Jersey Mike

It’s easy to be a “Monday Morning Quarterback” after watching any event fail. But being someone who makes his living booking, promoting and presenting nationally touring bands nearly two hundred nights per year, I feel that my opinion on the abysmal failure of the “Harrisburg Jazz and Multi-Cultural Festival” and how it could have been better is clearly both valid and warranted.

Yesterday, I had lunch with an unnamed source who was close to the inner-workings of this years festival and, combined with the information I was given from my source and the knowledge of the industry I hold, the following are my assertions on how the festival failed and how to ensure that never, ever, EVER happens again.

First and foremost-

1. Changing of The Name
Harrisburg’s American Music Fest – despite it’s lackluster calendar- was an annual event that hundreds of thousands of people from the region attended. What’s in a name? Well, simply put, the American Music Fest was called the American Music Fest because it was a pretty good choice of a pretty broad representation of music. No one can argue that the lineup for the previous years American Music Festivals weren’t varied. World, Blues, Gospel, Rock, Country, Bluegrass, Singer/Songwriters were all represented. And if that isn’t “multi-cultural” in itself, then I don’t know what is.

Additionally, I heard from several vendors, attendees and even performers that “Jazz and Multi Cultural Festival” …how do I say this…sounds pretty, um…urban? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when factoring in the demographics of the greater 200,000 people living in a 30 mile radius, I’d want a festival to have a welcoming name. And really, what was wrong with “American Music Festival”?

What it boils down to – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

2. Mayor Thompson either fired or lost her top fundraisers for Parks and Rec
Gloria Giambalvo and Tina King were a dynamic duo of fundraising awesomeness for the many programs held throughout the year in the city. I don’t have the exact figures, but Gloria and Tina certainly raised considerable amounts of dough for festivals like Kipona and the American Music Fest. And without them on her payroll, who was going to raise the money? Festivals like this are great exposure for corporate contributors and, while there were the usual, low-hanging-fruit like Comcast and Blue Cross, the festival lacked the long-tail funding that it has had in years past.

So, in a nutshell, you get what you pay for. $160,000 isn’t nearly enough to stage a three day, outdoor, riverfront festival designed to bring in a couple hundred thousand attendees.

3. Chuck Schulz- acting director of Parks and Rec- resigned two weeks before the festival.
Word on the street is that the Parks and Rec department whittled down from five or six people in the office to only one – Chuck – and one man simply cannot keep all the plates necessary spinning.

4. There weren’t any local bands on the bill
If you book twenty local acts on a festival like this, they’ll create buzz strong enough to garner the attention of the community. That’s how the Stage on Herr stage at Artsfest succeeded. Regardless of budget or how much (or how little) the acts were getting paid, having a couple dozen local acts playing throughout the weekend equals a couple dozen acts (of four or five people each) telling their entire mailing lists, Facebook friends, Twitter followers and word-of-mouth benefactors where they are going to be.

5. Save the preachers for the churches
I got a text message from a friend at 3:40PM on Saturday the 3rd which said “Main stage had some guy talking about God and the savior. No band. Just prerecorded backing country music. He was inviting members of the 20 people there on stage to share their love of Jesus”.

[facepalm]

Nobody wants to see that at a city-sponsored event. Period.

6. There’s nothing wrong with admitting defeat. In fact, it’s more respectable.
My sources tell me that Linda was urged on multiple occasions to just cancel the event. Save the money and the embarrassment and simply call it off. That would have been the prudent thing to do. But based on the recent departure of the final of her top-level cabinet staff, all signs point to “Linda don’t listen to nobody but Linda…and God” and that’s no way to run a city.

None of these six points contained anything other than realistic, honest-to-goodness analysis. Sure, it’s her first term in office and she’s going to make a few mistakes…but this is getting out of control. It’s time to batten down the hatches and start to admit that she has faults…or the same body who elected her will remove her from office sooner than she can yell “Praise Jesus!”

Addendum one – Read this story about the state-funded Philly Jazz festival and it’s failures.

Today is June 23. It’s about 5:30 in the afternoon and a Wednesday. The “Harrisburg Jazz and Multi-Cultural Festival” Hosted By, er, was-Hosted By-But-Now-It-Ain’t-By-Mayor Linda Thompson begins in ten days and there’s nary a calendar, schedule, email blast, Facebook invite or even a TWEET to be found.

Sure, the city is in rough shape and whether or not this poorly-renamed “festival” was even going to happen was up in the air until only about a month ago, but you’ve got an event that you’ve known about since BEFORE you took office and there’s been nothing but BAD INK about it since the renaming- it’s time to HIT THE STREETS.

