Times are dark. The economy, gas prices and other simplistic explanations for current crises that journalists refer to in countless articles have forced the city of Austin into an economic tailspin. According to Troy Dillinger, a local musician whose Web site depicts him as a jack of all trades (including facilitating backyard parties!), one of the chief concerns among the many difficulties in our horrible lives should be how to help our city’s
music scene.
Fortunately for Dillinger, Mayor Will Wynn and a few City Council members were so concerned about the situation that — in accordance with the time-honored government tradition of creating a committee, study group, commission or money-laundering scheme for everything — they created a Live Music Task Force. Like God breathing life into a new soul, the City Council erected the task force to study Austin’s music industry and provide recommendations on how to improve the situation.
For our sake, the members of the task force, including musicians, venue owners, local politicians and one “neighborhood representative,” have left behind their murderous instincts and decided to work together to study (1) our entertainment district, (2) redevelopment, incentives, affordability and financing for venues, (3) sound control ordinances and issues and (4) programs to provide assistance for musicians. With good intentions, representative “legitimacy” and the undivided attention of our mayor, the task force will present its recommendations this afternoon.
Normally, the documents featuring the task force’s thoughts are hidden at a secret location (online), requiring top-secret-level clearance (Web site address). After deciding to break several, often unnecessary, ethical boundaries, I acquired the recommendations only to discover that good intentions do not always result in the best ideas.
The first recommendation that stood out was to create a way for the city to define what a musician is and what a live music venue is. The purpose is to exclude those who are not “real” musicians and live music venues from health care and legal assistance and tax breaks in an effort to level the playing field. Another effort to level the playing field is to require all live music venues with outdoor performances to hire a city-approved sound engineer. “Leveling the playing field” seems to support those more established musicians and venues who can afford to put up with the city’s red tape, while penalizing those who are not as well off and who cannot afford the extra costs of complying.
Foremost among the recommendations is the task force’s pitch for the City Council to create a City of Austin Music Department. This music department will be in charge of implementing all approved recommendations of the task force while simultaneously adding on another layer of “irreplaceable” bureaucracy.
Who will decide who is a musician and what constitutes a live music venue? Who will hold accountable those who decide incorrectly? How are city bureaucrats qualified to regulate the music industry? Why does the local government get to confer such titles as “card-carrying musician”?
Based on an online survey conducted by the task force and a secret interview with Paul Oveisi, chair of the task force, local musicians are getting shafted out of pay, health care and housing. This is one area in which the task force has succeeded in actively courting feedback from musicians. However, for the sake of musicians, general constituents and accountability, it probably makes more sense for a group to lobby from the bottom up rather than a city music department to legislate and regulate from the top down.
One valid argument in favor of the task force is that the city carried out a similar initiative nearly 20 years ago in order to become a hi-tech hub — a status not nearly as achievable without government assistance. I agree; government does have a role. That is why I created my own task force, comprised of one randomly selected person with little or no valid connection to the music industry (me). My task force’s recommendations are for the city to lower its taxes pertinent to businesses and to decrease the amount of bureaucracy a local business (i.e., live music venue) has to go through in order to start up, maintain its operations and expand.
Austin didn’t become the live music capital of the world because of local government initiatives, by propping up certain venues at the expense of others or by ensuring the quality of a musical performance with law enforcement. It happened because of the musicians, venues and people who come out to listen. Our music scene does not need the City Council to survive — it is the other way around.
If I am wrong, then my final point is that the City Council did not go too far enough. Creating a task force is all right, if we want to be a regular city like Chicago or — heaven forbid — New York. But we are Austin. We are a city deserving leaders who will go the extra mile. Who will evaluate, label, subsidize and regulate those on the task force itself? I challenge the city of Austin, on behalf of all Austinites, to create a Live Music Task Force Task Force.
Kumar is a business honors and supply chain management senior.
