Single-Digit Numbers of Underage Attendees

Fri Feb 5 14:14:10 EST 2010

Not so.

As I've been saying in the past, tunnel vision is not reality. I have been
in the music scene for 25 years. There used to be almost no all-ages
venues in the '80s except really big theaters. A few all ages shows
occasionally happened at mid-size clubs. I know about the pain of not
having all ages events because i was at the pioneering end of trying to
solve that problem. With partners, I opened and booked the first two
all-ages venues in Pitsburgh in 1988 and 89.

Post-Nirvana, things opened up. I did 1500+ all ages shows in the 90s.
Shows on Pitt, CMU (and even Duquesne!) campuses boomed. Club Laga,
Oakland Beehive were buzzing, etc. It was the last hurrah of the Oakland
scene.

At the turn of the millenium broke this barrier open further: I opened
Millvale Industrial Theater and did several hundred more all ages shows.
Mr Roboto Project started, along with several challengers. However Pitt
and UPMC bought up everything and Oakland entertainment completely shut
down.

But the scene simply moved to the East End and South Side instead. Now
there are a plethora of all ages venues of mid-size and small-size scale.
Smalls, The Rex, Diesel, Altar Bar, Club Zoo are some of the midsize
clubs, along with reopened Fate Lounge. Theaters like the New Hazlett, the
Kelly-Strayhorn, Synod Hall, Carnegie Hall, Byham Theater, and Homestead
Library are all ages. When mid-size venues do an all-ages concert, they
announce it as such - on their flyers, on the online ticketing, on their
website. There is no guessing - you do not have to "call".

Roboto, Garfield Artworks (which has been an all ages venue since 2004),
Modern Formations, 222 Ormsby, Helter Shelter, Most Wanted Fine Art, The
Nerve, The Cellar, and Istanbul Cafe are some of the smaller ones. You
don't have to "guess" whether a show there is all ages, because it always
is. There are more house shows, as well, than ever before. Age restriction
is obviously not an issue at any of these.

Some shows at Belvedere's at 18+. That's the only example I can think
where you might have to
check ahead if you don't see a flyer. So, you don't have to "call" about
hardly any of this. You just have to use some logic.

Pegasus was all ages for almost all shows, too, until it changed hands.
And therein lies the problem. If you are in college, and especially in
high school:

1) You don't know the history of the scene so you don't know how good you
have it now.

2) You don't know what is going on. If you are in college, the scene has
left Oakland, but you aren't leaving Oakland (or Downtown) to follow it.
If you are in high school, it's because you are looking at the wrong parts
of the Internet - Myspace and Facebook won't give you all the information
in one place like www.nevertellmetheodds.org does.

3) You can't get there. Possibly, the parents won't drive you (or won't
approve of you driving) to the "bad parts of the city". Which, to
suburbanites, is wherever they have a vague recollection that the TV news
once upon a time told them that someone shot someone.

4) Your peers are simply not interested in specialized goth/industrial
music anymore. The sounds have hybridized into the culture and been
watered down to the point where a kid who would have been specifically
into goth 10-15 years ago likes MSI, shops at Hot Topic and watches Abby
on NCIS. This is evident in the attendance for many all-ages shows
recently in the goth and industrial vein. Some recent all ages G/I shows
at the Rex, Pegasus or Smalls either took a loss or barely broke even, and
the younger contingent was not in evidence.

I think, as one single underage person, you have the right to complain if
the genre you are into
does not present enough all-ages events. Yet that has not been so. In the
goth-industrial scene,
there have been consistent all-ages events presented. The only ones that
haven't been have involved some kind of adult fetish/burlesque element.

I agree with you that it's stupid that there are not more resources
specifically geared to listing
all-ages events, and that news sources often do not indicate whether an
event is all-ages. But unless you start your own site or are somehow able
to comprehensively change editorial
policy at media companies, that's not going to change. So you have to use
your own common
sense and not feel like making a phone call or using the Internet is a
"hassle". It's not much of a hassle, after all, when you can come up with
a positive result, right?

So the solution to your problem is easy. Go to live music events when you
hear about them and use common sense and a bit of Internet savvy when
trying to figure out if an event is all-ages.
The rule is - if you and a bunch of other underagers are fans of the band,
and the event isn't fetishy - then the event is *probably* all ages,
because it is targeted to you!

For example, there are at least three relevant shows coming up this month.
The Feb 14 Jarboe
show at Altar Bar is over 21, because it involves adult burlesque
elements. But the other two are all ages: the Electronic Saviors release
show at The Rex on Feb 18 and the Cold Cave show at Garfield Artworks on
Feb 22. And if you want a comprehensive listing of dark music events,
e-mail Jordan Decay, who is on this list, and compiles a concert page
every two months for his zine, The Burnt Library. I'm sure he'll be more
than happy to tell you which events are all-ages.

Problem solved.

-mt

> I think part of the problem is that underage people (being one myself)
> have
> trouble finding things to go to, especially since ever-increasingly high
> numbers are closing events to people under 21. There aren't too many
> concert
> listings that feature a lot of all-ages shows, and, even worse, sometimes
> age limits aren't given at all, and different venues want you to assume
> different things when no age limit is posted, so you have to call and
> leave
> a message, and wait for them to call you back, and then call whomever it
> is
> you want to go with you...it's a huge hassle. I'm really just whining at
> this point, but I wanted to get it out there :)
>
> ~Maggie
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:00 PM, <pgh-goth-list-request at listless.org>
> wrote:
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>   1. Midian (jdecay at att.net)
>>
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>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:14:13 +0000
>> From: jdecay at att.net
>> Subject: Midian
>> To: pgh-goth-list at listless.org
>> Message-ID:
>>        <
>> 020420102314.25071.4B6B54C500083617000061EF22230706129B0A02D29B9B0EBF970E0C0A0B06 at att.net
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>> Content-Type: text/plain
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>>
>>
>> I don't recall seeing any mention of it on ye olde list, but there's a
>> new
>> weekly club night called Midian on Thursday's at Fate Lounge (former
>> Rosebud
>> space, though it looks far better than Rosebud ever did).
>>
>>
>> Though the music definitely favors Industrial, there's just enough Goth
>> thrown in to balance things out. And the Industrial side of things has a
>> good deal of variation - from old school to new. I've been every week
>> since
>> it started and have enjoyed every night. The space is beautiful and
>> parking
>> is pretty easy (I'll admit to having first been a little nervous about
>> that).
>>
>>
>> About the only squick is that it started of All-ages, but was moved to
>> 21+
>> when only a single-digit number of underagers were showing up. A shame,
>> but
>> completely understandable. I remember when Ceremony at Club Laga used to
>> pull so many young folks in...I guess times have changed.
>>
>>
>> I'm certainly looking forward to Midian tonight.
>>
>>
>> J
>>
>>
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>> End of pgh-goth-list Digest, Vol 77, Issue 1
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