Don't Tread On My Live Music!
Have you heard? The City of Chicago wants to make it impossible for live indie music to exist in Chicago. WTF?
I think it’s ridiculous for any public official to think they have the right to stop live music in any capacity. Most musicians crave an outlet for their music to be heard by a live audience whether it’s a large stadium, medium size club, small venue, the local coffee shop or even a house concert. On the flip side most people crave live music, which is why they will spend their hard earned money on a show and will even drive long distances to see their favorite performers. And let me tell you independent artists are NOT exempt from this. They have wonderful, crazy, rabid fans who will walk the ends of the earth to see them perform live. Who give anyone the right to take that away?
As an event promoter who mostly produces benefits there is no way we could afford the ridiculous fees the City of Chicago wants to impose so that means sorry but NO GoGirls shows in Chicago. How sad to tell our members, “sorry but your city makes it impossible for us to produce a show here.” Would indie musicians resort to creating an “underground” music scene? You bet! But how ridiculous to have to hide this and worry about the legalities of these actions.
So I say, stand up and fight this. Visit Save Chicago Culture because they need your support.
I have to say that it makes me proud that I live in Texas where it would be considered a crime if someone tried to take our music away. After all, Austin is the live music capital of the world!
I would love to hear your comments on this. Bring them on!
Rock on friends,
Madalyn Sklar
Copyright © 2008 Madalyn Sklar, IndieMusicCoach
Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach, consultant and author. She founded IndieMusicCoach and has spent over 12 years working with a wide range of independent musicians all over the world - U.S., Canada, Ireland and Japan thus far. Her goal is to help indie artists achieve greater success in the music business by working smarter not harder. She is also the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest and largest online community of indie women musicians, with a vision of bringing together and empowering musicians from around the world.Madalyn is available for one-on-one consulting and coaching at affordable prices. Check out http://www.indiemusiccoach.com/ for more info.
Madalyn Sklar is a music business coach, consultant, blogger, social networks expert and author. She has spent over 12 years working with a wide range of independent musicians all over the world - U.S., Canada, Ireland and Japan thus far. Her goal is to help indie artists achieve greater success in the music business by working smarter not harder. She is also the founder of GoGirlsMusic.com, the oldest & largest online community of indie women musicians. 
"Madalyn not only gives me marketing strategies during our consultations, but she gets me thinking in a whole new direction."
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Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for the big boys to try cut out the competition by getting exemptions that leave the little guys in the dust. Sadly, the final ordinance looks like it may do just that.
The silver lining to these kinds of proposals is that it really gets people steamed up about live music and might encourage people who take it for granted to get out to hear some music, at least for a while.
Maybe we need to propose something like this to rev up the Houston music scene. (Just kidding--playing politics is a dangerous game.)
Posted by
Marie |
2:36 PM