RTP-area local music and culture

[Michael Warren <p_michael_warren AT yahoo.com>]

I've been playing gigs for close to twenty-five years, 
sometimes in Chapel Hill/Durham/Raleigh, 
but mostly out in small towns (or places with no towns)
around NC or Virginia. They are definitely not rock clubs.
If you hear a rock song it is likely to be a Lynard Skynard 
or Jerry Lee Lewis tune. It doesn't get much heavier or more
modern than that. 
But from a business standpoint the story is the same 
as in metro areas or college towns. Many of the places 
we used to play are gone and for those remaining, 
business ain't what it used to be. The owners make up
for the drop in business by hiking drink prices, cover 
charges, membership fees, and by spending zero dollars
on the club itself, but that's not a good long term strategy.
I can think of one or two that probably won't be open next
year. Reasons include drinking age/DWI laws, the explosion
in entertainment options, and other factors, and of course, 
club owners who don't really know what they're doing.
The club business has always been kind of transient. Most
don't last to the end of their lease on the building. Some of
the Chapel Hill clubs have been around for several years so
they must be doing something right.
I have never fell to the morbid temptation of owning my own
place, but I have spent way too much time playing or hanging
out in nightclubs and dance halls. My advice is: Make the
club itself " the place to be", whether that means fixing up 
the interior, advertising heavily, or hiring Hooters - style barmaids;
whatever you can afford. Don't depend on bands to draw big crowds.
Very few local bands have the reputation to do that, and those that
do will cost you more. Or if you just want to be around music and
don't care about making money......
Forget the club and start a band!  
Mike  
          


MADDMIKES  Karaoke/ D.J. 
BOTTOMS UP BAND (336) 503-9585 (336) 504-1626
p_michael_warren AT yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/p_michael_warren/index.html









                
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>From grady AT ibiblio.org  Tue Dec 21 17:43:54 2004
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I've avoided the whole anti-rockist thing because it's a total straw 
man. Most of the rockcrits who matter are more than happy to embrace 
both the rockist canon *and* N.E.R.D. and/or Kelis and/or whatever. Who 
the fuck do the anti-rockists think were championing Outkast for years 
before "Hey-Ya"?

Or were Outkast rockist because Andre sang & they occasionally used live 
instruments? It's a slippery slope, to be sure, and I think the whole 
argument is so silly I just mostly can't be bothered.

I mean, it'd be really fucking "rockist" to champion the Eagles but 
there are precious few folks doing that. Or if they are, I'm thankfully 
not reading about it.

It's not that I'm worried about Franz or Interpol or whomever selling 
out the cradle, it's that I'm curious where "the kids" find out about 
the stuff that isn't on *either* college radio *or* MTV/G105. And I'm 
curious whether any of them (or the emo kids, for that matter) would 
ever give a shit about live music that wasn't just their fave 
band-from-the-internet playing their town.

I mean, what Richard is getting at is that moment in college where the 
young undergrad suddenly realizes that there are a shitload of bands as 
good as or likely far better than what he/she's been listening to, and 
they start going to shows, and their grades drop. And at some point in 
that process they find out that there are different subcategories of 
pleasure to be derived from a sold-out show at the Cradle vs a hot 
Saturday night at 506 with Jett Rink, f'rinstance.

Maybe it's that the "kids" are accessing relatively non-shitty music 
when they're still in middle school, so by the time they get to college 
they already know there's more to life than MTV et al, and they're 
paradoxically less inclined to dig that half-inch further down to the 
stuff we're talking about.

I mean, emo may be kind of generic, and all this post-post-post-whatever 
boys-in-mod-suits electro-rock may also be kind of generic, but there's 
maybe just enough intelligence & human emotion (certainly compared to 
the half-dozen bands in rotation on MTV) to keep yr average 19-year-old 
pretty well occupied for quite a few years.

I mean, "I gots no time to go try out for that weird college radio 
station full of longhairs who listen to nothing but field recordings and 
laptop bleeps; I've got my website to run and my 24/7 streaming web 
radio station. Ya dig?"

And yes, local rock *should* be an event. I guess there are many worse 
mottoes than "play every show as if it were your last."

Ross

p.s. I suspect there are other things that the Moaners have in common 
with des_ark beyond ease-of-touring.

bendy wrote:
> I want to bite on this one, but my thoughts are really disorganized, and 
> I've thrown out a few attempts already. But to add to the discussion:
> 
> - Glenn dropping the cover for various local shows is good. And it's 
> symptomatic of something larger that's going on with the business of 
> music right now. My own band made far more money from pass-the-hat gigs 
> than anything with a cover charge.

> ...and this is a list full of rockists, for sure. While I've fretted 
> that "rock" might be passe, I get a look some fresh-faced bunch of 
> shitheads like the Coachwhips or Something About Vampires and Sluts, and 
> I know everything is okay. They play the same damn riffs everyone has 
> played for 50 years now, but somehow make it sound scuzzy and sexy and new.
> 
> So I don't think the worry should be Franz Ferdinand selling out the 
> Cradle. FF is just the 2004 model of the Verve, who were the 1997 model 
> of School of Fish or whatever. I remember my 18 year old self getting 
> into it with a 30 year old friend who was arguing that upstarts like the 
> Smiths and Sonic Youth didn't fit his mold of underground rock (which 
> was, if I recall correctly, The Germs and The Violent Femmes.) Like 
> grady concludes, most of that audience isn't really looking for new 
> music anyways. They probably found out about it while reading mom's 
> People Magazine.
> 
> - I do think we're on the cusp of something really different than the 
> last 50 years though, and I think it's mostly economic, not a style or 
> demographic thing. And it's here my thought get most disorganized. The 
> audience for gut-level music has remained pretty constant, or grown, 
> given that we can find out about a good Swedish or Japanese band fairly 
> quickly, without that band ever coming to the States. Or in the case of 
> the A-Frames, even making it to our coast. But still, it feels like a 
> winnowing. The whole "This Band Could Be Your Life" circuit is probably 
> dissolving. The rise of guitar-drum duos might have something to do with 
> economic change. I know I've looked on with envy at the super-stealthy 
> mobility of des_ark, and how they don't even need a sound check. I 
> wonder if simplifying touring had anything to do with M. Swingle moving 
> from Trailer Bride to the Moaners?
> 
> - Local rock does great when we make it an event. Blackstrap should have 
> made every gig our *last* gig. Or Niku should organize everything. 
> Getting more incoherent: vaudeville and cabaret. If you're music is 
> downloadable for free (and if it isn't you are dumb), you better make 
> that live show stand out.
> 
> bendy
> 
>