several questions on a live interview show, which I am probably unqualified to answer with any authority. I know I can talk and have opinions - and it might go really well without any preparation - but there is that chance that things could go terribly wrong and I find myself hoping Callie will not try to pin me down.
So, perhaps some of you could help me prepare?
Thankfully, they promised not to ask about zoning or fire codes.
The main question that they want answered is "Why should people care about local music, especially small and mid-level performers and venues?" Anyone have any hard data on the economic impact of this stream of culture? Even anecdotal data would be useful.
The other question seems to be something along the line of "What effect does it have on a community when small and medium sized performance venues close?" It would be great to hear from some of you who frequented the Langdon St Cafe or the Middle Earth Music Hall. What impact do you think these closings had on the community - not just the audiences for the shows they put on? Old Vienna Coffee House, Kendall Cafe, Tir na Nog? The Wintertide on the Vineyard, The Left Bank in Blue Hill Maine... For those of you in Dublin, what if Paul Lee gives up?
Any responses will be read and appreciated.
Thanks.
-Ry
The response was incredible. So many people wrote very thougtful and beautiful responses. Here are a few:
I am the sixty-two year old who, with his wife, drove from Beverly to Biddeford, Maine to see the band at that fledgling music venue (the name escapes me, but, hey, I'm old). I bought dinner at the local Irish Pub before the show and paid for a room at a local motel afterward. My contribution to the Biddeford economy was small, but a contribution nonetheless. My wife never tires of telling how the band played "Pancho and Lefty" just for us. Over the decades, I have seen many performers in small venues, from the J. Geils Band (before Peter Wolf) in the Rubicon Coffee House in Providence in the 60's to Great Big Sea in a bar in Quincy in the early 90's. I visited the Cavern Club on Mathew Street in Liverpool where the Quarrymen evolved into the Beatles. However, I don't necessarily see the value of small venues being limited to launching careers. They are simply the very best way to enjoy music.
small biz is the engine of job creation...also the engine of art creation.....
Small venues are like minor league. Ball parks where you can see major league talent and feel like your part of the game. When that Talent makes it to the bigs you felt like. You were part of history ...when those Venus close. That opportunity is gone not to be replaced
Our older daughter was raised on awesome live music like yours at Middle Earth in Bradford. It was conveniently located in our own town so we didn't even have to make long drives - which we wouldn't have done. We could bring her to a safe, smoke-free environment where she learned to love more instruments than she is exposed to in a school setting. She is familiar with bluegrass, americana, latin, 20's-style ragtime and singer-songwriters. She also got to meet and talk to musicians. She began taking violin at an early age, because she loves fiddles so much!, and now is also taking piano.
I am no longer in the Boston/Cambridge/MA area - I moved recently to the SF Peninsula - specifically the Silicon Valley area where I lived and worked for 18 years before moving back to New England. The music of New England is what I miss most. At the small venues. Club Passim, Lizard Lounge and the many, many BACHA coffeehouses that supported both local and national artists. And provide a venue where I could see superb performances and in fact get to know the performers close up. These small/intimate venues encourage the audience and performers to a closer interaction than could ever be had in a TD Bankgarden or other massive venue. I have got to know a lot of local and not-so-local performers this way and renew acquaintances when I see them again at the many small venues throughout the Northeast. The other advantage of performances from local artists is price - the price local performers charge makes them accessible to many people who cannot spend the big bucks to see the big names.
The SF Peninsula is almost dead as far as small venue music goes and my heart and soul feel the loss. A loss I didn't know before I had the opportunity to experience the great folk and other performers that tour the small venues of New England. This is a really wonderful, almost magical asset that is found in few places. It should be jealously guarded and protected and supported by every arts lover and organization in the area. Period!
when I walk down the street at night, and there is music, live music coming from a club, I have a sense of vitality, of now, of forward, of' I like this place, I want to walk these streets where this is happening, I want to live here, I want to make my home here, I want to be part of this'
The clubs draw the young and the young draw their own special energy and vibrancy- when a community has to rub shoulders with its youth and the youth from other places there is an energy, a presence added that is so easily felt when it is NOT there.
Live music says WE ARE ALIVE.
Personally, I think that when small venues close it has a trickle down effect on the mood of the community. When I go to a really great performance it makes me feel good. I walk away happy, and when you walk away from something smiling and happy, it is contagious and each interaction is seasoned with that. We all know mow much a smiling person in your day can make a difference.
