Hi folks;
There are some great ideas and strategies here;
I talked to Rod Picott about this (and there's an excerpt from that conversation in a news story about just this subject, on MaineFolkMusic.com here: http://mainefolkmusic.com/member/news/2008/20080416_news_nashville.php )
Rod related it to the way Nashville developed as a regional and national music center. It was all about radio back then - there was a strong signal out of WSM, which carried great country music programming to a wide audience area; the whole southeast US came to regard Nashville as the place where music was discovered and developed.
That doesn't apply these days, of course, the radio airwaves are much more crowded, and radio stations have a much smaller geographic reach. Not to mention the decline (but not complete disappearance) in importance of radio as the manner in which people discover new music.
I think these days, the concept that Rod describes could still work, but the medium is the World Wide Web. Most music websites on the web are not closely identified with a particular city - the same can be said for satellite radio. The music is branded on the basis of the website itself.
But what if there were a website, or several, which offered music that originated everywhere, but had a core offering of local talent, and which branded the music in the context of a particular city or region (i.e. Portland). The world would consume this content, and associate it with the city, and the reputation of that city would grow as a music center; the music industry would sense opportunity, and begin to gravitate there.
thoughts ?
thanks,
Bob McK
