37

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Indexed

COLUMBIA MISSOURI: A Scene Report

What is it that you do in a college town? In the middle of the midwest, it isn't so much what there is to do, as what you find to do. Certainly it is that way most places but it all seems more prevalent when the shows that come to town that are worth seeing are all organized by kids that I'm friends with and anything interesting that happens is either by a stroke of pure luck or the fact that someone didn't know what they were doing is cool.

What is good about this town? Well there are some good bands. Any college town has to have a few and we do, from the country rock of the Starkweathers to the garage induced mayhem of the Revelators to the obtuse acoustic stylings of the Northerns and the usual cadre of noise bands like the Carters and Product 19. We try, but it is the best we can do.

The fact that there are about 1 1/4 decent venues in town doesn't make going out very easy or worthwhile. The Blue Note holds about 800 people and uses that to their advantage, and our disadvantage. All of the shows that make it in are big and have to negotiate around the regularly scheduled dance nights every Wednesday and Saturday. Sunday and Monday find the Blue Note almost always closed.

That ends up working out okay now as the 200 person capacity blues club has taken to booking, well, "Alternative" bands on Monday nights. Deep Blues brings in decent local blues acts the rest of the week and the occasional good touring blues act. (OH and Missouri blues acts don't typically match up to those Antone's offers)

After that we really start to fake it. The Grifters had the privilege of playing in one of my friends basements until the cops came. The Fusebox used to book shows in the back of a coffee shop. Now they use various rooms around campus and the meeting room adjacent to the radio station. I've been trying to use University money to book some cool bands, but there's only so much I can do. Although I think I got the New Bomb Turks and Teengenerate to play in either an auditorium on campus or the bowling alley in the main Commons. Either way, it is an example of what we can do and how we make shit up in order to do it.

Notes and Questions

Nobody has written a note for this page yet

Please sign in to write a note for this page