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If you look at this weekend’s music listings, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s nothing more than a typical winter weekend of local and national acts hitting Chicago’s stages. But the significance of this weekend is far greater than the bills would suggest. For the first time, Chicago’s music venues are working together to ensure their own survival.
Last week, we told you about the 2006 Hawk Winter Music Festival. Today, Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis get into the details of the event that’s designed to promote the League of Chicago Music Venues. The League is made up of eleven of Chicago’s clubs and intends to promote the valuable contributions that they make to the city, both economically and artistically.
But Kot notes that an organization to advance the cause of live music in Chicago already existed when the League was formed. The Chicago Music Commission started last year as “a resource, advocate and lobbyist for all things involving Chicago music.”
Chicagoist thinks it’s a no-brainer for these two groups to work together. Right now, Chicago’s music scene needs three things: internal networking, external promotion and regulation that ensures the safety of the audience while encouraging commerce.
The CMC has already done excellent work on the first point with its Musicians at Work forums. But Chicago needs to do more to put itself on par with Austin as a music destination and this seems to be part of the CMC’s mission as well. While Lollapalooza was a great success in advancing Chicago as a place for great live music, there’s nothing to keep its organizers from staging it another city or multiple cities. Finally, the owners and talent buyers of Chicago’s venues know all to well the dangers of overly restrictive licensing and regulation. Through the League, they can work with City Hall to create an open dialogue that encourages safety while still allowing owners to operate a successful business.
Over the past couple months, Chicagoist had some informal conversations with both members of the CMC and the League. Each group expressed interest in working with the other, but we got the sense that they felt their individual goals would be diluted if they did. We see this as more of a Wonder Twins scenario. When both groups begin working together, they’ll have more success at promoting their individual agendas.
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The metaphor begs the question: Which one is the gorilla and which one is the pail of water?
As usual the daily papers miss the real story here. The current issue of the Chicago Reader details the somewhat nasty split that occurred between members of the Chicago Music Comission that resulted in the League of Chicago Music venues forming, and why it looks like the latter is a weakened organization as a result.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheMeter/060217.html
That's the link you should have relating to the Hawk Winter Festival
Interesting, I hadn't seen that. I can't speak for DeRo or Kot, but I had difficulty getting anyone to go on record discussing the split though it seemed clear from their comments that it was not amicable though I don't know if I get "nasty" from that piece.
I think it makes sense to have two organizations for the reasons I outlined above and that Kate Hill alludes to in the Reader piece. But for them not to work together makes both organizations weaker.
Well, I'm inferring that to a certain extent. But I think the fact that Hill resigned from the music commish board with a terse e-mail -- and that no one from the League has been in contact with the Chicago Music Comission (both of those facts are pretty explicit in the Reader story) leads me to think there is some serious ill will there.
As usual they miss the story? Give me a break. Without the dailies, specifically the Tribune, these organizations may not even exist. I know that members of both boards credit Kot's series of stories about E2 and the inspection-fallout that followed as leading to the creation of both the music commission and league of music venues. The premise of his story today is that these organizations have separate agendas and aren't working together, and implicitly asking why? And again, he's the only reporter quoting actual sources in City Hall, who echo this concern. After all, it's one thing to form a music commission or a league of chicago music venues, it's another to have them heard in Daley's office. And that will be the real test for both these groups....
Wait a second, Kot getting some boilerplate comment from a city lackey is more significant than the fact that he missed -- or intentionally chose to omit -- the real circumstances under which the League of Chicago Music venues was launched? Not sure what your concept of good journalism is, but I'd say it's a rather huge failure on his part to have completely botched such a crucial aspect of the story. Why don't we you continue reading daily newpaper puff pieces -- is he afraid of offending the Metro or Jam? - and leave the investigative journalism to the alternative press.
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