Wade on Birmingham

Birmingham music scene, part 2: How to build the scene, for real

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Birmingham-based promoter and musician Brian Scott Teasley wrote a two-part essay about the city’s music scene. It is reprinted in full below with permission.

• • •

Michael Warren, WorkPlay

By Brian Scott Teasley

People often view Birmingham’s music scene as though the city were an island. They think about what supporters can do to make Birmingham have a better music scene in and of itself. The problem is that narrow focus, because the only real way to make a great music scene is for people with bands, labels and media to get recognition on a national or international level.

That recognition can be anything really, as long as it’s significant on some scale: respect from other bands, record sales, critical acclaim or something else. But it can’t simply have any sort of the stereotypical weight of how most people view or consume music, if it exists solely in the microcosm of Birmingham’s music scene.

Athens, Ga., still resonates from the success of R.E.M. and the B-52s, with people continuing to move there to play music. You probably know that the B-52s quickly moved to New York after having its very first dash of success, or that R.E.M. in its present state may have rendered itself as the most obsolete band on the planet. But because of that recognition garnered by those bands, Athens has maintained an often-impressive music scene for 30 years.

I truly love and care about many local bands, far beyond what my personal taste dictates. More than anything, I love Birmingham musicians. They are very talented, astoundingly unrecognized and underappreciated.

Yet, if you are an artist, and you truly want to make the music scene happen here, I have some unsolicited advice: Get in a van for 2 years straight and play everywhere you can to anyone who will listen. Make quality music, and be clinically blind to the odds of having any sort of success in music. Don’t let anyone tell you shouldn’t do it.

Sleep on floors, and eat peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches on the $6 you were paid at a dive bar in Kalamazoo the night before. I’m absolutely not joking to any degree.

If what you’re doing is good in any of an infinite amount of ways and you work as hard as possible, you will get somewhere. That somewhere may not be what you expect, but you’ll gain fans, and your band will get something out of it.

Nothing will happen for your band if over 20 percent of your shows are in Birmingham. What we need you to do is go out of town like fucking pirates and bring back the gold to share with the rest of us. Once you’re on a good label or land some decent tours, you can take your friends’ bands on tour with you, the groups back home having a tough time getting started.

It may sound like some stupid “pay it forward” crap, but that’s how it works. That’s absolutely how it works.

‘If you want to improve the
Birmingham music scene as an artist,
get the hell out of here and go for it.’

A local band who can draw 500 people in Birmingham, but can’t draw 20 people anywhere out of Alabama, is just not going to have any real impact anywhere. And that 500-person draw in Birmingham will eventually dwindle after playing the same set 20 times a year within Jefferson County.

You might say, “Well, I’ve got a husband or a wife and two kids and a dog and two cats and a mortgage and can’t be in a van for 2 years.” You’re probably not going to make it in a rock band, and you need to deal with that. Just enjoy making great music with your friends to the fullest.

I see so many 30-and-up musicians with pipe dream aspirations who need to accept that they won’t make a lot of money or be profoundly recognized and appreciated. Your chances of breaking into the music industry if you’re over age 30, and without prior notoriety, is astronomically low.

Revolution is not an old person’s game. As scary as it is, the greater world — including the fate of the Birmingham music scene — is in the hands of teenagers and twentysomethings.

So if you want to improve the scene in Birmingham and have no huge commitments, get the hell out of here and go for it. We’ll welcome you back with open arms and hearts, even if you fail. But if you have been at it for a while and can’t tour or invest an infinite amount of time into getting your thing going, you can still help.

Instead of buying a $3,000 vintage guitar, you could …

  • Invest in local bands.
  • Help put out their records.
  • Open a good record store.
  • Start a respectable music paper.
  • Build a home studio, and use your knowledge and equipment to record a young band for free.
  • Buy a van, and let young bands use it for out-of-town gigs.
  • Give some good advice, possibly even from lessons you’ve learned from making your own mistakes.

Stay open to the concept of standing on other people’s shoulders. Maybe you could even come out to a few shows to hear good local bands. Many of you already do some and all of these things, and for those who have rocked, I salute you. We can work together to make the Birmingham music scene into a national scene. Pay it forward, bitches!

Brian Scott TeasleyBrian Scott Teasley, who has played in more than 10 bands, most notably Man or Astro-Man? and the Polyphonic Spree, is a music promoter for Birmingham’s Bottletree Cafe and will even admit to working off and on in music journalism. He has played more than 2,600 shows in 36 countries.

• • •

Part 1: Why we need festivals

Can Birmingham’s music scene grow? If so, how? Fire off a comment below.

Also:

Photo credits: mugshot by Wes Frazer; concert by Curtis Palmer, CC 2.0.

6 Yips for “Birmingham music scene, part 2: How to build the scene, for real”

  1. Wade on Birmingham » Birmingham music scene, part 1: Why we need festivals
    Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 8:15 am
    1

    […] if (hours>12){ hours=hours-12 } if (hours==0) hours=12 if (minutes Sphere: Related Content Also see:Birmingham music scene, part 2: How to build the scene, for realThe Magic CitationHeads up: Trace Adkins, Sara Evans, Gretchen Wilson set for SticksEXCLUSIVE: Five […]

  2. Carla Jean
    Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 10:57 pm
    2

    So much could be said, but I’ll keep it simple.

    “Revolution is not an old person’s game.” Great line, and something I’ll probably spend more and more time thinking about as I move out of that teen and 20something era Brian writes about.

  3. Wade
    Thursday, September 9, 2010, 5:26 pm
    3

    If Birmingham had more music supporters like Carla Jean, we’d already have a nationally recognized group of musicians and clubs.

  4. MRS
    Monday, September 13, 2010, 2:45 pm
    4

    Key to this success is a vibrant city that keeps young, affluent people in town and not drifting east to Atlanta.

  5. j matt
    Sunday, December 26, 2010, 3:00 pm
    5

    Great article. Read both parts and I must say, even though birmingham’s music scene suffers on so many levels and that it is highly complex with its problems, this essay ironed them out in a pretty decent article full of remedies. Sure there’s more to deal with – but the writer started up the fire. Love the part about the touring. Touring is where the real shot at fame begins. Wish most locals would get that memo.

  6. Wade
    Sunday, December 26, 2010, 8:44 pm
    6

    J. Matt: Feel free to send them the link to this series. 🙂

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