I had a surprisingly civil exhange on the boards with Jim O’–founder and curator of local activities website Harrisburg Online.

The exchange was prompted by my response to a column that he wrote mostly regarding how he views industry newcomers and apparant competition.

It seemed to me that his idea was that whenever someone new comes to town and begins any sort of live music service that they immediately start to talk shit and plot their evil takeover of the live entertainment coverage avenue of Harrisburg Media.

Read the whole column here if you’d like, or just read on–as I don’t have much time this morning and just wanted to throw this up here, I copied and pasted the board posts.

The gist of my point is that to really have a healthy, thriving music scene, we NEED different people doing different things. And most importantly, we should try to help the new guys along (much the way that people with years in the game have taken a chance on us along the way. )

Regarding the “riding our coat tails” section of Jim’s latest OMM-

You said:

“As mentioned above regarding bands, these people also want to take the easy route by riding off our coat tails. They’ll post on our message board to check them out. (Which I always delete) Then I get an email wanting to know what’s up my ass, why was their post deleted. Then I reply, use your own marketing to gain site visitors and not my traffic that I busted ass over the years to obtain. Of course that fires them up and I’m sure they have visions of knocking us off. This never happens and soon they are gone only to have someone else step up and try all over again.”

While I understand where you’re coming from on this, Jim–you also mentioned that “One, it let’s these people know just how hard this business is. They start up thinking they will change the world and make money doing it, only to find out a few months later that is not the case. ”

Sure, as is the case in ANY business. Lots of people have wild dreams and aspirations of what they’d do differently if they were in charge. The difference between a standard, brick and mortar business and the music business is that you can pretty much start in the music biz with zero capitol and zero experience.

All you really need is a certain level of dedication, persistence and an email address.

But what’s wrong with welcoming in the newbs? Don’t we want MORE bands? MORE venues? MORE shows?

Won’t it be a great day in the midstate when people have to go out of their way to find a top forty cover band and be able to pick from dozens and dozens of original events–and have most of those original events be well attended?

Jim-I’m totally not busting your balls. Just offering what’s on MY mind in response to what’s on your mind.

I’m fairly sure I know who the latest of pioneers was to light the fire on a couple of bridges in town.

But they’ll come and go. And the good ones will stick around and contribute valuable services and events.

Why bash people for trying?

Also–

“Two, most of the “newbies” have their sites on us, because over the years we have become known within the local music community as a somewhat authority. As each one fails we seem to get another notch in the belt.”

Is that a good thing?

Seriously just wondering.

Sure, the landscape is different now–when HBGOnline began there was, what? Unsung Hero, PA Rocks, you and Harris in town doing the music thing?

What’s really changed since then? Sure, your site is still here and new content is added weekly–but maybe you could have more interesting and valuable content if there were more people doing different things?

Harrisburg Online, right? I’d assume from the name that you’d want to cover and include everything in Harrisburg….Online.

Just my two cents. ”

His reply–

I was trying to make a point that is sometimes overlooked.

These newbies want to divide vs my therory of cooperation between all involved. A unified front will reach the goals better and quicker then a divided one.

Mike when you started, you had no attitude. You reached out for help and we gave it to you anyway we could. Even when something was to be paid for, did we ever collect.

You did it the right way.

These newbies start the smack talking and try to destroy what took years of ass breakin to accomplish. Why? Because they only want to discredit us thinking they will have some sort of gain from it. I’m not perfect and have had my shares of failures. However I’ve learned from my mistakes and blamed no one except myself.

My article was to remind those of what we are and who we are. Sometimes when the sheep blindly follow they are tunnel visioned into what they are doing.

And my closing thoughts–

Again, I see it a bit differently.

Totally not tooting my own horn, but I consider myself fortunate and have grown to respect many people locally, regionally and nationally because of their willingness to believe in a newb like myself.

Two years ago, Harris and I didn’t get along well at all. Dude would barely reply to my emails. (Well, the emails haven’t changed much)

But now, we’ve both let go of some ego and work together and help eachother out any way we can.

Likewise with you and I — our dealings got a bit rocky there for a minute, but at the end of the day–we know that we’re in this for the same reason and, even if our goals are different, the path that we’re on to get there is much the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying let every jerkoff with an internet connection, photoshop for handbills and a staple gun with some stupid motto saying something about a fucking “revolution” dive right in and work without earning merit—

I’m just saying that we were ALL newbs at some point–some of us learn and some of us are doomed to repeat mistakes over and over–but we should always listen to what someone new has to say.

I know that after four years of doing my best to book great shows while making the venues, bands and patrons happy while at the same time trying to make sure that my electric stays on and raise a kid, I’m grateful to a lot of the people who’ve taken a chance on me.

Sure, I’ve burned some bridges–but when we boil it all down, we were all new once.

(This civil exchange should be proof of progress over the past several years)