Chris: THANK YOU for not blowing me off. We are or should be on the same side here. I've always seen The Advocate discribed as THE Arts and entertainment weekly. This discusion is really good and really heathy for all of us. I hope you'd agree with me that this is an arts community. Not just alternative art. By the way alternative to what? If anything when it comes to music in New Haven you guys have become the establishment. No insult intended. This is a peace and produtivity message anyway! Cool let's crank it up. If the music notes idea is cool with you, it's cool with me. As long as it is truly a jumping off point. If there's going to be another forum, it should be economic as well as artistic. It's kind of like the mafia. In order for there to be a great music scene revived or born here everyone from top to bottom has to get a piece of the pie. Newspapers and radio get advetising, Clubs get full and paid, staff gets tipped, bands get paid, music stores sell gear. The scene gets healthy, investors open new venues, The scene gets healthier. Yeah I guess I do have a lot of ideas. I just care a lot, I love New Haven and I think we deserve and can do better! I'm dedicated focused willing and ready to go. G.

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Subject: RE: Vic Steffans Local Music Summit Novembr Advocate
Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:05:32 -0800
From: CArnott@newhavenadvocate.com
To: bluesnsoul@hotmail.com
CC: abromage@newhavenadvocate.com; KCei@newhavenadvocate.com

Hey Greg,

This arrived just as I was leaving for vacation, and I just got back, so sorry for the late response.

This letter is so full of ideas (not to mention really long, and very late in terms of the story that it's commenting upon) that we'd like to NOT run it as a Letter to the Editor and instead use it as a jumping-off point for a whole new discussion.

We could either revise it into a Music Notes column (for which we could pay you $50 or so) or convene a whole new panel discussion around it (to which we'd invite you).

What do you think?

As for any rebuttal from me, I could dispute you on specifics (like, our paper lists many more clubs, and more musical genres, than either the Hartford Advocate or the Fairfield Weekly--it's not even close), but generally I agree with most of your complaints about the New Haven scene, and have been making the same arguments for a while now. When I was the Music Notes columnist 15 years ago there were numerous places for conventional bar bands, as well as R&B and gospel and soul bands, to play. That was an important element of the scene, even if it wasn't a priority for an "alternative paper" like ours to cover. Fran Fried at the Register did a fine job of including those bands in his mainstream music columns. Now not only have the venues disappeared, so has the coverage--Pat Ferrucci doesn't acknowledge bands like yours even when you do get local gigs, and prefers to write about the same sort of bands the Advocate has been covering for years. We've lost the diversity we once had, and forced bands like yours to look elsewhere for steady gigs, and that's a shame.

 

Chris Arnott

(203) 789-0010 x205

carnott@newhavenadvocate.com