Portland's Future Needs All Ages Venue
Posted by: kmikeym | From: August 2, 2006
(This was written by Mark Baumgarten for Localcut.com, but I wanted to repost it here as it seems very PFA. -Mikey)
Guv Announces $1.1M in Non-Pop Culture Grants
by Mark Baumgarten
Yesterday Gov. Ted Kulongoski announced 54 statewide grants being awarded through the Oregon Cultural Trust. Huzzah! Yay for culture and all that. But where is the support for the tennis-shoe wearing music community. Of all the recipients, shown below, only the Friends of Chamber Music, Portland Youth Philharmonic Association and Portland Taiko are wholly involved with music … and those, I think I can safely say, involve the music of a very specific audience. Namely older and capital-C Cultured.
Part of the problem is likely that no organization representing more popular and accessible musical culture has applied for a grant, or even been formed. And some might say that that is because businesses based on more popular forms of music can survive without public assistance. Which is correct for many parts of popular music culture escept one: The all-ages music club.
Small and large clubs for kids to partake in a larger culture scrap to get by and die over and over again in this town. And by club, I mean a club, like what Todd Fadel was trying to create with Meow Meow before he handed it over to new ownership that transformed it from a hangout to the rental hall now called Loveland. It is becoming clear that we need some public help to create a place that parents can trust, bands can get paid at and parents can trust. Funding can come from grants like those listed below, through state legislation (which is how the Oregon Cultural Trust was created) or through appeals to municipal government.
We have a fantastic example of a youth center for music right to our north in Seattle where the Vera Project, an all-ages cultural mecca for kids, has changed the face of that city’s musical culture. Check out the website, below, and somebody make a place for kids, like those that will crowd Loveland for this weekend’s PDX Pop Now! Festical, to experience their own culture in Portland. Seriously. Do this. There are links to the state leg and the vera project as well. First, look at whose getting the cash this year:
Full List on Local Cut Article
Interestingly, today on localcut there is a post on Satyricon to Reopen as All Ages Club.
The (fairly) new Hawthorne Theater is all ages and has a nice little bar off to the side for smokers. Does that venue farther down on Hawthorne (near 50th) also all ages?
Posted by: gene at August 25, 2006 9:18 AM
Post a comment:
I missed this article when it went up, as I was in the throes of PDX Pop Now! but wanted to, a bit belatefly, mention a few things. Thanks for bringing it to my/our attention, Mikey! Thoughts:
1) Right on. I really believe that excluding people under 21 from really participating in the music community in Portland is our biggest cultural problem.
2) PDX Pop Now! is taking a month-long vacation, but will not be lying so fallow for so long this year. We have lots of little nascent plans. Personally speaking, through the organization, I hope to arrange a series of free concerts at public schools in town and work with the city to bring their attention to this issue. We also intend to get on top of the 501c3 process and apply for some grants.
3) I wrote about this problem at length on Sam Adams' blog. He posted asking for people's input on what is going right and what is going wrong with Portland's support of local music and its attendant economy. My comment - part of the larger thread - is:
http://www.commissionersam.com/node/830#comment-3369
I think that a subsidized venue would be great, but fixing the legislative problems that force venues to choose between staying in business and serving patrons of all ages is a longer-term fix.
Posted by: Cary at August 2, 2006 6:40 PM