Hyperreal Film Club
Part of the Problem; Not the Solution
RECEIVED Wed., July 23, 2008
Dear Editor,
Re: “Can the Bands Play On?” [News, July 18]: Austin's music crisis was created because of City Council decisions. The mayor's Live Music Task Force is a textbook case of government creating a problem, then marketing itself as the solution.
The City Council, with Mayor Will Wynn as spearhead, is in the tank for the Smart Growth program, which mandates high-density Downtown dwellings, and only latterly discovers that this means crowding out low-rent but high-quality clubs where the Austin music scene used to flourish. Steamboat memories, anyone? Vulcan Gas Company? Club Foot? Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar? Soon: La Zona Rosa? Even the City Council's shiny new multimillion -dollar City Hall overlooks the lamented ghost of Liberty Lunch.
The City Council started charging for formerly free surface parking under I-35, and created a further shortage of on-street parking with their vertical mixed-use retail shopping and condos, with associated pay-only parking lots. I dread going Downtown now – and I know I'm not the only one – because parking is such a nightmare.
The council passed a no-smoking ordinance which (surprise!) drove patrons outside and when the music followed the patrons, the council passed a noise ordinance so onerous that I, for one, have lost interest in seeing a particular favorite band once they turn down enough to avoid a ticket.
And after all this and more, Mayor Wynn has the (cough) cojones to create a Live Music Task Force to study – oh dear, what can the matter be? – the live music situation in Austin, and determine how the city can "help" – with tax dollars, of course.
For good measure, the LMTF then grows their own set and lobbies to spend my tax dollars on an advertising campaign to persuade me that Austin's ailing music scene is my fault for not going out to clubs enough. For shame.
Re: “Can the Bands Play On?” [News, July 18]: Austin's music crisis was created because of City Council decisions. The mayor's Live Music Task Force is a textbook case of government creating a problem, then marketing itself as the solution.
The City Council, with Mayor Will Wynn as spearhead, is in the tank for the Smart Growth program, which mandates high-density Downtown dwellings, and only latterly discovers that this means crowding out low-rent but high-quality clubs where the Austin music scene used to flourish. Steamboat memories, anyone? Vulcan Gas Company? Club Foot? Lucy's Retired Surfer's Bar? Soon: La Zona Rosa? Even the City Council's shiny new multimillion -dollar City Hall overlooks the lamented ghost of Liberty Lunch.
The City Council started charging for formerly free surface parking under I-35, and created a further shortage of on-street parking with their vertical mixed-use retail shopping and condos, with associated pay-only parking lots. I dread going Downtown now – and I know I'm not the only one – because parking is such a nightmare.
The council passed a no-smoking ordinance which (surprise!) drove patrons outside and when the music followed the patrons, the council passed a noise ordinance so onerous that I, for one, have lost interest in seeing a particular favorite band once they turn down enough to avoid a ticket.
And after all this and more, Mayor Wynn has the (cough) cojones to create a Live Music Task Force to study – oh dear, what can the matter be? – the live music situation in Austin, and determine how the city can "help" – with tax dollars, of course.
For good measure, the LMTF then grows their own set and lobbies to spend my tax dollars on an advertising campaign to persuade me that Austin's ailing music scene is my fault for not going out to clubs enough. For shame.
Sincerely,
Alan McKendree
Alan McKendree