INTERACTIVE VIDEO CONCERTS? AN IDEA....

Time for another idea, maybe.

Bands that go on tour are in trouble. Not the big-name acts, of course, but the so-called “baby bands” of musicians on the make, who scour the country in old Greyhound buses and open for the Big Acts (if they’re lucky) and play a lot of small towns (if they’re not). The price of fuel—more than double what it was this time last year—has eaten up all the profits (and then some) for a lot of them. Add in that concert attendance is down—nobody has any money—and the sales of CDs, T-shirts, bumperstickers, and all the other “merch” that’s the gravy of concerts are down, too.

So what’s a musician on the make to do? With access to the record companies virtually closed off by the companies themselves, the only way to make a name for one’s self has become to perform. With access to the record companies virtually closed off by the companies themselves, it’s also become virtually the only way an “indie” can sell records. You sell them to the people who attend the concerts.

I’m small potatoes in this musical garden, but I’ve been bit by it, too. One of the festivals that’s a staple of Concert Season—the “Moograss” Bluegrass Festival, where I’ve performed every year but one since 2001—won’t be held this year. Two others I’d planned on being at this year, the Wheeler County Bluegrass Festival in Fossil (OR) and the Grassroots Festival in Union (OR), I can’t go to because I can’t afford it. It’ll be difficult enough to make it to southern Oregon to perform Labor Day weekend.

A different paradigm for the performing “indie” seems to be in order. How about interactive video?

I assume it exists in other places, because it’s been around Oregon for over ten years, and Oregon tends to be a cultural backwater of sorts. I ran into it as a city manager in a remote corner of Oregon (actually, all corners of Oregon are remote). It was originally conceived as a way to disseminate seminars put on by various government agencies, because a lot of people couldn’t spend days traveling to Salem or Portland to attend a class—but you could put a couple dozen people in each of a couple dozen rooms around the state, and hook up two-way TV, so you could not only be lectured to, you could talk back.

Some of those “classrooms” were pretty fancy, depending on who built them; some had wall-sized flat-screen TVs and very sophisticated sound systems. And of course, the colleges were about the first to have them. I saw college classes being delivered that way a few years later.

Why couldn’t you deliver concerts that way? Most of the outfits that own these interactive-video “classrooms” are happy to rent them out for extra money, and the colleges are probably an ideal spot to broadcast from. It’s something that probably needs to be tried. From the band’s end, you potentially reach a larger audience and do it cheaper by doing it all at once; the concertgoer potentially gets a cheaper price; the “classroom” owner gets extra money, and gets their facilities used more. And collectively, we get to live with higher fuel prices and use technology to refuse to let our lifestyles be compromised.

Obviously, somebody has to start this. Could it be me? Doubtful, right now—but Eastern Oregon University, where I’ll start classes this fall, is (I’m pretty sure) one of those interactive video sites. As a student, I may be able to arrange something. In the meantime, if anybody’s reading, go do it if you have the opportunity. Ideas are not copyrightable, and it’s not necessary to wait on me.

UPDATES: Contract’s been signed with the publisher in The Philippines, and I’ve sent him the promotional photos he wanted for advertising. (I’ve been collecting concert photos for years.) Another song for Southern Pigfish, this one more countrified, with a Wizard of Oz motif—but still a lost-love song. (Southern Pigfish also did a commercial for Len Amsterdam’s radio program.) Programs to do for the Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn.’s summer concert series. And the Squirrel House to finish. (I haven’t seen the squirrel in a while. Maybe he realizes he’s been banned from the premises.)

Joe