Mike, at a meeting downtown, i heard a member of the Downtown Assc. mention that some of these other towns and cities have over a hundred volunteers in their respective associations. If I'm not mistaken Fresno is lucky to get twenty. I would imagine trying to put on one of these festivals in Downtown Fresno with just twenty people would be near impossible.

Mike, I agree with you 100%! What happened to "Rock The Tower"? I dunno, maybe it wasn't a big enough success to pay for a venue like that. Maybe something a Chuckchansi Park (not cheap I know but...) or Roeding (I'd say Woodward but the NE Fresnans would never allow it).

Or maybe Granite Park. It could take over the softball fields for the day. That would give you four seprate setups for stages then you could use the soccer fields for booths. And by the time something like that got orginized, Cabo Wabo and Me&Eds Sports Bar will be open there; they would get incredible spill-off business.

Somebody with some clout around town get this rollin'!!

I'm pretty excited about VAM!

This can happen in any town.

It just takes ONE insanely motivated person.

Come on Fresno!

word

Downtown Visalia is central to almost the whole city--whereas downtown Fresno is too far for NE to drive--that is if they want to have a beer or glass of wine with their music. I know I don't travel too far from home for dinner for fear of a DUI in Fresno--bottom line is we have a great drunken driving prevention program in Fresno but it has dampened restaurants and special events all around for fear of the dreaded DUI.

Meetings? What meetings? (I'm joking.)

It'll happen. We're like a big fermenting peach ready
to burst with Central Valley goodness.

Congrats to Modesto and Visalia! And a tip o' the hat to
hard working folk like Vernal above who get things happenin'.

I whole heartedly disagree with everything Mike Oz said here. With respect, though, because I know he does a lot for the scene. But let's face it, there just aren't enough good bands in Fresno. And even less really good bands. The ones that are the most popular are formulaic ripoffs of famous bands.

Four points:

- They don't play good songs. They say "it's all about the music, man" but they don't have any sense of songwriting, building a verse and a chorus and having one lead to the other.

- They are usually too drunk! I've seen way too many bands just play sloppy shows!

- They don't have a good live sound. I don't know who to blame, either the venue's system, or the guy running, often though it's the band's fault. The bass drum, bass guitar, and guitar are usually just a mess of low frequency. Guitar is a mid-rangey instrument, but some how the "style" these days is to lose the mids and bump the bass and treble. I'll admit, hearing just a guitar with these settings sounds good. Add a whole band to the mix, and you have to change the guitar sound to fit the mix. In short, making the guitar, played alone, sound just a little "worse" can definitely make the band sound better.

- There's usually a lack of showmanship. It's not as bad as it was two years ago, but every band needs a front man or woman with some charisma. I've seen groups where the singer spends half the show facing away from the audience, has a hat pulled over his eyes, and looks generally like he just rolled out of bed. If you're not gonna make an attempt at looking cool, please just give the venue a CD. We don't need to see you.

And that's it. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I'm just so disappointed in the music scene here. Bakersfield has more shows. Bakersfield!!! Famous bands have come from Bakersfield and Sacramento... ok. So there it is.

Anyone agree?

cbo:
Thanks for the well thought-out post. You make some good points.

But whether we have the greatest local bands in the world or not, the question here is more about why somebody can't stand up and organize a festival.

I don't care if it's 85% bands from out of town (though, of course, it should be heavily local) -- the point is that if these smaller cities can pull together whatever resources they have and make a big festival, why can't we?

Personally, I think the answer is that bands in Fresno don't care enough about supporting the city's music scene as a whole. They care about their band, their friends and some even care about their little genre. But so many people are just out for themselves and not about doing something for Fresno.

Obviously, that's not everybody -- but to some degree I think that's very true.

Why not Fresno?

Fresno's downtown is difficult to access and enjoy. The roads are horrible, the place feels unsafe, and the ambiance is grubbier than many people care for.

The rest of Fresno? It's mostly suburbs and warehouses and the blandest kinds of mall, or factories and farms and slums.

The people? Historically conservative, and the powers that be tend to be especially conservative and hostile to popular culture (or culture in general, to be honest). While this is unpleasant anywhere, it's downright disturbing in the very heart of California.

Provided you could sell out a show somewhere else for the same cost, why would anyone go to Fresno?

--

As for the local music scene, I think they're suffering from an immense lack of direction, possibly because of the conservative nature of the local academic art community, or possibly because Fresno has so many innate barriers to art.

Watching the local bands, despite being less of an audiophile than the average person my age, I can't help but notice how specific songs and parts of songs work on the audience, while others will get blank stares. For instance: Brown Eyed Girl ALWAYS gets a horde of women on the dance floor, even if its the only time anyone ever dances that night. There's a hundred little things like that which you can learn by just watching, but I've never seen a band experiment with their style to see if they can get other reactions. I frankly think they need to do surveys or hire a people-watcher to just record how people react, and adjust accordingly, rather than just doing the same thing and trying to get a different reaction. Better yet, watch how people react to OTHER bands, and see what works in a larger sense.

Maybe Fresno just needs pushier critics.

Wow.

Jona and cho with FANTASTIC comments, intelligent and insightful.

