Let’s say you decide to open a club. On some nights, you have karaoke. On others, you have live music.
On karaoke nights, you pay some guy to schlep his gear down. In turn, people sit around all night waiting for their turn and drinking your grossly marked up alcoholic beverages. They throw some tips his way. At the end of the night, you pay Mr. or Mz. Karaoke a cut.
Other nights, you have live music. Some bands show up on time and are polite and competent. Others? Not so much. Those that play like crap drive out the people they didn’t bring. Or they leave when “their” band’s set is over.
So the club owner says “Hey, why not just have karaoke all the time?” Then, there are no heads to count, no bands to pay. Thus, the live music night disappears.
This seems to be what’s happening in the town of Payson, about 70 miles from Phoenix. I wanted to book some gigs in small towns that are a pretty quick drive. Rural towns, for some reason, absolutely love Hung Dynasty’s style of rock. If we throw in a country tune played our style, they go bananas. So I thought it would be a good fit.
In that frame of mind, I shot an e-mail to a radio station manager up that way. It turns out that karaoke is the sharpened, garlic-infused stake that is being pounded into live music’s heart up there.
This saddens me, and not just because it essentially seals Payson off to our ministrations - but it also deflates every young wanna-be in that town who sees that one guitar and wants to rock until s/he drop and is never gonna stop. How dismal it is that a kid can’t even rock, form a band and find a venue. For older dudes like Hung Dynasty, there’s always another venue somewhere else. We have good jobs that can support our habit.
But for my young brothers and sisters who want to get started? I am truly disappointed for them.
