Sunday, April 27, 2008
I can haz muziks
My home town launched a free music festival last night that is hoped to become an annual event. With three blocks of our downtown closed off, two main stages flanked the east and west end with several mini-venues sprinkled within various store-fronts and one larger indoor venue.
The festival ran from noon to 11:00 pm -I'd tell you who the artist's were, but it's website has already erased that info - a list of the artists can be found via this link. But I do know there was a healthy mix of genre's from indie to bluegrass. Word has it that it wants to grow up and emulate the massive SXSW festival in Austin. I'm a bit skeptical of it's chances.
Once upon a time, back in the day, our town was on the rise with it's local music scene. The Campus Corner area at the rim of the University was rife with restaurants and clubs crowded on the weekends with people clamoring to see their favorite local band or artist. It wasn't unusual to see street musicians on the corner in those days.
But the scene fizzled. It's been debated over and over as to what happened, but my guess is one of lack of support from the city 'fathers' and lack of organization from the artists. It just never took off.
I am really out of touch with the current scene in this town, so when I heard about the festival - yesterday, day of - I was surprised (I don't read our local rag, something that an acquaintance I ran into last night responded to by telling me I needed to get my head out of my ass... he may be right).
I was really surprised that the downtown merchants agreed to such a venture. My ten years running the indoor venue taught me just how tight-assed they were about anything that could potentially take money from their pocket without any consideration as to how they may make it work to their advantage.
A lot of those merchants have either moved on or were beaten into submission I suppose, because for twelve or so hours, on a Saturday, downtown was closed off and streams of people flowed in to enjoy the current local music scene.
I arrived about a half hour before one band was set to play. I came because it was a reunion of a hometown band that "made it big" as it were. A band that had also played at the indoor venue during my tenure there which gave me the opportunity to chit chat with some of the band members. They were/are great guys.
The band? None other then the Chansaw Kittens
. With proud parents and grandparents at the foot of the stage, they jumped into an hour long love fest with their audience. I recorded a bunch of it with a friend in mind who, perhaps, has made more music festivals in his young lifetime, then I ever could have boasted of in my hippy youth.
This one's for you, Pauly (the beginning is rough, the sound is out of sync for a brief moment or two).
...
The festival ran from noon to 11:00 pm -
Once upon a time, back in the day, our town was on the rise with it's local music scene. The Campus Corner area at the rim of the University was rife with restaurants and clubs crowded on the weekends with people clamoring to see their favorite local band or artist. It wasn't unusual to see street musicians on the corner in those days.
But the scene fizzled. It's been debated over and over as to what happened, but my guess is one of lack of support from the city 'fathers' and lack of organization from the artists. It just never took off.
I am really out of touch with the current scene in this town, so when I heard about the festival - yesterday, day of - I was surprised (I don't read our local rag, something that an acquaintance I ran into last night responded to by telling me I needed to get my head out of my ass... he may be right).
I was really surprised that the downtown merchants agreed to such a venture. My ten years running the indoor venue taught me just how tight-assed they were about anything that could potentially take money from their pocket without any consideration as to how they may make it work to their advantage.
A lot of those merchants have either moved on or were beaten into submission I suppose, because for twelve or so hours, on a Saturday, downtown was closed off and streams of people flowed in to enjoy the current local music scene.
I arrived about a half hour before one band was set to play. I came because it was a reunion of a hometown band that "made it big" as it were. A band that had also played at the indoor venue during my tenure there which gave me the opportunity to chit chat with some of the band members. They were/are great guys.
The band? None other then the Chansaw Kittens
. With proud parents and grandparents at the foot of the stage, they jumped into an hour long love fest with their audience. I recorded a bunch of it with a friend in mind who, perhaps, has made more music festivals in his young lifetime, then I ever could have boasted of in my hippy youth.This one's for you, Pauly (the beginning is rough, the sound is out of sync for a brief moment or two).
...
Labels: chainsaw kittens, Music
Posted at 12:30 PM | |
