Unified Macon Theory: What stays in Macon, dies in Macon

This won't make sense to some of you, at least the part where I'm authoring it. It'll seem contradictory and maybe even contrary to my previously stated beliefs. Hopefully the rest of you will get it.

There are three reasons why I believe so strongly that some of the players in our current music scene will make a significant impact on the music world-at-large (and thusly, the world-at-large). No, reason number one isn't that I believe in magic, or that it's because there's something in the water (though I do believe in magic and think there's something in the water... something magic in the water).

In fact, these three reasons are the same three reasons why I think historic Macon musicians have had such an impact on the world of music, thusly the world.

#1) To be a remotely serious musician in Macon, Ga, means you have dedicated yourself to your music because you know no one is listening, which, in turn, means you're going to be more concerned with your craft than whether or not the people here like it. You probably have more than a little confidence in yourself, which doesn't hurt.

#2) Having relegated yourself to the outskirts of the local population, your friends are likely going to be other remotely serious musicians from whom your learn and take some motivation. Your clique is probably pretty tight and most of your conversations are, at some point or another, about music. Your passion is becoming your life fully.

#3) Being a remotely serious musician in Macon soon leads you to one inevitable question--"How serious am I?"--and depending on your answer--if it is "very serious"--you're then led to another question: "How do I get the fuck out of here?"

The same thing that seems like a problem in Macon is probably what has given Macon its place in history, its advantage over other places like Atlanta, LA or New York. You THINK you're serious about music when you uproot and head to LA, but trying to get someone to pay attention in Macon, you've got to be serious then, right?

More than that, there's the issue of your competency. Just because you're serious (or you think you're serious) doesn't mean that you're any good. In most cases, good just means you've been working on it. Talent or talentless, nothing good comes without practice. In other words, it doesn't matter if there's something in the water here because all the water in the world won't make you worth listening to. So you can go to LA or New York because you're serious (or think you're serious) but if you're in Macon for a little while, you'll find yourself consumed by your music.

Consider Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-Hour theory. He says to be an expert means you've put in 10,000 hours into a subject. For Bill Gates it was computers. For the Beatles it was music. Before they broke big, they spent 10,000 hours at their chosen field.

Think about Little Richard on the Chitlin Circuit, in the bawdy houses and nightclubs performing with drag queens and piano players. Just to eat, he was putting in days and days of shows every week, and the hours started racking up. Same for Otis Redding. Think about how many church services, how many of those talent shows, how many Hamp's Hops... the hours piled up.

You might not know this but Otis Redding didn't sound like the Otis Redding we know today back when he was sweeping those talent shows. He was doing Little Richard knock-offs and Sam Cooke covers. That's why he won them--he did a good job impersonating artists the crowd knew. It wasn't until he started hanging out with Johnny Jenkins (or so Jenkins says) that he tried to break away from that because Jenkins told him to find his own voice, and supposedly, with the help of Johnny's guitar-playing,
Otis did just that.

That's that community of outsiders. It's how the Allman Brothers were formed. Go ye forth and make a jam band out of what you find. Boom! Those outsiders came together with their different influences and made some music stew.

And I don't know if I really need to explain reason number three, but I will elaborate. It seems simple enough to get out of Macon, to pick up and leave town, but it isn't. (Both Little Richard and Otis Redding both recorded on the West Coast before going broke and having to return to Macon.) If you're smart that drive to leave will motivate you to do whatever it takes to be successful because that is your best chance at leaving.

Look at Emmett Miller. I know he's not a popular example because he's most widely known as a blackface minstrel singer, but he is considered an important figure in American music and he is from Macon. And he does illustrate my point.

He so wanted to leave town, to join the minstrelsy circuit, that he dropped out of school and started hanging out with black people so he could be more "authentic". Yes, his caricature of them is absolutely deplorable, but at the turn of the century, when the predominant form of popular music (i.e. - pop music in the early 1900s, which prevailed for nearly 100 years of this country's 233 year existence) was blackface minstrelsy, and white folks weren't supposed to mingle with black folks, he had to be dedicated to what he was doing if he was going to go that far. (By the way, the first all-black blackface minstrelsy group was also formed in Macon, a few decades before Emmett Miller got famous.)

For Otis Redding, it meant serving as Johnny Jenkins roadie on a trip to Memphis because Jenkins and the Pinetoppers--not Redding--had the recording contract with Stax Records. He loaded and unloaded the band's gear and begged (or pestered) the Stax crew until they let him record his song with the 30 minutes left on the session.

