At 10:11 PM 6/1/00 -0700, Steve Catanzaro wrote:
>Well, I still maintain that of all the "big" cities I've spent any time in
>(Chi, NY, LA mostly) Phoenix is, for my tastes, very, VERY much the most
>backward musically. (A "little" behind the times? "What Is Hip" was
>recorded in '73! When will they catch up?!?!)
...When someone puts out some initiative. I've never been to The Surface of
The Sun, I mean, the Valley of The Sun :) but I've heard of some people on
this list who were from the Phoenix area... Stephen Pond, where are you?
Granted, Phoenix may not be an AJ mecca, but perhaps you haven't looked
hard enough?
Happening things don't just happen in cities by themselves, it happens when
people put out some initiative, some persistence and A LOT of publicity...
>"Rare groove" in Phoenix seems to mean "To Be Real" and "Pick Up The
>Pieces." At least in LA there's some variety... kind of... (back in the
>late '80's, the strip was bustling with choices... Warrant... Poison... Guns
>& Roses....all in a 1 mile radius...!)
The Strip Sucks. Always have, always will.
>But at least LA's got Ritual Events... Chocolate City, Metropolis, T'Bird's
>crew, etc.. (plus, it's the home of e:trinity... what nationality iz that
>guy, anyway?)
What, you don't know by now? :)
>And, cool stuff happens, like last Tuesday when Herbie and Slash got down at
>teeny-tiny Backstage Cafe on an impromptu jam... yeah.... that's what I'm
>sayin!
>But, instead of dissing my current hometown of Phoenix (the NY Post called
>it "a nightmare city..." that looks "like a neutron bomb hit it...")
One weird quirk about New Yorkers is that they ALWAYS feel compelled to
compare NYC to any other metropolitan area or region that happens to come
into conversation...Not to diss NYers, but they seem oddly freakish about
that sort of thing. Try it once: Next time you ride the subway, introduce
yourself to a native and say, "Hi, my name is ____. I'm from _______" the
first thing to come out of the NYer's mouth is a stereotype/generalization
about that place...
But before we turn this into a Battle of the Cities, I just want to say this...
It does little to diss cities for not having this or not having that
(musically or otherwise). Because there may very well be people or a
movement or something that's trying to improve, to change, and to put down
their "territory" seems to symbolically destroy all they've worked for. I
should know, I've been involved in many community-related projects in Los
Angeles.
Take this for an example: Detroit is perhaps the most economically
depressed big city in all of the United States, but the recent DEMF was
like a ray of sunlight into their future, and I'm glad for them.
As a person who enjoys travel, I think every city is unique and beautiful
in its own way. We can't all live in NY, London, Paris, SF, etc. Some of us
don't even want to. I give the most massive of props to anyone in the most
obscure backwoods of towns trying to forge some kind of AJ-related scene
there. That's love of the music. That's dedication. That's what it's all
about, really.
- 30 -
: . elson trinidad, los angeles, california, usa
: . elson@westworld.com : www.westworld.com/~elson
: . groove to the futurethnic beats of e:trinity at www.e-trinity.org and
www.mp3.com.etrinity
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 02 2000 - 08:50:15 MET DST