Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ch-scene - Re: On Durham and identity

ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: RTP-area local music and culture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Erich <floydianslip127 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
  • Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 07:35:06 -0700 (PDT)

The Durham music scene? I guess I really have been out of the loop. It
however brings a smile to my face to hear my home town has a blossoming scene
though. It use to be back in the heyday of The Chapel Hill scene that bands
from durham simply said they were from chapel hill thinking maybe that would
translate into more Gigs or getting noticed. I use play and sing for band
called Psycho Sonic Cindi in the mid 90's and we just called ourselves a
Chapel Hill band even though more than half of our memebers were from Durham.
Durham always had a little buzz going though with The Coffee House and Under
The Street which I think is called The Basement now.

any who DURHAM scene yah!

Shayne <shayne.d.oneill AT gmail.com> wrote:
Ross's point about cheap rent (and, I would add, empty buildings) is
unmistakably true, but it isn't the whole reason. Cheap rent is why
this scene is growing in Durham as opposed to Chapel Hill, but it is
not the only ingredient necessary to start a good scene (I mean, rent
is pretty cheap in Greensboro too, right?). I think in a large part
that the rise of the Durham scene is due to a number of dedicated
individuals actively trying to foster a scene here. I could be wrong,
but I think that one of the differences between the music scene in
Durham and, say, Chapel Hill is that when a musician in Durham goes
through the cost/benefit decision of any given action, they take into
account not only what is good for their band but what is good for the
music scene itself. I'm not saying that everyone in Durham thinks
this way, but enough people do to make a difference. In Chapel Hill
the music scene is so firmly established that most people never think
about what they need to do to improve/grow that scene (I know I didn't
when I lived there), but in Durham the scene is so young that there
are a lot of people who are invested in coaxing it along and helping
it mature. For example, the shows at BCHQ are free to attend. This
is in part because we don't want to exclude those who can't afford to
pay and because we don't want to be all business-like about it (the
hippie motivation), but it is also because free shows foster a music
scene. The bands that play here know that they're not going home with
a ton of money and we know that we're going to have to scramble a bit
to cover rent, but it's ok because we all really care about seeing
this community take off. And of course, that leads back to Ross's
point about cheap rent enabling artistic expression. There are also a
lot of community minded people in bands who are willing to help each
other out as much as they can. In Chapel Hill it sometimes feels like
it's every band for themselves (with notable exceptions), but I've
seen bands help each other out in Durham more times than I can count.
Beloved Binge goes on the radio and talks more about their friends'
bands and the Durham scene than their own music.

I think you were right to say that Joe and Jo's was the unofficial
home/birthplace of what is happening in Durham. It was another
example where free shows (and cheap beer/wonderful staff/outside
seating) built a steady crowd of musicians and music fans who were
there every night. The energy that was evident at Joe and Jo's is a
part of why people became so involved in turning this into a scene.
It is a self perpetuating thing. You feel the energy and it energizes
you to contribute. In that sense, a lot of what is going on in Durham
might be coincidental; a lot of small ventures and decisions that all
come along at just the right time to fuel the next one (Joe and Jo's,
Chaz's, Troika, 305 South, 307 Knox, etc, plus all of the bands that
have sprung up around them). I think you are wrong though to include
Joe and Jo's in the list of places that have folded in Durham. Joe
and Jo's didn't go under, it got sold. I've never looked at their
expense reports, but I got the impression that they were a very
profitable venture up until the night that the doors closed.

Another factor that has fueled the growth of Durham has been the
proximity of already established music scenes in Raleigh and Chapel
Hill. Without those pools to feed from, there would not be enough
variety and energy to keep this community on its feet. The
neighboring towns have also allowed a number of bands to grow and be
ready to call themselves "Durham bands" before there was a scene in
place, so that when the clubs started opening, there were big hometown
acts ready to go. It seems like there were a lot of situations and
people who had to be in the right place at the right time for all of
this to come together. A mixture of cheap rent and dedicated people
in a place where there was not an already entrenched counter-culture
has created what is here now. A lot of the shows are attended by the
same core group of people, but that group continues to grow and more
and more townies and students have been showing up (Troika, the
Antifolk Fest, that Red Collar show at Broad Street). That was
something that we've been talking about for a while: how to get more
than just the musicians interested in what is going on here. My hope
has been that if the musicians continue to support each other, then
eventually it will catch on and everyone else will get involved too.
It's starting to look like that exact thing is happening.

- Shayne

ps - I meant no disrespect to Greensboro at the beginning of this
post. I think Greensboro is a rad place and there are some lovely
people out there who are working really hard to grow the music scene
in that city as well.





