Entries associated with the tag "Politics":

While we Chicagoans still have the specter of the wrongheaded--and thankfully still unpassed--independent-promoter ordinance hanging over our heads, Baltimore is looking to strengthen its city's live music scene by taking the radical step of not treating people who want to put on shows like criminals.

City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake has proposed relaxing zoning restrictions on bars and restaurants looking to host shows and setting up a panel to deal with venues on a case-by-case basis, a much more flexible and intelligent system than the two proposed independent-promoter ordinances, which could've been applied to pretty much any instance of people gathering to watch live entertainment. The Baltimore plan also calls for the creation of an office to "coordinate police, fire, health and other city departments and act as the initial mediator between communities and the businesses," which makes more sense than hassling the cops with advance paperwork for every single event happening in their neighborhood, which both iterations of the Chicago plan have called for.

If her words on the matter are any indication, Rawlings-Blake is motivated by a level of clearheaded logic that's disturbingly rare in city government:

"One of the ways that we can really be competitive is to create a city where people want to live," said Rawlings-Blake. "There's an economic component to enhancing our arts, entertainment and dining in the city."

If Chicago's City Council could approach the city's music scene in the same manner, it might be able to produce something aside from free-floating resentment, like maybe an actual plan to keep live music strong and safe in our city.

Kinda doubt it though.

(Baltimore Sun, via Idolator)

The city's heinous independent-promoter ordinance may be offline at the moment, but it comes from the mayor's office, and the mayor doesn't take defeat so well--meaning (like I've already said) that we shouldn't be surprised when it pulls a Jason Voorhees and comes back from the dead yet again.

The Chicago Music Commission is already preparing for that to happen. Right now they're collecting public comments on the ordinance to use against it the next time it comes up. Considering that the City Council has previously announced the votes on this measure only a few days in advance, it might pay to get things rolling before the next surprise.

When the independent-promoter ordinance got shot down yesterday, I was a little guarded in my celebration, but the Reader's Ben Joravsky--one of the few people who actually understands Chicago government--is openly skeptical that the fight's really over. (It's always depressing when the best-informed people are the most pessimistic.) Ben's postgame breakdown is here. Some points that got my attention:

"The vendor's licensing bill (commonly known as the promoter's ordinance) has been resurrected because Mayor Daley wants it, and no one in City Hall has the guts to tell the mayor he can't have what he wants."

"Daley had Schulter defer action on the bill to buy the time he needs to figure out how he has to rewrite it in order to pass something, if only to save face. Remember this is the mayor who forced the council to defer enacting the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars for two years to make sure it wouldn't look as though he was compromising on his opposition to smoking bans."

And the one most worth remembering: "My advice to opponents of the bill is to protest at City Hall. You can't imagine how much the mayor and the aldermen hate it when citizens actually show up there. Lord knows what might happen if people saw how the city really works."

Sometimes I love this city.

Within just a couple days of the news that the City Council would vote on an independent-promoter ordinance this Wednesday (see my amended post below), a torrent of outrage erupted that crossed all social and genre lines, sweeping up experimental-music fans and superstar rapper-producers alike. My inbox has been flooded with mass e-mails from bands, venues, DJs, bloggers, and regular old people who like to go out to clubs--even people who don't live in Chicago--all of them calling for organized opposition to the measure. From what I've heard, the phones at a bunch of aldermen's offices have been ringing off the hook with calls from citizens who wanted the ordinance shut down.

And it worked.

The ordinance has been tabled pending further research, which in politician talk means, basically, "This thing is so wildly unpopular that there's no way any of us are going to touch it." Of course there's still the chance that the promoter-licensing scheme will rear its head again--remember, this is the second coming of a similar ordinance the City Council floated last year--but the breadth and depth of the protest against the measure might persuade our aldermen (or Daley, since it seems likely he's behind this) to reconsider the idea's merits.

Or hey, what if the City Council went through with the proposal they made--albeit in an obviously noncommittal way--during the first round of debate on this ordinance? They suggested actually working with promoters and venues to come up with a sane way of dealing with the situation--so how about they meet with some of the little people in the trenches, the ones who could help come up with an idea that might actually work, instead of just listening to big boys like Jam Productions or the United Center?

Or, even crazier, what if the City Council were to look at the fact that nothing like the disaster at E2 has happened here in the five years since, even though independently promoted events have proliferated explosively, and realize that promoters and venues are already taking care of not letting people get trampled to death?

PS: There's been talk of a rally at City Hall at 9 AM Wednesday, and even in light of the vote deferral, it might be a good idea to show up. If Daley and company still mean to pass this thing, they're doubtless hoping that this maneuver will dissolve the coalition that's arisen so suddenly to fight it. It can't hurt to keep the heat on, in case there's a round three coming up.

