How's your local band scene?

Lounge
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Not here to complain about my own town, but I’m curious how active your local music scene is. I’m talking both in your own town/region and nation wide. Also talking about active bands and active performances like gigs and festivals purely made for the scene we’re all in.

For example my local band scene:

  1. The local band scene sucks when you are not in the top 5 major cities, let alone in rural/countryside places. Nationally, we do have some local bands that get well enough attention (varying from local folk to Dutch country, pop, rock, metal) and the occassional Dutch musician getting fame (example: Floor Jansen from Night Wish), but other than that it’s pretty much dead imo*

*= My pops used to tell stories about the golden age of Dutch pop and rock music back in the 70’s and 80’s. He used to be a singer/guitarist in a well known cover/wedding band in our town and he could pay rent from the income of his band. Maybe I’m comparing too much to that golden age.

  1. There are plenty of festivals, but 90% of them are either EDM, Rap/Hip-Hop, native language (similar to German Schlager) or RNB (the modern stuff). The few festivals made for rock, punk and metal or any guitar related music are either nationwide with all triple A bands or some rural town festivals with people who can’t play in rhythm and are worse singers.

Sorry if this all sounded like a rant. Now I’m curious about your band scene! :slight_smile:

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My band scene is the free performances in parks and coffee shops. In that sense, my local music world is hopping! During the summer there are performances in the parks every evening. During the rainy long-dark there is live music at community centers and schools and coffee shops (even in plant nursery greenhouses) at least once a week.

Sometimes there is more enthusiasm than skill, for sure, but the enthusiasm is why I go to listen to live music. When I yearn for perfection I listen to recordings.

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Denver has a pretty hopping local scene. I get out to local shows probably about once a month or so (I’m old). The genre I wish was bigger here is non existent which bums me out but there’s still a few excellent bands worth supporting.

This is probably my favorite at the moment. I’ve caught them 3 times over the summer.

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My local scene is Seattle, so how about a little Heart who started it all

There’s a lot of history here

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It used to be pretty poor but since I’ve started playing in it, well it’s amazing :star_struck::joy:

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Most clubs and pubs here either book duo’s, trio’s or DJ’s. The bands that get the majority of gigs are booked by agents and in most cases, the agent is a member of the band!

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Rob Gretton, Apex Manager

(they cut off the punch line to this scene; “Gretton’s” phone is actually a shared payphone in his apartment building stairwell :rofl: )

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The local scene here is going… I don’t know how strong it is.
I think the venues are there, and the bands are there.

The thing that absolutely kills me here is the omnipresence of Tribute bands.
I love local original bands, but it’s so hard to get traction and recognition (and paying gigs, and thus good musicians and rehearsals, etc. etc.) as an original band, that most of the best players are out in tribute bands.
Or corporate cover bands.

I just drove by our local venue (rock/americana/reggae/adult mild-spice level styles) and they had yet another tribute band. Don’t even remember who it was for now.

The people I know who play well and need money from gigs are out doing the big weddings and google parties, and that’s all covers.
The local bars will still have the local bands, and we have a few clubs that still bring in the raging, tasty, loud stuff…

So, despite my personal bias against tribute acts, things are really pretty good here. Lots of venues, lots of bands, lots of opportunity.

I’ve been playing music in this local community since the mid 90s, so I know what you mean about a golden age.
This is the golden age of covers and tribute bands, and non-offensive americana.
It’s not my golden age, but it is doing good.

I really do think that the ears are being more and more programmed to hear only familiar sounds. A risk averse population is also an art/creativity averse population.
It’s a theory I’m developing, but it seems pretty sound.

You can always find the weird venue where you can just put on the shows you want to see. Chances are if you are wanting a change, someone(s) else is wanting it too.
Thus scenes and movements are born!
My art studio neighbor and I always talk about the Tuesday night Punk shows at the church. Like, you find a place to do the thing you wanna do, and build around that.

Anyway… lots of thoughts here.
Also just had coffee.

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I love this take and I agree completely.

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So good :joy::joy::joy:

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This was also no 1 :man_shrugging::smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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Pure deflection

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And it’s funny as hell. :joy: It was a big hit over here in Germany.

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Awesome. The cradle of Grunge.

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No 1 in Germany. The Hoff!!

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I’m actually more of a Bikini Kill guy, but a friend of mine when to school Eddie Vetter and they still hang at times

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Makes me want to quit this forum.

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Fixed it, happy?

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I mean - you’re both right.

Being popular doesn’t automatically make something bad. But at the same, the music charts are more a measure of music industry marketing ability than quality.

@Gio was making a more insightful point about the larger trends.

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I was making a point that we are just as bad with our blind spots but I won’t do it again. We are just as risk averse

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