I don't know much about the hip music stuff, but I try to get out and support bands as much as I can, and you know what? Jona and cho are absolutely right.

I hadn't been able to put a finger on it, but blandness rules, I can't hear these supposedly amazing lyrics, and dancing is pretty rare. Sure, Fresno has a couple of happnin' fun bands, but not many.

And Jona makes a good point/question.

I wonder if we DO need pushier critics.

My first thought is that we didn't before, we just needed anyone to write consistently about the local music scene. No one can question that Oz has helped the Fresno music scene grow and given much needed publicity to the cause. Maybe now the Bee should give him even more space to call out the bands?

No. Another critic should be hired. Oz would lose his amazing access to the bands if he started calling for them to improve, cuz he'd kill the ego mojo all bands carry with them, whether they're brand new or established. (on that note, I personally giggle my butt off when I hear some young kid talk about his upcoming 'gig,' when he's really just signing up for open mic night).

Still, much kudos to Jona and cho for saying what I haven't the knowledge to impart!

Why Not Fresno? There is no solid reason that it couldn't happen here...that's the answer. Modesto and Visalia's downtowns are no different than ours. They just have someone willing to step up and do the work. I was there. It was amazing to see 16,000 paying $20 per ticket for 6 hours of 50 bands, great food, great street vendors..etc.

It can work here. As we saw at last months Blues Festival, we can get the volunteers, we can pull together a great local show with national touring acts. We also proved that if you build it....they will come.

Sure, Modesto's and Visalia's government is more foresighted than ours. Sure, Modesto's and Visalia's Police Dept supports growth and want to work with promoters who bring in a ton of tax dollars to the local community.

Note that one restaurant that we went to brought in over $27,000.00 the night we were there. One bar brought in over $22,000.00. Most bars and restaurants in Fresno would kill to have a night like that....trust me..I know as I own three of them.

The Math works! We have the vendors and the sponsors to support a show similar to Xfest. We have the contacts and the community support to bring in some very big bands..which could be supported by a number of our local musicians. Like Oz mentioned, we could have all different kinds of music...at Xfest, I enjoyed Y&T and Sublime Unauthorized, as well as the 25 live DJ's playing around town...and I'm 50!!

It can happen...can we get the city to back us? We've taken little steps with the Blues Festival and the upcoming 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love Festival at Woodward Park on Sept. 29th.

It's proven...now...let's all get together and put on FresFest.....

When it came down to it, rock of the tower just broke even... well not really, the bands did not get what they were worth, that is for sure. When we did the math, it looked like each band brought a small group of fans, and that is what we ended up with... bout half the Tower seating. Promoting takes a lot of work, and to be honest we could have done a bunch more of that, we had no money for traditional media, like radio and television, we should have nailed a media partner... all in all It takes a lot of ground work to get the word out.

I think it (a fresno music festival) should be at riverpark.... screw it, why beat our heads against the wall? I love the Tower, but I want to see once and for all if people don't come out because of the location, or local music, or whatever. We may not know until we try.

To say music here sucks, is just contrarian bull-stuff. It doesn't sound like CBO gets out much... I personally invite you CBO, to come hear my band the Neptunes for free next tuesday July 31st.

A bar did "over $22,000?"

Were the drinks $50 dollars each???????

You're talking about 4400 drinks sold at $5 each (which is conservative, since a beer is 3 bucks).

Brewbakers is pretty huge there, they can probably hold 200 people packed in there. Let's see...with turnover, they may have had 500 people total run through there.

That'd be 9 drinks EACH.

Bob, don't know yah, so nothing personal, but when people in places like Fresno hear these kinda skewed numbers, they start thinking 'WOW! That's great money!! I'm SURE Starline Grill will sponsor us for $5,000 dollars if they're going to get $22,000 in a night! Heck, that was Visalia! Fresno? They'll probably get $44,000!!!!"

I'm still with Jona and cho, and especially with Tom Walzem, who busted his heinie to fill the 750-seat Tower Theatre at next-to-nothing prices.

VAM was $20 bucks and was a street fest on a beautiful day. I used to work for a huge street fest in Illinois (30 sq blocks, 12 stage venues, 150,000 peeps in 3 days), but even that fest had to start with one square block, $10 grand in cash, just 2 stages, and lots of vendors buying space and sharing food/drink profits.

Heck, the City of Fresno won't allow us to close Fern Street without a ream of paperwork and forced hiring of thier cops (which I agree with, by the way).

PLUS I agree with Tom that getting lotsa folks to the Tower gets harder and harder for street stuff, seeing as how there were shots fired last event, military police rule on several events....can't even have movies on the back of the Tower Theatre anymore.

Uphill battles require major-domo crazyrich mavericks. The last Fresno maverick built Grizzly (now Chukchansi) Stadium.

Bob? You willing to take on the FAM fest? Have at it! I'll helpya.

Just be sure about your prospective numbers...K?

Stephen:
Bob's talking about XFest is Modesto with those numbers.

I'm not saying that he's right or not, because I don't know. I just wanted to make that clear.

Thanks, Mike...Xfest had 16,000 folks and Digital Underground (among other bigger names).

Bob, we're talking about a local fest with local music, where Patrick Contreras and 3 Guys Playin' the Blues were bigger attractions.

BIG difference, yah?