the Nashville Music Council to go public today

Scarcely a word has been written in the press about the Nashville Music Council since it was announced by Mayor Karl Dean in the Spring of 2009. That’s in part because Nashville is lacking in aggressive music business coverage, and it’s partly because the NMC has kept a low profile as it has figured out what it wants to be and how it wants to proceed in its mission to develop the Nashville music community and economy.

That changes today, as the NMC holds its first ever town hall meeting at the W.O. Smith School at four this afternoon. According to the official press release: “Mayor Karl Dean will deliver opening remarks at the meeting, followed by Music Council Co-Chair Mary Ann McCready, President of music business management firm Flood Bumstead McCready & McCarthy Inc. Presentations will also be made by the chairs of the Council’s four sub-committees: Music Education, Live Music, Creative Talent, and Branding and Jobs. Janet Miller, Chief Economic Development and Marketing Officer for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, will moderate questions from the audience.”

By way of disclosure, I was invited to contribute to the NMC's subcommittee on branding, and I have attended two meetings and helped design a survey about perceptions of Nashville that was administered at SXSW in Austin, but I am not on the Music Council. The NMC membership includes about 60 executives from the expected and some unexpected firms and associations. I'm planning on covering the hearing today on the blog, and I do so only as a concerned citizen of the Nashville music business community. I want Music City to thrive in all its many facets, and I think the Council has great potential. But the time has come to clarify what it is, what it hopes to be, and what it can (and can’t) accomplish.

I’ll be listening for answers to several questions:

• How can the NMC be more than a mere ceremonial gathering business people, each with his or her own agenda? What specific policy or tax changes is the NMC reviewing that could actually be implemented?

• On that hard-core policy front, what is the status and future of the recently inaugurated Nashville Event Marketing Fund? Why has that money largely supported the CMA Music Fest, an event already flush with cash and commercial sponsors, while many other smaller music conventions and events have not even been able to apply for support because of the Fund’s arbitrary threshold of being available only to events that generate more than $5 million in economic impact?

• The Council and its most influential members, Mayor Dean’s office and the Convention & Visitors Bureau, have been outspoken in wanting to brand Nashville as a city of ALL music, not just country. And that’s absolutely unassailable. But I have seen mounting evidence that in its attempts to distance itself from what is often cited as a “Hee Haw” image of hay bales and hillbillies, many on the Council have overlooked bluegrass and Americana, despite their central importance to the artistic past and present of Nashville. The CVB web site has nary a fiddle or a banjo on its many music pages. Nashville has great rock and pop bands, but it would be inauthentic to portray Nashville as a leading worldwide rock/pop scene. Whereas, Nashville is without a doubt the world’s best and most fertile scene for American roots music. It's one of the city's huge artistic resources and a magnet for all kinds of young musicians. If the NMC is hesitant to fly that flag because of some long-flawed perception that Americana is not commercially viable (despite abundant evidence and dozens of Grammy Awards) then that would be a problem for me. I think a little affirmative action on behalf of the underdog genres and scenes here is more important than relief for a major label system that’s made so many strategic and tactical mistakes over the past decade.

Was that a question or a sermon? Maybe both. I think it’s an important issue and while I know there are voices on the NMC championing our art as much as our commerce (the IBMA’s Dan Hays, Next Big Nashville’s Jason Wilkins and the Americana Music Assn’s Jed Hilly among them), much of the NMC is made up of folks who built the old business model and who often show signs that inevitable change is something they’d rather ignore than embrace. It will be interesting to see who stands up today to speak on behalf of MUSIC first, asking how can the business be adapted to developing the art rather than merely a Walmart scale industry with its well-documented liabilities.

Tune in at 4:00!

Comments

[mark montgomery]

for all of you who cannot attend, follow us on twitter #nashvillemusiccouncil and ask questions, provide us feedback!

hope you can join us live!

[mark montgomery]

and, the questions you raise are extremely valid, and should be asked...i'll look forward to seeing you...

i would add that people should recognized that all the efforts (and there really have been some) are purely volunteer, and i would encourage people to bring questions, but also to bring SOLUTIONS. and be prepared to put their money where their mouth is (literally and figuratively...)

this is a big task, but Nashville can become the epicenter of the new music business (providing real solutions) if we choose to take up the task...

see you at 4!

[Charles Alexander]

Good points, Craig. I also see Nashville as the awakening giant in pop music. Some of the pop/singer/songwriter acts are getting great placements on TV. I just think the rest of the country doesn't think Nashville has those kind of acts. So if anything we need to promote Nash as an "authentic" place for pop besides obviously roots music.

[steve keller]

i, too, am concerned. from looking at the cvb material, i have questions about how the cvb (and consequently the music council) define the "nashville brand." i honestly believe we are in a position to make use of the current chaos and redefine music city as something that extends far beyond the confines of music row.

that chaos can also afford us the opportunity to reframe the nashville brand as something that is inclusive of growing tech sectors - and understand it is much less about genre and much more about culture and community. i am convinced we can actually attract the talent that will help us be recognized as a worldwide center for the new, emerging music industry, for technical innovation and for diversity. that will never happen if we are so married to familiar ways of approaching business and the industry that we are too afraid to have a vision that really changes things...

i have suggestions and solutions, much from what i've learned in having to overcome the "negative" aspects of the music city brand over the past few years. it seems difficult to find the ears ready to listen. i'm hoping to find a few of those today...

[steve keller]

...and by way of follow-up: i did find some listening ears (danke, herr montgomery) and certainly left more hopeful.

the potential is there. hopefully, working together, we'll see the results.