Thursday evening, the directors of Life in Deep Ellum and the Carter Albrecht Music Foundation held the first in, hopefully, a series of meetings to discuss the local music scene. Among invitees were local media, record label owners, club owners, and local artists. The goal was to discuss what is happening in the scene, what may be holding it back, and what needs improvement. Some of the recurring themes through out the meeting (at least, my understanding of them):

• What is the role of the media in creating a scene? Is the media to blame for hurting our current scene?



• Is the local music scene tied up in Deep Ellum? To what extent should other areas be included? Can there be a "scene" if it's not centralized?

There was much impassioned debate surrounding the topics above. As part of introductions, we were all asked to name something positive and something negative about the current scene. The positive was nearly unanimous: there is a lot of talent in the area. The negatives took a different course, from musing about what a "scene" actually entails, to whether we are trying to recreate a feeling in Deep Ellum or move forward, to, oh yeah, the damn media. For the purpose of disclosure to Pegasus readers here were my positive and negative:

P: I like the fact that our scene is so spread out. As a Keller-based youngster attending shows, it was not always a possibility getting out to Dallas, and it was helpful to have Fort Worth and Denton to check out. If we want to include the most music fans, we need to figure out some "scene" that will take advantage of our geographic sprawl. Otherwise we'll alienate those who aren't within 10 minutes of downtown Dallas.

N: From a media standpoint, I think we get too hooked into just a couple genres as defining our scene. There are several genres that are thriving and don't get enough attention from us, such as the metal scene (i.e. Arlington, Fort Worth) and the younger bands (screamo, nu-metal, etc.). To really judge the value of our scene, we need to do a better job taking into account all parts of it.

So it's probably clear now that I'm more for an all-inclusive scene, which is similar to how we cover all news at PN. But there is the point to be made that a spread-out scene might not be a scene at all. What the hell is a scene anyway? My head hurts.

Comments

Tracy Yost Verified

I so agree with your P&N. This definitely sounds like a meeting about deep ellum rather than "the local music scene" (and no they are not one and the same).

5 months, 4 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

JW Richard Verified

I don't believe that the artists need to define the "scene". That's usually the job of the media and PR. With that said, I do think more artists need to reach to more local blog and podcasts like mine (http://www.mandrakesocietyradio.com (yep, no shame)) to help in spreading the word about their art.

5 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rick Yost Verified

Okay, let me give this a shot. If I'm understanding the generally accepted definition of a 'scene', I think it's somewhere along the lines of Greenwich Village's folk-music-scene, or Seattle's grunge-scene, or even Nashville's country-music-scene.
In those cases, I think it was very much a case of the musicians driving the 'scene'. I don't think Dallas can actually exert the amount of marketing and proper publicity needed to create its own scene. However, being proven wrong in this respect would please me greatly.
Then again, who's going to decide the best 'scene' to shoot for? It'd be my luck they'd turn Dallas into the hip-hop-mecca of the whole country.

Iconic events such as Woodstock or Live-Aid can be planned and put forth, but I don't think you can force creativity and get the best results. A creative scene must develop from creativity, not the longing for something to happen. The worst possible result might be a botched effort to highlight one area or type of art-music-whatever, and ignoring others. After a while you'd wind up giving exposure to second-rate artists- having only the good fortune of going in the same direction as the chosen scene. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, truly great artists would be starving in the shadow of the city planners.

"The best, and worst thing to happen to music- the invention of the tape recorder." -Yost

5 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )