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BAY AREA new music scene: was Noise Pancakes in the news!



Tim Munengast wrote this about the San Francisco noise scene:

"Once again I find myself on the wrong coast. Seems like the West has all
the cool cars, the trainspotting action, and the most vibrant avant scene."


I agree with you about the coolness of the scene but people should know 
that
the scene, like almost every fringe musical scene in the world, is peopled
by people who are fanatical about promoting it and creating opportunities
where none appear to be.

I just saw an amazing concert with new music luminaries   Herny Kaiser, 
Scott Looney,
our own loopers delight member,  Italian guitarist Roberto Zorzi and four 
other really talented musicians.

There were four people in the audience.

Roberto wrote me back and said he'd love to come play in Northern 
California 
and said he'd just need
a minimum of three gigs to be able to afford to come (mentioning a sum 
that 
would be a rather embarassingly
low paid casuals/wedding gig).

I had to tell him that it wasn't possible......that even I , who have a 
decent draw in SF for new musical events considered myself
lucky if my expenses are paid when I do a gig (they a frequently aren't)

********

Lately there has been  a amazing collection of new music people in the 
East 
Bay because many of the bay areas best and brightest
young musicians lost there lucrative software day jobs and could no longer 
afford to live in the pricier cities of
San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Cruz.    I'm on tribe.net which is full 
of 
electronica musicians and it seems like
1/3 of the people on that website are from Oakland.

Is there a scene there?    No?     The reason?      Well, at least one of 
the reasons is that there are very , very few places to play and even if 
people would play the people would not come out to see them.     The other 
reason I think is that like a lot of people on this list,  a lot of people 
who do new or unusual musics are not particularly social people to begin 
with but that's the subject for another discussion.

My own wife once said,  "How ironic is it that we live in the wealthiest 
empire in the history of the entire planet and that we
live in one of the wealthiest per capita urban areas in that vastly 
wealthy 
country and that,   instead of the arts flourishing
with support and patronage, that they are, instead,  barely breathing.

The singer/songwriter Sam Phillips (the woman, not the man) said,   "No 
matter who is the president of the record company or the A&R person or the 
lawyers or whatever,  the artists never go away.   We are always here and 
we 
always will be.

I say,  yeah verily to the Scott Looney's of the world who open up their 
own 
homes to money losing new music concerts..........to
the Roberto Zorzi's, Bernhard Wagners and Andy Butler's who will risk 
their 
own money in an effort to spread their artistry outside of the confines of 
their own countries and cities;    to the Sunao Inami's who will risk the 
very small amount of money they have to put out recordings of artists who 
don't recoup their costs just so this beautiful music gets heard;   the 
Matt 
Davingons' who produces a monthly new music series that rarely pays for 
itself;
to the Murias/Pheaki Boi'a who put his whole financial situation on the 
line 
to produce the 1st ever 2 day Dark Elektronika festival in San Francisco 
and 
lost his shirt even when the even was a stunning success.

If things are happening artistically in the SF Bay Area and environs it is 
because there are about 30 people who are fanatically
committed to 'la causa',  come hell or high water.................paying 
gigs or not.

Buy a dinner for one of these people the next time you see
them at a gig you dig!   It'll lighten their load and keep 'em going,  I 
assure you.