Small and mid-level venues are like the coral reefs of the music world. Nowhere else can you get as up close and intimate with the fauna. And just as coral reefs nurture small fish, small and mid-level venues nurture small and mid-level acts, allowing them to learn how to interact and share with audiences before moving on to the big sea of the greater music world. Without coral reefs, we would have an unhealthy pelagic ecosystem. Without small and mid-level venues, and the performers in them, the musical ecosystem would wither and die
I think that it's all about a sense of community. Consider the Tir Na Nog and the family atmosphere that developed around regular acts there. We all felt a genuine loss when the venue shut down. Without these type of locations where people can hear live music and feel amongst friends the world becomes less colorful, less unique, less idiosyncratic. Ultimately we are left with Justin Bieber.
We eliminated 50 seats from the me&thee because of the new fire regulations. Three of us have taken the Crowd Control manager training.
Large venues and big acts are like major league sports teams: very popular, very expensive, you'll never get to know the players and, in a word, alienated. I prefer small music where the performers are trying to make it a rich experience for the people directly in front of them. This helps both audience and performers listen and play better respectively. What I also hope that kind of connection stimulates is interest among the listeners to pick up an instrument, sing, and get together with friends to create the amazingly rich and unique experience that comes only from jamming together, regardless of "talent" level.
I live in the "upper valley" region of New Hampshire and can not, (or will not), travel into the "Big City" for musical entertainment, no matter how big of a fan I am of the artists involved. My excuses are: 1. The travel time involved to get there and back, making a show into a 10 or 12 hour ordeal to be avoided. 2. Cost of travel to get my self and wife there and back being a minimum of a whole tank of gas plus parking. 3. Being in a city late at night scares the crap outa me...I have a genuine dislike of cities and crowds, (that's why I live here.)
The Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, VT was a godsend to us. They brought artists and bands to our little corner of the world that I would have never had the pleasure of hearing, otherwise. We tried to support the musicians we liked by attending the shows and buying CD's at the door, (even if we already had them.) Chris at the Middle Earth promoted his community and even helped "local" groups gain a fan base ... The Benders. I attended EVERY performance of Session Americana and EVERY performance of The Benders (and Bow Thayer) that were played at Middle Earth, including the last 3 night memorial weekend concert done by Bow & Sean & the boys. And those are just a few of the groups we went to see over the years there. The point is this: Without Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, we have had no reason to go to that town to see the shows and eat in the cafe's or browse the shops. Even though Bradford is only a 40 minute drive, we have not been back since the closing of Middle Earth.
We then started driving the extra distance to get to Montpelier, VT to see certain artists perform there like Session Americana, Anais Mitchell, Dave Keller, etc. I was shocked and very upset that the Langdon Street Cafe was forced to close, further depriving us of any link to the kind of culture and entertainment we wanted and pushing more up-and-comming artists into the streets to busk.
It is a huge loss to the little city of Montpelier, VT. Even though it is the state capitol of Vermont, I now have no reason to go there. I had hoped it would be able to become my new favorite home away from home. I am willing to support small venues and folk and blues music by spending my hard earned money in towns that support the small venues and their owners.
Are small venues important ??? If someone has to ask that question, then they have not thought the whole thing through. The small venue and the much maligned owners create wealth for the towns and cities they operate in as well as increase the cultural wealth of all the people anywhere close to them. They provide the variation and richness of many genres of music that isn't Mainstream Pop. They give artists a place to start and a place to call home and a place to thrive and grow. Case in point: >> Love Hurts - Anais & Ry
It's a shame that the high cost of doing business is forcing these places out of business all over the nation. The harm done in loosing them will be a huge cost to society as a whole and not just a loss to the artists who depend on them.
(If I were you, I'd say that a large part of a community's vibrancy comes from the contributions artists make to its unique cultural identity. Many of these artists have no larger aspiration than to use their own voice to express their own experience within their own community. While mainstream music might displace local music, it cannot replace local music -- without local music, that voice is gone. Moreover, smaller venues provide artists with a way to connect intimately to an audience. They nurture the mainstream artists of the future. They provide jobs. And they give people a place to go, to meet, to experience something real in their own community. The decline of local culture leads to further social isolation -- and soon, we are all just bowling alone.)
Jim and I use to go to the Old Vienna, when ever we could afford it. To get out to a place that isn't going to cost hundreds of dollars for one night, and to be able to hear live music, it lifts the soul, in a way taped music just can't. It is intimate, you get drawn into the music, and the musicians, and for a bit you can forget your life's problems.
I'm a big Wilco fan. Consider this: today they host a 3-day music festival @ MassMoCA, and they sell out their tours reliably. Wilco, as you know, grew out of Uncle Tupelo. Tupe was originally a bunch of high-school guys who put together a band. They gained popularity by playing out in the local bars & clubs and ultimately toured nationally hitting clubs like TT the Bear's (to this day, I regret not catching that show - one of their last). I hold them up not only because I'm a fan, but also because they exemplify another stage in the process: they've expanded or deepened their fanbase to the point where they're a self-sustaining organization: promoting their own tours, creating their own record label. In this, they're perhaps a little like the Dead or Phish. But the point is: w/o a setting like Cicero's in St. Louis or TT's, where would Uncle Tupelo have ended up? Playing in basements? And without the those kind of venues, how could the talent have grown to the point of giving us Wilco today?
The cultural value of art/artists in the community. Cultural assets are a big part of community identity, without which the community fragments and dissociates. There's a socio-psycho-physical-economic analogy to be made here. Stress-reduction value of arts and music - lightening the hopelessness and depression resulting from the current recession/depression.
I can't say it enough. It's about having music and art in the community. Local music in intrinsic to a healthy, happy community. In the last 4(?) years in union square, Precinct opened with live music almost every night, summer outdoor music shows and festivals became commonplace, more and more small art festivals and sales are filling up the weekends in the square in the summer, the union square farmers market has grown and grown, a winter farmer's market has begun and is thriving. it goes on and on. And i really feel that it started with the music and community at Tir na Nog. I've only lived in union square for 6 years, but the transformation, to me, has been incredible.
At least in Boston, there are choices In smaller towns in Massachusetts,
shutting down those few small clubs really puts the screws on the local
music scene. Many will never have the chance to experience live music., or
learn to love it. In spite of the burst of new music always available on the
internet, without these small and midsize clubs there would be little chance
for the average person to hear what's new - not much left in between buskers
and the Orpheum.
I am literally petrified. Normally when an artists gets asked to give an interview, its to talk about their art - which is relatively easy to do, especially since no one can really contradict you about your own perception of your art. But tomorrow, I have been invited to a live interview on WGBH's Callie Crossley Show to talk about the impact of legislation, zoning, and fire codes on local music. Now I know I stuck my own foot in this one with the email I recently sent about new capacity limitations at the clubs we perform in: I did clearly state a position on this topic. I also know that I could have declined the interview, but in this case there is just too much potential publicity (good or bad, I guess it doesn't matter) from this opportunity. So, at 1:15ish tomorrow I will be asked several questions on a live interview show, which I am probably unqualified to answer with any authority. I know I can talk and have opinions - and it might go really well without any preparation - but there is that chance that things could go terribly wrong and I find myself hoping Callie will not try to pin me down.
So, perhaps some of you could help me prepare?
Thankfully, they promised not to ask about zoning or fire codes.
The main question that they want answered is "Why should people care about local music, especially small and mid-level performers and venues?" Anyone have any hard data on the economic impact of this stream of culture? Even anecdotal data would be useful.
The other question seems to be something along the line of "What effect does it have on a community when small and medium sized performance venues close?" It would be great to hear from some of you who frequented the Langdon St Cafe or the Middle Earth Music Hall. What impact do you think these closings had on the community - not just the audiences for the shows they put on? Old Vienna Coffee House, Kendall Cafe, Tir na Nog? The Wintertide on the Vineyard, The Left Bank in Blue Hill Maine... For those of you in Dublin, what if Paul Lee gives up?
Any responses will be read and appreciated.
Thanks.
-Ry
The response was incredible. So many people wrote very thougtful and beautiful responses. Here are a few:
I am the sixty-two year old who, with his wife, drove from Beverly to Biddeford, Maine to see the band at that fledgling music venue (the name escapes me, but, hey, I'm old). I bought dinner at the local Irish Pub before the show and paid for a room at a local motel afterward. My contribution to the Biddeford economy was small, but a contribution nonetheless. My wife never tires of telling how the band played "Pancho and Lefty" just for us. Over the decades, I have seen many performers in small venues, from the J. Geils Band (before Peter Wolf) in the Rubicon Coffee House in Providence in the 60's to Great Big Sea in a bar in Quincy in the early 90's. I visited the Cavern Club on Mathew Street in Liverpool where the Quarrymen evolved into the Beatles. However, I don't necessarily see the value of small venues being limited to launching careers. They are simply the very best way to enjoy music.
small biz is the engine of job creation...also the engine of art creation.....
