|
|
Author
|
Topic: Social media, valuable property are killing live music venues
|
Frank Cox
Film God
![](/ubbmembers/6258a.jpg)
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
|
posted 01-14-2017 02:56 PM
Social media, valuable property are killing live music venues quote: It's a refrain heard in cities across Canada: small but influential live music venues are struggling and closing.
Toronto's The Hoxton and Hugh's Room, and The Carleton in Halifax are among the latest victims of the trend, joining Vancouver's Railway Club, which closed in 2016.
There are a host of reasons, from the changing habits of music lovers to harsh financial realities. One important issue is that some of these venerable venues sit on valuable real estate.
"In a city like Toronto or Vancouver or Halifax, real estate is incredibly valuable when you're in the downtown core," said music publicist Eric Alper.
"Somebody offers you a couple million dollars to put up condos, you're going to think real, real easy on making that transition."
More troubling, however, is that today, "university-aged kids don't go to shows," Mike Campbell, owner of Halifax's Carleton Music Bar and Grill, told CBC News.
"There's a generation or two out there that I would be surprised if they've ever seen live music."
He said the way many people consume music has drastically changed. Young people are more often engaging with and streaming music via mobile apps rather than checking out a new act in person.
"How we all meet now [is] with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify," noted Jason Parsons of Toronto band USS.
He and bandmate Ashley Buchholz are among those lamenting the demise of smaller music clubs — seen as an important incubator for new and up-and-coming performers.
Some of the shuttered venues, like Hugh's Room and the Railway Club, are hoping to reopen in some capacity but it's still unclear what that will look like.
With fewer launching pads, music lovers worry, emerging artists may not have the venues needed to turn them into stars.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/1269b.jpg)
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 01-15-2017 08:38 PM
The decline of music venues goes back long before the advent of YouTube and social media. Bill Graham closed the Fillmore East in June of '71 after the manager of The Who said that $50,000 for a week of performances was not enough money. (That's $298,000 in 2016 dollars).
And long before that, all the Jazz clubs on 52nd street were pushed out by Rockefeller Center and other real estate development.
In NYC, I used to pop in to Chicago Blues and Manny's Car Wash often. But with Manhattan rents being what they are, it's impossible for these places to survive. The Bottom Line didn't pay their rent for over a year before NYU finally threw them out. And of course CBGBs closed. Etc. The problem with most music clubs, even if they're bars is that most only really do business two nights a week, so at best, they only have four sold out shows a night. That's not sustainable in today's real estate world.
Real estate values are probably the biggest factor. It's also why in cities where real estate values are high, the old movie palaces didn't survive, but in places where it's not as hot, many have survived or were turned into concert venues or cultural centers. It's also why almost everything that was once unique about NYC is disappearing as the chains take over. Real estate companies prefer chains because they know the rent is going to get paid and there's less turnover. Frankly, I don't know why tourists come to NYC any more. The restaurants and retailers are the same as in every shopping mall in the country.
Having said that, there's still a few hundred music venues in NYC and many new ones have opened. So if you want to hear music, there's still plenty of places to do so, but it's not like the days of the Fillmore, where you could go there almost every week and not have to search out other venues.
I do agree that sound levels in most places are absolutely ridiculously loud - loud beyond the threshold of pain. I remember seeing an opening act in a small club. The guy played solo flute and the mixer had him cranked up as if he was a heavy metal band.
There's a band called the Ed Palermo Big Band. He usually does the music of Frank Zappa with a 20-odd piece orchestra, but sometimes he does the music of Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. I saw them perform in a place that wasn't usually a music venue. So they played with a portable mixer and a small P.A. system. They didn't bother miking the horns because they didn't need to. The sound was fantastic. A few months later I saw them at the Bottom Line, which seated about 200. The mixer blasted us out of the room. It was beyond the threshold of pain. And the mixer was this kid who was wearing a wool hat over his ears, which enraged me. I told him that the levels were beyond the threshold of pain, but he mocked me. I bet he has severe hearing loss now.
Between the insecurity of bands and the ego of sound mixers (and I'm an ex-recording engineer myself) they make the levels ridiculously loud which turns the mix to mush and causes tedium. But because it causes tedium and the nerve endings in the ear "tire", you can't hear anything and so the mixers drive up the levels even higher as the show goes on. Sound levels are always higher during the second half of a show. The same thing happens with the band on stage, even though they have their own monitor system - as the show goes on, you'll always see band members pointing to the stage mixer and asking for the levels to be increased. And for some reason, people never complain about the levels. They think it's macho to go with it even though the ear is not a muscle. I've been to movie theaters where the sound levels are ridiculous as well. Mixers (and Directors) have forgotten what dynamic range means and how to use it.
Even with hearing protection, I came out of a Beatles tribute band concert with tinnitus. I had ringing for a year. I still think I'm hearing noise all the time, but I can't be sure - I would only know if it disappeared.
The problem now is that most sound mixers don't know what good concert sound sounds like because they've never heard it. So it just gets worse and worse.
Sales tax is actually becoming less of an issue because as the online retailers get bigger and bigger, they're opening more warehouses and offices in more states to reduce shipping time and 'nexus' results, which means they have to charge tax. So since Amazon has offices in NYC, they charge sales tax here which they didn't use to do. The bigger threat is that Amazon is experimenting with brick and mortar stores. They want to own everything.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
![](/ubbmembers/840f.jpg)
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 01-15-2017 10:00 PM
I hope Amazon opens a bunch of retail stores in every state. They'll have to deal with all the extra overhead, staffing issues and other challenges that come with running a retail operation. And they'll lose their all important sales tax advantage. They'll still be on the predatory level of Walmart or Target. But right now I think Amazon is much worse due to the sales tax thing.
quote: Martin Brooks Frankly, I don't know why tourists come to NYC any more. The restaurants and retailers are the same as in every shopping mall in the country.
That's gentrification for you. The truly local, independent operations are pushed out of the prime areas, which often includes any outlets for night life that have any real personality, such as a small to medium sized live music night club.
New York City may still have a lot of venues where up and coming bands can play. I think the situation is getting tougher outside of really large cities. There is a lot of overhead with running a larger sized night club that hosts live music.
In regions like mine such venues are thrown into competition with any number of casinos that added their own music venues. The funny thing is casino venues typically do not book unknown bands, especially ones that play really heavy music or alternative forms of rock music. They seem to prefer booking "dinosaur" bands, ones that are many years past their prime. For instance here in Lawton the Fort Sill Apache Casino is fixing to open a new 50,000 square foot event center. The building can host concerts for up to 1200 people. The first bands to play there will be 38 Special, The Oak Ridge Boys and Montgomery Gentry. We used to have a medium sized night club called The Diamondback that could host dinosaur band concerts as well as up and coming acts. But it shut down about 10 years ago, in part because three different casinos less than 100 miles away soaked up the dinosaur band tour business.
In the end young bands are left having to duke it out in really small bars with very limited seating and very limited pay checks. I have a friend who plays drums in a Tulsa-based hard rock band called The Normandys. They have to play a lot of crappy small bar gigs. Every once in awhile they'll get a opening slot in a bigger venue like Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa or the Diamond Ballroom in Oklahoma City. They scored a spot in the band lineup for Rocklahoma this year, which is a pretty big deal. Rocklahoma is easily one of the biggest live music festivals in the nation.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|