I see these parallels now with the folks making music in Macon, GA. I see a handful of passionate and dedicated musicians doing nothing but making music and hanging out with other people who make music. You should already know their names because they're playing here so much. And I see most of them eyeballing the bright lights of the big city. That is as it should be because the only way they'll ever realize their dreams will be to try it out somewhere else.

Every show I go to now, I'm thinking about whether or not it's the last time I get to see them here, in the grungy little dive bars, in the ill-suited night clubs, in the basement of an "event center". I don't see them stopping here, not because they're greedy and want lots and lots of money, but because they just want lots and lots of people to be able to hear what they've done.

There is no doubt in my mind that one of these people (and probably more)--Floco Torres, Oh Dorian, Al K!NG, Rolybots, Nomenclature, City Council, Citizen Insane, Abby Owens, etc., etc.,--will make a big splash when they jump into that big pond. No doubt in my mind at all.

The weird part is that this is sort of an argument against supporting the music here. Or maybe, if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, it's just another way to tell you all that it's happening whether or not you like it, support it or even know it exists. In another 20 or 30 years, it'll just be another wonderful facet of our city's cultural contribution that isn't utilized to make the city better, which means in another 20 or 30 years, another crop of musicians will emerge.

And so on and so forth, ad nauseum. Amen.

Let's all move to Easton!

Since I've already upset the Macon-Bibb Convention and Visitor's Bureau this week, I figure I might as well just go off some more.

(No, I do not hate the CVB, nor am I picking on them. They aren't the problem in Macon -- several bear that responsibility. Plus, I happen to LOVE Ginny, Ruth, Janice and all the other lovely ladies, but I'm pissed right now about the leadership and direction of Macon, and I'm about to tell you why. )

My interests sometimes swing wildly between opposite ends of the spectrum. Every spectrum. I'm a man of extremes, an ADHD-addled human pendulum. Right now, I want to move to Easton, PA. And I want you to move with me.

Here it is in a nutshell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easton,_Pennsylvania

If you knew me a few years ago, you know that I fell in love with Bulgaria and wanted my friends to set up a colony of Macon expatriates. Having been devastated financially by the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union, Bulgaria is a bastion of cheap booze, cheap smokes, cheap rent and cheap eats. It's also really pretty in springtime (and frigging cold in the winter). It was not really a noble daydream.

Well, my fiancee was an undergrad at LaFayette College, on the hill overlooking downtown Easton, which is why we were just there and how I fell for the place. In the last Census, the city (it's three townships and three boroughs) totaled a population less than 30,000 people.

Despite the much reported dwindling population, Macon (just the city, not including unincorporated Bibb) claims more than three times that number: 97,000.

Easton never abandoned its urban core. Even in the harsh economic reality of this recession, they only had a handful of empty storefronts or residential spaces open between the bustling and VERY historic downtown and its neighborhood on "The Hill".

And there's this: New York City is less than an hour and a half away. It's a $19 bus ride. Philly is about 70 miles away. Plus, Easton's homies in the Lehigh Valley, separated by about 30 minutes each, are Bethlehem (founded by Moravians, home to two colleges, and was the birthplace of The Rock, so you know it's cool) and Allentown, which is bigger than both.

It takes as long to get to Atlanta from Macon, and almost three hours to Savannah. Hardly the same, plus you pretty much have to drive because public transportation just isn't a priority in The South, so once you get to Atlanta or Savannah by bus, you'd be stuck. Not to mention it costs $32 bucks each way by Groome, which only takes you to the airport. A Greyhound ticket, if you feel like braving that bus station, is $27.

There is only one major celebrity from Easton, boxer Larry Holmes, and he still lives there. (Writer Stephen Crane is a LaFayette graduate, I'm told.) The community reached out to him and he's stayed invested, financially and in terms of marketing.

We have oodles of famous people from Macon, and none of them live here--nor can you imagine them doing so. Gregg Allman is in Savannah and Little Richard chose a little town in Tennessee. Someone is just now doing something with the Allman Brothers Big House (the non-profit Big House Foundation), it took about thirty years for an Otis Redding statue, and NO ONE HAS DONE SHIT with Little Richard's house, which is still standing. I dare you to find any other modern American legend who has been so ignored by his hometown. Find ONE thriving town and/or tourist location that hasn't marketed the hell out of their famed alumni.

Meanwhile, you'd think the only thing that's ever happened in Macon is a Cherry Blossom Festival. (Not to say it should cease but that there needs to be a major recasting of our image. SERIOUSLY. There is no place that can claim what Macon can claim from Sidney Lanier to Emmett Miller to Little Richard, James Brown, Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Mike Mills and Bill Berry of REM, Lucinda Williams, Lena Horne, Jimi Hendrix, as well as guys like two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglass or acclaimed music writer Stanley Booth.)