Small venues are like minor league. Ball parks where you can see major league talent and feel like your part of the game. When that Talent makes it to the bigs you felt like. You were part of history ...when those Venus close. That opportunity is gone not to be replaced
Our older daughter was raised on awesome live music like yours at Middle Earth in Bradford. It was conveniently located in our own town so we didn't even have to make long drives - which we wouldn't have done. We could bring her to a safe, smoke-free environment where she learned to love more instruments than she is exposed to in a school setting. She is familiar with bluegrass, americana, latin, 20's-style ragtime and singer-songwriters. She also got to meet and talk to musicians. She began taking violin at an early age, because she loves fiddles so much!, and now is also taking piano.
I am no longer in the Boston/Cambridge/MA area - I moved recently to the SF Peninsula - specifically the Silicon Valley area where I lived and worked for 18 years before moving back to New England. The music of New England is what I miss most. At the small venues. Club Passim, Lizard Lounge and the many, many BACHA coffeehouses that supported both local and national artists. And provide a venue where I could see superb performances and in fact get to know the performers close up. These small/intimate venues encourage the audience and performers to a closer interaction than could ever be had in a TD Bankgarden or other massive venue. I have got to know a lot of local and not-so-local performers this way and renew acquaintances when I see them again at the many small venues throughout the Northeast. The other advantage of performances from local artists is price - the price local performers charge makes them accessible to many people who cannot spend the big bucks to see the big names.
The SF Peninsula is almost dead as far as small venue music goes and my heart and soul feel the loss. A loss I didn't know before I had the opportunity to experience the great folk and other performers that tour the small venues of New England. This is a really wonderful, almost magical asset that is found in few places. It should be jealously guarded and protected and supported by every arts lover and organization in the area. Period!
when I walk down the street at night, and there is music, live music coming from a club, I have a sense of vitality, of now, of forward, of' I like this place, I want to walk these streets where this is happening, I want to live here, I want to make my home here, I want to be part of this'
The clubs draw the young and the young draw their own special energy and vibrancy- when a community has to rub shoulders with its youth and the youth from other places there is an energy, a presence added that is so easily felt when it is NOT there.
Live music says WE ARE ALIVE.
Personally, I think that when small venues close it has a trickle down effect on the mood of the community. When I go to a really great performance it makes me feel good. I walk away happy, and when you walk away from something smiling and happy, it is contagious and each interaction is seasoned with that. We all know mow much a smiling person in your day can make a difference.
Small and mid-level venues are like the coral reefs of the music world. Nowhere else can you get as up close and intimate with the fauna. And just as coral reefs nurture small fish, small and mid-level venues nurture small and mid-level acts, allowing them to learn how to interact and share with audiences before moving on to the big sea of the greater music world. Without coral reefs, we would have an unhealthy pelagic ecosystem. Without small and mid-level venues, and the performers in them, the musical ecosystem would wither and die
I think that it's all about a sense of community. Consider the Tir Na Nog and the family atmosphere that developed around regular acts there. We all felt a genuine loss when the venue shut down. Without these type of locations where people can hear live music and feel amongst friends the world becomes less colorful, less unique, less idiosyncratic. Ultimately we are left with Justin Bieber.
We eliminated 50 seats from the me&thee because of the new fire regulations. Three of us have taken the Crowd Control manager training.
Large venues and big acts are like major league sports teams: very popular, very expensive, you'll never get to know the players and, in a word, alienated. I prefer small music where the performers are trying to make it a rich experience for the people directly in front of them. This helps both audience and performers listen and play better respectively. What I also hope that kind of connection stimulates is interest among the listeners to pick up an instrument, sing, and get together with friends to create the amazingly rich and unique experience that comes only from jamming together, regardless of "talent" level.
I live in the "upper valley" region of New Hampshire and can not, (or will not), travel into the "Big City" for musical entertainment, no matter how big of a fan I am of the artists involved. My excuses are: 1. The travel time involved to get there and back, making a show into a 10 or 12 hour ordeal to be avoided. 2. Cost of travel to get my self and wife there and back being a minimum of a whole tank of gas plus parking. 3. Being in a city late at night scares the crap outa me...I have a genuine dislike of cities and crowds, (that's why I live here.)
The Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, VT was a godsend to us. They brought artists and bands to our little corner of the world that I would have never had the pleasure of hearing, otherwise. We tried to support the musicians we liked by attending the shows and buying CD's at the door, (even if we already had them.) Chris at the Middle Earth promoted his community and even helped "local" groups gain a fan base ... The Benders. I attended EVERY performance of Session Americana and EVERY performance of The Benders (and Bow Thayer) that were played at Middle Earth, including the last 3 night memorial weekend concert done by Bow & Sean & the boys. And those are just a few of the groups we went to see over the years there. The point is this: Without Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, we have had no reason to go to that town to see the shows and eat in the cafe's or browse the shops. Even though Bradford is only a 40 minute drive, we have not been back since the closing of Middle Earth.
We then started driving the extra distance to get to Montpelier, VT to see certain artists perform there like Session Americana, Anais Mitchell, Dave Keller, etc. I was shocked and very upset that the Langdon Street Cafe was forced to close, further depriving us of any link to the kind of culture and entertainment we wanted and pushing more up-and-comming artists into the streets to busk.
It is a huge loss to the little city of Montpelier, VT. Even though it is the state capitol of Vermont, I now have no reason to go there. I had hoped it would be able to become my new favorite home away from home. I am willing to support small venues and folk and blues music by spending my hard earned money in towns that support the small venues and their owners.
Are small venues important ??? If someone has to ask that question, then they have not thought the whole thing through. The small venue and the much maligned owners create wealth for the towns and cities they operate in as well as increase the cultural wealth of all the people anywhere close to them. They provide the variation and richness of many genres of music that isn't Mainstream Pop. They give artists a place to start and a place to call home and a place to thrive and grow. Case in point: >> Love Hurts - Anais & Ry
It's a shame that the high cost of doing business is forcing these places out of business all over the nation. The harm done in loosing them will be a huge cost to society as a whole and not just a loss to the artists who depend on them.
(If I were you, I'd say that a large part of a community's vibrancy comes from the contributions artists make to its unique cultural identity. Many of these artists have no larger aspiration than to use their own voice to express their own experience within their own community. While mainstream music might displace local music, it cannot replace local music -- without local music, that voice is gone. Moreover, smaller venues provide artists with a way to connect intimately to an audience. They nurture the mainstream artists of the future. They provide jobs. And they give people a place to go, to meet, to experience something real in their own community. The decline of local culture leads to further social isolation -- and soon, we are all just bowling alone.)
Jim and I use to go to the Old Vienna, when ever we could afford it. To get out to a place that isn't going to cost hundreds of dollars for one night, and to be able to hear live music, it lifts the soul, in a way taped music just can't. It is intimate, you get drawn into the music, and the musicians, and for a bit you can forget your life's problems.
I'm a big Wilco fan. Consider this: today they host a 3-day music festival @ MassMoCA, and they sell out their tours reliably. Wilco, as you know, grew out of Uncle Tupelo. Tupe was originally a bunch of high-school guys who put together a band. They gained popularity by playing out in the local bars & clubs and ultimately toured nationally hitting clubs like TT the Bear's (to this day, I regret not catching that show - one of their last). I hold them up not only because I'm a fan, but also because they exemplify another stage in the process: they've expanded or deepened their fanbase to the point where they're a self-sustaining organization: promoting their own tours, creating their own record label. In this, they're perhaps a little like the Dead or Phish. But the point is: w/o a setting like Cicero's in St. Louis or TT's, where would Uncle Tupelo have ended up? Playing in basements? And without the those kind of venues, how could the talent have grown to the point of giving us Wilco today?
The cultural value of art/artists in the community. Cultural assets are a big part of community identity, without which the community fragments and dissociates. There's a socio-psycho-physical-economic analogy to be made here. Stress-reduction value of arts and music - lightening the hopelessness and depression resulting from the current recession/depression.
I can't say it enough. It's about having music and art in the community. Local music in intrinsic to a healthy, happy community. In the last 4(?) years in union square, Precinct opened with live music almost every night, summer outdoor music shows and festivals became commonplace, more and more small art festivals and sales are filling up the weekends in the square in the summer, the union square farmers market has grown and grown, a winter farmer's market has begun and is thriving. it goes on and on. And i really feel that it started with the music and community at Tir na Nog. I've only lived in union square for 6 years, but the transformation, to me, has been incredible.
At least in Boston, there are choices In smaller towns in Massachusetts,
shutting down those few small clubs really puts the screws on the local
music scene. Many will never have the chance to experience live music., or
learn to love it. In spite of the burst of new music always available on the
internet, without these small and midsize clubs there would be little chance
for the average person to hear what's new - not much left in between buskers
and the Orpheum.