To make matters worse, the “headliner” of the “Jazz and Multi-Cultural Festival” has been announced…but it ain’t much worth getting excited about. The Duke Ellington Legacy Band – a band formed by the Jazz legend’s, ahem, grandchildren. (which, I guess is better than last year’s American Music Fest headliner – an Asia tribute band)

Look, I might not be qualified to comment on the finances of the city or the wacky situation involving the Harrisburg Authority and the incestuous nature that the appointments are taking, but I DO know a thing or two about booking a show and promoting events and I can say with full confidence that the 2010 American Music Fest Harrisburg Jazz and Multi Cultural Festival is going to be a major disappointment unless the new parks and rec director pulls a gigantic Raven out of his hat and brings back Jerry Garcia, John Lennon and Jim Morrison from the dead to headline a show on a stage borrowed from Pink Floyd and has Bill Graham come down from the skies to promote it.

TEN DAYS AWAY and NO LINEUP!?

Are there any bands booked for this thing? I titled the post the way I did because Linda Thompson is hosting this thing- so, who better to ask than the HOST, right?

Get with it, guys. And if you can’t figure out this part of the administration, HIRE someone to do it.

For the Dads who once had to tell their Mom and/or Dad that “it just didn’t work out”

For the Dads who had to adjust to a staggered schedule – usually consisting of Tuesday and Thursday’s from four til seven and every other weekend.

For the Dads who, even if they had only thirty five bucks in checking until payday, took her to a movie and spent thirty of it and threw away more than half of the popcorn.

For the Dads who know what it’s like to go and hang out at the mall on a Thursday afternoon because, really, what can you do with three hours minus travel time?

For the Dads who bite their tongue and take the high road – knowing that she still has the ability to fuck their world up even though they’re not together and she’s probably wrong.

For the Dads who woke up alone on a Christmas morning and had only the memory of a few hours on Christmas eve this year.

For the Dads who make sure that Mom gets a card from the kid on Mothers day every year but who don’t always get one in return.

For the Dads who agonize and fret and despond over the thought of who’s hanging around their little girl or boy when they’re at Mom’s.

For the Dads who think they can fight the system – knowing that they’re just fueling the fire.

For the Dads who know that a “stepdad” is only allowed to be a “stepdad” when we’re dead.

For the Dads who’ve had to endure a holiday gathering with the family without the kid and can’t help but feel like a pity case.

For the Dads who might have lost a job because of the stress involved with the separation.

For the Dads who leave work early to get fifteen minutes at a school function.

For the Dads who go to the pizza shop and the ice cream place and the park and a baseball game and a movie every other weekend.

For the Dads who have a bedroom that sits empty but neat more than half the time where the clothes are always folded and the toys are aplenty.

For the Dads who know what the guilt of falling asleep before the kid on one of your nights feels like.

For the Dads who do, I salute you.

In the spring of 1992, I was a shaggy-haired, loud-mouthed, baggy-jeans and flannel shirt wearing sixteen year old learning about life and love one rock and roll song at a time growing up in Northeastern New Jersey.

My chums and I would go to see shows at The Acadamey, Roseland Ballroom, The Wetlands and Irving Plaza in New York City almost weekly. We saw practically every nineties grunge or grunge-infused band that was on the circuit. Soundgarden. The Beastie Boys. Rage Against The Machine. Tool. Spearhead (before Michael Franti found profit from the words “I Love You”) and virtually every other relevant rock act from that era.

But the band we sought out the most was Belly. Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses) and Gail Greenwood were like the yin and yang of our pubescent desires. Sweet and sultry Tanya paired with rough-and-tumble Greenwood put on some of the most fun shows that we had been to at the time. I recall a Halloween show at the fabled Limelight in NYC – it was a “radio show” – put on by pop station Z-100 – and, even though it was in one of the coolest nightclubs in the country at the time, that show never matched the energy of the Academy dates.

On the “Star” tour, Belly was out with a new band from the UK called Radiohead. All that we knew of them was the single at the time – Creep – and that the lead singer was a tiny little fellow. But at the end of the show, he joined Donelly for a version of the Belly song Stay (which also closed the Star record).

ANYWAY – those shows were instrumental for me, personally, as they were the first times that I was able to fully experience the emotional charge that one can get from an incredible live show. We had the record after hearing the single on MTV or the radio (remember when?) and we’d pick up the Village Voice to see what shows were coming that month and go to the video store in Garfield at seven in the morning to queue up for tickets to the shows we wanted to hit. Service fees were maybe fifty or seventy five cents then so the highest price for a NYC club show for a hot band would be MAYBE fifteen or twenty bucks. We’d count down the days, scribbling lyrics onto our binders and trading mix tapes – each trying to outdo the last – until the show day came and we’d borrow someones parents car (usually mine) and drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the playground of midtown-Manhattan.

Maybe got a hot dog or a knish before the show. If we were lucky, someone had some decent weed and we could still buy tall-boy cans of beer at the bodegas on the streetcorners.

And then we’d go into the show. Usually right when the doors opened. And we’d get our spots right at the edge of the stage, sixteen and sweaty with our Doc Martens laced up tight, we didn’t want to miss a single note.