Let me tell you what the heart of my hopelessness is: The majority of the things that we all like about Macon has been propped up by the private sector. The culture of this town has been heralded by? The 11th Hour, Bragg Jam, MaGa and a handful of other loose screws. The music heritage has been showcased by? Mostly by the above and the Ga Music Hall of Fame, which we're in SERIOUS danger of losing because our local officials won't fight for an institution that has 30,000 visitors a year (aka - enough to exceed the size of Easton, PA). The downtown area and all its charm? Kept alive by Mercer University, developers and non-profit organizations like Historic Macon, the Peyton Anderson Foundation, the Knight Foundation and NewTown Macon.

What has our city leadership been waiting on? Why are they so content with just REACTING to situations that arise instead of proactively looking for ways to improve our city? What vision do they have for Macon over the next five, ten, fifteen years? Do they even have ANY vision for it?

I know the private sector does. And it only took two days in tiny Easton for me to see that they have a vision for themselves. They know their resources, what they can be and what they want to be, and they've gone after it.

No, from what I can tell, their artists, musicians and other creatives aren't as edgy and interesting as Macon's. They have no real art or music scene to speak of. But remember that these things for Macon have developed of late, and quickly, and in spite of leadership that doesn't care, doesn't get it or doesn't want it. Plus, if you all move there with me, they'll have a killer scene!

Frankly, I love Macon and I don't ever want to leave... but only if I have enough reason to stay. I want to want to stay, and the powers-that-be aren't doing a real good job of making that happen--for me or anyone else. As I think about starting a family, I realize I'm not responsible just for myself. I'll be thinking about my wife and my kids. If things continue as they have, we will be faced with a situation where we won't be able to stick around waiting any more. We'll be deciding between struggling for change in Macon or going to a city that actually wants us.

That's what has me so mad.

the Countdown to old age begins...

For my dad's 53rd birthday, I drove him to Augusta to see my brother and his family. We went shoe shopping, ordered pizza, drank beer and watched Al Green get the BET Lifetime Achievement Award. This was during halftime of a game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Colts. Afterward, we watched Harold & Kumar Can't Live Up to the Original, then tried to fall asleep on couches covered in microfiber suede while Sportscenter ran all night, like a looping highlight lullaby.

For my 30^th birthday, which is less than two weeks away, I have slightly different plans, which may still involve a road-trip to Augusta and microfiber suede—though only if I have a REALLY good time.

Saturday, August 30th, there will be a big-ass party beneath the Riverview Ballroom on Walnut Street, next to the somewhat dodgy, gray and maroon motel. It's called The Underground, when it's called anything at all, and this is where I hope to be surrounded by all my favorite people, who I hope will be surrounded by all their favorite people, who I hope will be introducing us all to interesting folks we haven't yet met.

There will be, like, a bunch of my favorite musicians, bands and other sentient noise-making devices... AND WE WILL GO UNTIL DAWN (if we please). Though I'm still awaiting some definites, I know that Nomenclature, Trendlenberg, Al King, Oh No They Didn't, Scott Baston & the News Architects, Oh Dorian, Aaron Irons, Doski Wo and Hank Vegas all want to be there performing for you. And maybe more.

But why? Well, it seems like a good time to celebrate ourselves, which would make an excellent excuse for me to have fun. And why not? We've got this big, beautiful, growing community of weirdoes who register semi- to full-bohemian on the strangeness scale. Plus Monica and Heatherly are going to be hitting milestone birthdays during that same stretch, and don't they deserve to have a bunch of drunk assholes scream-singing Happy Birthday at them too?

Of course they do. And what's better, you deserve to be there when it happens. You deserve to be able to say you were a drunk asshole, that you were singing shit that didn't even make sense at the time—that, in future hindsight, you were just having such a good time that you didn't notice how crazy you got. You deserve to feel like apologizing to people who will probably tell you not to worry about it because they were just about to call and apologize to you too, and then they'll ask if you've seen their keys because they can't find them and they had to sleep on the porch of their place because they passed out trying to break in while the church crowd was driving by. That's what you deserve.

In conclusion, I was raised to believe that Sunday is a day of rest, and I want to make sure that everyone has a damn good reason to still be asleep at 3pm on Sunday.

More details will be forthcoming, I swear. Just go ahead and mark the date, time and location. Saturday, August 30 until sometime Sunday, August 31 at the Underground (beneath the Riverview Ballroom). They'll be serving fried catfish dinner and such at 7pm if you want to come then.