On Apr 4, 11:30 pm, "betsysh... AT gmail.com"
wrote:
> Grady--
>
> I guess beyond cheap housing (I've heard arguments that carrboro is
> cheap enough, or comperably cheap and I don't really know the orange
> county housing market) I wonder about the newer aspects of the "scene"
> developed...I don't really know who was here before this new wave of
> fairly young bands came in and commandeered the identity, but there
> seems to be a gung ho "attitude" of Durham, sort of invested in
> separationist politics, but more in the sense of there was no place
> for us so we've made a place for ourselves. Whether or not that's
> true is debatable (and in my work has been widely debated). When I
> moved here in 2003, I was going to CH weekly because there was
> "nothing to do" in Durham. Whether or not that was true, there was
> nothing visible, barely any venues for music, and when I went out,
> people seemed pretty down on Durham (the favorite joke being about
> Welcome to Durham / getting shot / getting robbed) The other thing
> I've thought about in regards to politics is the fact that Durham is
> sort of the "poor" city....and the fact that people sort of bricolage
> the poverty and the lovable loser mentality of the town, making their
> own projects into the little engine that could...
>
> Plus, Durham seems to have many more female movers and shakers, at
> least visibly-- Mel thomas owns 307 Knox and does Troika, Michelle
> Lee's Untidy Museum/Electric Blender are the real reason places like
> ooh la latte and 305 south came to be, 3 of the 6 members of the board
> of BCHQ are ladies...going back there was ladyslipper and Mr. lady.
> Is this just coincidence? Is Durham as a town just woman friendlier?
> I've made the argument that Durham is a "feminized" or "emasculated"
> space because it has been robbed of its agency, lost its earning power
> and is now basically being parceled off to the highest bidder.
>
> I would argue, however, that the number of people willing to travel to
> Durham for events is not nearly as high as people likely to go out to
> Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Raleigh for events. As much as rent prices play
> a role, you can't deny that Broad St cafe has gone under in many
> incarnations, Joe & Jo's (arguably the birthplace of this new wave of
> Durham collectives) went down, and without an intervention by the
> DUU, The Coffeehouse would've folded too. Are people really coming
> out to Durham? I never intended to say it was a "hot scene" but
> people are trying to make something happen here and I wonder both how
> it looks from the outside to musicians and listeners. I think the
> sort of same 100 people phenomena is in full blast here, because it's
> the same people at lots of the shows, with the exception maybe of Red
> Collar shows.
>
> I guess I have been getting a lot of nebulous responses about the
> "spirit" of durham, like Ross's statement
> "Chapel Hill/Carrboro seems too evenly
> divided between rich people and college students; Raleigh feels more
> like Charlotte every day, sadly. People in Durham feel more like
> people. "
> I suppose that I am trying to put my finger on why it is that people
> in Durham feel more like people / the Durham "scene" is so much more
> supportive than others / it's "fresher" / it's really DIY / it's so
> weird/interesting for people now.
>
> Thanks already for your responses, if you've got any reply to these
> (or the questions posed by Joel, thanks man!) that'd be great too.


-- ch-scene: the list that mirrors alt.music.chapel-hill --
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/ch-scene




..
Check out The New Demos from, A Remote Luxury!
>From grady AT ibiblio.org Thu Apr 5 10:37:06 2007
Return-Path: <grady AT ibiblio.org>
X-Original-To: ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from metalab.unc.edu (mail.ibiblio.org [152.46.7.112])
by lists.ibiblio.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2112F4C010
for <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 10:37:06 -0400
(EDT)
Received: from lc4eb0534406070.ibm.com (unknown [65.88.96.136])
(using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits))
(No client certificate requested)
by metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F2D548F1B
for <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Thu, 5 Apr 2007 10:37:03 -0400
(EDT)
Message-ID: <4615098A.8090706 AT ibiblio.org>
Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 10:36:58 -0400
From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0b2 (X11/20070116)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: On Durham and identity
References: <BAY104-F10E54CA685C9440B6105DDDE660 AT phx.gbl>
<1175782777.822150.302250 AT d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <1175782777.822150.302250 AT d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-BeenThere: ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
Reply-To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:37:06 -0000

Shayne wrote:
> I think in a large part
> that the rise of the Durham scene is due to a number of dedicated
> individuals actively trying to foster a scene here. I could be wrong,
> but I think that one of the differences between the music scene in
> Durham and, say, Chapel Hill is that when a musician in Durham goes
> through the cost/benefit decision of any given action, they take into
> account not only what is good for their band but what is good for the
> music scene itself. I'm not saying that everyone in Durham thinks
> this way, but enough people do to make a difference. In Chapel Hill
> the music scene is so firmly established that most people never think
> about what they need to do to improve/grow that scene (I know I didn't
> when I lived there), but in Durham the scene is so young that there
> are a lot of people who are invested in coaxing it along and helping
> it mature.

Yes!

And the flipside of this is that the Durham community rewards that urge
to do more, because the results/feedback are immediate & largely positive.

> In Chapel Hill it sometimes feels like
> it's every band for themselves (with notable exceptions), but I've
> seen bands help each other out in Durham more times than I can count.

I dunno, I think people in bands in Chapel Hill go see each other play;
not as much as Durhamites do, but I guess the phrase "every band for
themselves" has a negative/competitive connotation. I'd probably want to
say instead "Chapel Hill bands are full of drunks & stoners who can't
really get it together enough to pay attention to other people." But
that would be mean, so I won't say it, I'll just keep thinking it to myself.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page