We nodded our heads through Radiohead’s set and I recall not being overly excited about them. Even didn’t make a big deal about it when little Thom Yorke was out in the pit with us during Belly’s set.

But then, they played their radio song – Creep – and closed out their set. And the house lights came up, stagehands took the stage and switched out the gear. And those fifteen or twenty minutes between the opener and the headliner seemed like an eternity. We were all at a point with Belly where we knew every word to every song and so did the rest of the seven hundred or so kids packed into the room waiting.

And then, at a random moment, the house lights went off. And before nearly every single show of Belly’s that we saw, they played this song. This eerie, creepy, dark, brooding instrumental strings song. It was spooky. Like something from an indie thriller film. And I didn’t know what it was. Didn’t really care at the time either. But as the years went on and I remembered those early club shows so fondly, I yearned to hear it again. I wanted to use it at MY shows. Because, thinking about it, it was just PERFECT. Belly didn’t have the most cheerful lyrics, but DAMN if they weren’t fun shows. And this track- this three and a half minute piece of music – was the most perfect introduction to the show that ever could have been.

The years went by and from time to time, I’d think about that song. How great it would be to hear it again. I could use it as the opening music to many of the shows we do today…because it’s just that perfect. But I had NO way of finding it. Short of finding the promoter of the Belly shows at the Academy in 93 or tracking down Tanya Donelly herself, there was no way I could Google “eerie instrumental song used to open Belly’s shows in the early nineties”. And I couldn’t verbally describe it either- “Hey, you ever heard this song? It goes like….”

Never mind.

But I was at The Pub last night having a drink. We opted to hang downstairs because it seemed like kids night on the second floor. And we were just hanging out. Enjoying an Allagash….and then I heard it….the opening bars…that eerie, familiar sound. And it took a minute for me to place it- but when I did, I nearly fell out of my chair. “CHRIS!” I yelled to the bartender. “CHRIS! Is this on your iPod!?!?”

(It was)

“WHO IS THIS!?”

And he told me – it’s a Radiohead song. Called Cogs (Last Flowers Til The Hospital) and it was on a B-Sides collection.

I FREAKED. And as soon as I got home, I stumbled my drunken fingers all over the keyboard trying to find it. But I COULDN’T FIND IT. There is another song that was released with In Rainbows called simply Last Flowers Til The Hospital but not the track I was looking for. Helpless, I turned to Twitter. And I Tweeted my plight. And @gspence and @yammerin and @aglikesilver came to my rescue and, together we found it.

And here it is-

Yesterday, I wrote about Harrisburg City Council’s latest Resolution – 31-2010 – which is basically a hodgepodge of new rules for city council meetings. It’s a housekeeping measure that happens every so often to keep things current.

What I reported and reacted to was this brief paragraph that was posted on PennLive -

Harrisburg City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to eliminate the public comment at the end of its meetings and allow people only to speak on city business at the beginning. Comments would be limited to three minutes and must be focused on agenda items before council that evening.

The way that reads (and the way that the Patriot reported it) sounds like comments at Council Meetings are limited to ONLY business listed on the agenda. “Comments would be limited to three minutes and must be focused on agenda items before council that evening.”

But after speaking with councilman Brad Koplinski before last night’s Rendall pep-talk, I gained some clarity on what is ACTUALLY happening with the new rules in Council Chambers.

The way the Resolution is worded does allow constituents to speak before council on ANY topic they wish, not just topics on the agenda. And had the Patriot News reporter done his job and reported accurately, there probably wouldn’t have been as much blowback on this- here it is, word for word:

COURTESY OF THE FLOOR
RULE NO. 9 Courtesy of the Floor is the order of business during which residents or taxpayers of the city of Harrisburg may address Council on any matter of concern, official action or deliberation which is or may be before City Council, prior to taking action. A sign-in sheet shall be prominently displayed, and all persons wishing to address Council must print their name, address and telephone number or e-mail address. The President shall set guidelines for such courtesy and has the option of establishing time limits consistent with the number of people who will address the members.

So there it is. It’s not, as the Patriot reported, that council has voted to “limit” public comment….it has voted to merely move public comment from the end of the meeting to the beginning of the meeting.

Furthermore, what citizens and taxpayers may speak about is not limited to agenda items, as clearly dictated in the following sentence from the new Resolution: “Courtesy of the Floor is the order of business during which residents or taxpayers of the city of Harrisburg may address Council on any matter of concern, official action or deliberation which is or may be before City Council, prior to taking action”

So there you have it. We CAN still speak before council on ANY topic that we see fit – but it has to be done at the BEGINNING of the meeting.

Which, in my opinion, is better anyway because now we don’t need to sit through the entire meetings to speak to council about bankruptcy or the Amusement Tax or potholes or prostitutes or dog fighting or whatever other ailments we feel the council needs to hear about.

So, thanks Brad “Cufflinks” Koplinski for clearing that up.