A Love Note to the Local Music Scene

I’ve found myself wondering why I moved to this city. Why do I invest so much of myself, my time, into a community of people just to watch them bicker and fight like two-year-olds in daycare centers? Why do I spend my money on tickets? Why do I purchase merchandise for your band or shell out $5-$10 for your four to six track “cd?” Why go to the show you are busting your ass to promote, only to get five to seven people through the door? Why? Why trouble myself to support you all, when you don’t support each other?

Not too long ago I was a “real” member of the music scene. A much smaller music scene in a state that quite frequently, and quite passionately, gets shit on for various reasons. Some of which are completely ridiculous. We barely bickered. We never snuck behind each other backs and placed blame or sabotaged each other. We never broke ties either. We supported one another not only because we were friends but because we knew that to play music any other way, at our level, would be counterproductive.  We needed each other to ensure our “scene” would be successful.

So we bought each other’s show tickets; we drove 50+ miles to each other’s barely packed shows. We purchased each other’s low quality merch when we knew we’d gladly give it to each other for free. We support one another because there was no one else to support us. We were a family! We still are a family even though less than half of us are still playing the music we love.

I moved to this city, to be a part of a similar brotherhood again. I thought I found it; Smiling faces supporting other smiling faces. After a few months of being in this scene I’ve noticed the rose colored glasses were way too bright and the support was a façade. I noticed if you took off the heart-shaped specs, the bad blood and bickering were right there on the surface, underneath grinning masks made of papier-mâché and ulterior motives. It’s heartbreaking!

I’m not saying it should have been all sunshine and roses all of the time but come one, say what you mean, mean what you say, and follow through with your promises. I know things can’t be awesome all of the time but for Christ sake, I could set a schedule by the outbursts of drama shifting around this town.

You’re probably asking yourself, Devo why are you writing this? Who are you referring to? What are you getting at, aka what is the point? Are you going to end this with a resignation from, whatever it is that you do in this scene (because let’s face it no one really knows what I do, but you all feel the impact of my actions)? 

My answers to your questions are simple:

1   1.     I’m writing this because I care way to God damn much about people who could give a zero fucks about me. I’m writing this because I want you all to know that it breaks my heart to see people who are so passionate about their art, get drug down  and preoccupied with “school yard drama” and the subsequent tactics used to insight it.  It’s heartbreaking!

2.  I’m referring to no one and every one! We’ve all seen it, heard it, felt it, and been in involved in a situation, at some point in the past 8-9months that has resulted in migraine inducing, scream fight instigating drama (myself included). It’s neither helpful nor necessary. There are ways to mediate issues between bands, promoters, venues/bars, without child-like actions. I promise you. I was a conflict mediator at one point in my life, I swear to you there are alternatives.

3.      What I’m getting at is simple as well, stop fighting and unite your efforts. I know there is money involved when you’re a promoter, bar owner, etc., but there are ways to promote yourself to generate income and not sully the competition. It is possible. Imagine what we could do with this music scene if we all worked together? How awesome it would be to see four or five of our friend’s bands get signed to major record labels and spread their music across the country if we’d just help each other out? I think that would be pretty awesome.

4.      What exactly am I going to resign from? Yes, I do public relations for an independent record label when they call upon me (by the way they are in no way endorsing this message. This was my own dumbass idea). To resign from that position would be to turn my back on something I love dearly, which is writing and using my writing skills to promote my talented friends. Not to mention “what exactly I do in this scene” is support all of you by going to your shows, buying your music and merch, and spreading the word about your music at each and every chance I get. How does one resign from being a fan?

I’m writing this solely because I care and I don’t want to see this scene get divide by pettiness. The quote below that you are hopefully going to read, was my inspiration for this rant. It’s from a book called Things a Little Bird Told Me by Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter. In this chapter he muses about how awesome it would be if, instead of competing with each other, everyone just collaborated. How far advanced do you image us as a world would have gone by now? How far do you imagine we could go? I’m just asking that we scale it down. Imagine what we, the local music scene of Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love that is not producing much love at all), could accomplish if we joined our efforts and supported each other, communicated our grievances instead of declaring war?

Just think about it! I’m not asking for responses or revolution, just a little less negativity and hate and more love and support. I’ll still be around at ALL OF YOUR SHOWS, regardless of my affiliations and newly acquired employment, supporting everyone equally. The same goes for social media promotion as well \m/ <3 Okay here’s the quote:

What if we weren’t citizens of a particular country or state? What if we were citizens of the world? …Flocking is a triumph of humanity. It can make things happen. Imagine if humanity could cooperate like an emergent life form – we could get things done in a single year that would otherwise take one hundred years to do. Imagine if all the world’s astrophysicists put their egos aside and collaborated on a Mars mission? Or all the environmental scientists worked as one on global warming? Or the world’s best oncologists took on cancer together, one type at a time? Only 114,000 people in the world have thirty million dollars or more in assets. What if they were in a Google group and decided to invest in one thing to change the course of history?

Then there’s all of us, and together we are more powerful than any one thing. Can you imagine what we could get done (212)?