According to this item in the New York Times blog The Lede, "Deep Purple are heading for Moscow as a farewell gift to Dmitry Medvedev, the chairman of gas giant Gazprom and almost certainly Russia’s next president. . . . The rock group will perform at a show Gazprom is putting on at the Kremlin to mark the 15th anniversary of the firm’s creation, industry sources told Reuters."

Apparently Russia will not become any less dependent on fossil fuels anytime soon, har har.

Medvedev would have been too young to have seen Deep Purple at their peak even if it weren't for that Iron Curtain thing. (For those keeping score, he's four years younger than Barack Obama.)

The snazzy Obama/Deadhead mashup logo, despite every piece of knowledge I've ever accumulated, actually made me take yesterday's Grateful Dead reunion for Obama seriously. I thought maybe they'd make a meaningful connection between the music and the very real, very serious issue of who's going to take over the White House--maybe they'd even succeed in imparting to Obama some of the JFKness they seem to want him to have. Maybe it would be a real moment. My bad:

"Long live the Dead!" said Ron Svetlik, 51, who said he had attended more than 200 Grateful Dead concerts, starting in 1974.

The home builder said he had already voted by mail for the Green Party candidate, but added: "If I had to cast a write-in ballot, I'd put Jerry Garcia."

I love the fuck out of some dancehall reggae, but I'm not so down with exhortations to murder gay dudes, which seems to be about the fifth most common theme in dancehall lyrics. So I'm pretty happy about the news that Beenie Man, Sizzla, and Capleton--three legends in the dancehall universe--have signed the Reggae Compassion Act, which amounts to a promise that they'll "uphold the rights of all individuals to live without fear of hatred and violence due to their religion, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or gender." It probably has less to do with any sort of spiritual breakthrough vis-a-vis homophobia and more with a years-long boycott that the Guardian estimates has cost them as much as £2.5 million (almost $5 million in U.S. bucks). 

While it's all cool that these living-legend types have agreed, for whatever reason, to ditch the homophobia, the gay rights activists at OutRage! who are responsible for the deal say that major artists like Elephant Man, Vybz Kartel, and TOK have refused to sign on. And considering that artists like Vybz and TOK are barely known outside Jamaica--where violent homophobic lyrics are less of a big deal and the indigenous record industry is outrageously big for the island's size--I don't think they're really sweating a foreign boycott.

If you're interested in a decent zap of current dancehall, Vice magazine's online TV channel VBS has a whole bunch of footage, starting here.

Eskay at XXL is reporting that Timbaland will be hosting a fund-raising dinner for Hillary Clinton at the end of the month, with a $1,000-a-head admission price. Hillary may come off as waayyy too WASPy to be hanging out with rap dudes, but I saw her at an event last year with Biz Markie and it turned out to be a decent match-up. Biz cued the intro to "Crazy in Love" for Hillary's entrance, and I swear it put a little "go girl" sass in her step. Maybe after this hook-up she can talk Timbo into donating an exclusive track for her campaign song.

The world has a lot of problems right now -- Iraq, impending environmental collapse, the Genesis reunion -- that make the sticky matter of consumer rights in the digital marketplace look petty in comparison. As far as I know, digital rights management never came up as an issue in any campaigns this year; none of the candidates on the ballot I marked up this morning seemed to have strong opinions about it. Granted, I was mostly concerned with which candidates were willing to start open warfare with the corrupt motherfuckers currently in power, and I realize that when it comes to DRM a) it's not a big enough deal for most people even bother with, and b) probably only a couple of them know enough about technology to even be able to make a coherent argument one way or another. But it's still an issue to a lot of people, including me.

The laws determining how much control listeners have over music they pay for are being decided, and will continue to be decided, by a bunch of people that I wouldn't let pick out a blender for me, never mind offer an opinion on whether Microsoft is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when its Zune music platform coats a Creative Commons-licensed song in proprietary DRM. If any member of Congress could even tell me what half the words in the last sentence mean I would probably piss myself in shock. The people we're electing today could determine a couple decades worth of digital rights policy, and on that level we're voting blind.

But these are piddling matters right now. Today's elections are about the course of the bloody war we're stuck in, the future of our civil rights, and maybe even the future of the planet. Honestly, if I could get a guarantee that we could get habeas corpus off the endangered species list, I'd be willing to let the RIAA have their My Chemical Romance back. Shit, they could send a dude over to stay on my couch and look over my shoulder every time I open my laptop. They could install a webcam in my shower. Whatever. But after another two years of the RIAA suing soccer moms, combined with companies like Tivo and Apple breaking out their own products with DRM, maybe it'll be an issue. How much do you want to bet we'll see commercials about it in the next election season?