a glimpse into the music scenes at RPM communities around North America

February has arrived, and close to 2,000 musicians around the globe are now holed up like hobbits in their bedrooms, basements, attics, garages—wherever they managed to clear out some space for a makeshift studio—recording new albums for the 2009 RPM Challenge. Although their methods may vary wildly, each band’s ultimate goal is the same: to write and record 10 songs or 35 minutes of original music by March 1.

The Seacoast marked the fourth annual challenge with a kickoff party at The Press Room in Portsmouth on the evening of Jan. 31. By the end of the next day, around 2,000 artists had signed up to participate in Record Production Month.

This year, The Wire encouraged other alternative news and culture publications around North America to promote the challenge in their communities. Regional hubs were established with East Bay Express in Oakland/Berkeley, Calif.; Flagpole magazine in Athens, Ga.; The Scope in St. John’s, Newfoundland; Jackson Free Press in Jackson, Miss.; and Philadelphia Weekly in Philadelphia, Pa. The Austin Chronicle in Texas, is also advertising the challenge.

What follows is a series of community profiles that provide a quick glimpse into the vast music scenes within each of these regional RPM hubs. For the sake of comparison, keep in mind that RPM’s birthplace of Portsmouth is a mere 15 square miles in size and has about 20,500 residents with a median age of 38.5. As of Feb. 2, 186 artists from the Portsmouth area had signed on for the challenge.

To check out RPM artists from each regional hub, visit www.rpmchallenge.com and click on the link with the name of the city on the right.

Athens,
Georgia
population: 111,580 (2006)
median age: 26.6 (2007)
geography: 117 square miles, northeastern part of the state, 60 miles northeast of Atlanta
local publication: Flagpole (www.flagpole.com)

The unified city-county of Athens-Clarke County in northeastern Georgia is a musical haven that has given rise to such bands as R.E.M., B-52s and Widespread Panic. Home to the University of Georgia and its student body of roughly 33,000, the city has a strikingly young population and a downtown saturated with music.

Michelle Gilzenrat, music editor for weekly magazine Flagpole, said the city has a diverse range of music with a penchant for indie rock. The hip-hop community is also thriving, as well as country and Americana. There is also a growing interest in electronic music, with DJs hosting wild dance parties full of mash-ups and remixes.

“Even within the course of one show, you could get a folk artist opening for an instrumental metal band followed by Southern rock (I was at such a show last week),” Gilzenrat said in an e-mail. 

There are about 30 music venues in Athens, according to Gilzenrat, ranging from bars and coffee shops to movie theaters and restaurants. The city’s best known venues include The 40 Watt Club and Georgia Theatre, as well as the larger Classic Center. Tasty World is also rapidly becoming a local favorite.

The audience for local music is generally strong, although the plentitude of venues creates nightly competition, Gilzenrat said. Area musicians tend to support one another, often participating in more than one band at a time and collaborating with fellow artists. The city hosts music events like AthFest every summer, kicking off with the Flagpole Music Awards.

Other legendary acts hailing from Athens include Drive-By Truckers and Pylon. But a healthy smattering of rising stars has also entered the scene, including Dead Confederate, The Whigs, Modern Skirts and Dark Meat. Gilzenrat said a plethora of lesser known bands are on the cusp of receiving national attention, and she hopes the RPM Challenge will spur them to put their skills to the test this month.

“For every one local release recorded on a regular basis, I am sure there are 10 more that could have been,” she said. “I am hoping the RPM Challenge will really speak to the less active or less known artists who may be intimidated by the crowded scene.”  

As of Feb. 2, 11 participants from Athens had signed up for the challenge.

St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada
population: 100,646 (2006)
median age: 39.1 (2006)
geography: 185 square miles, southeastern tip of Newfoundland, off the northeastern coast of Canada
local publication: The Scope (www.thescope.ca)

About 1,500 miles northeast of Portsmouth, in a time zone 90 minutes later than Eastern Standard Time, there is a thriving music community on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. The provincial capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s is a city known for its abundance of active rock and folk musicians.

“It’s primarily a rock town. That kind of grew out of the working class folk tradition,” said Elling Lien, editor of biweekly alternative newspaper The Scope. “It’s traditionally been a hard life up here, so it’s got a bit of an aggressive edge.” 

Probably the single biggest act to emerge from St. John’s is the folk-rock band Great Big Sea, which has now released 10 albums and garnered an international following. The city is also home to rising rock stars The Novaks. But the city’s isolated location has given the music scene a local focus, and it is overflowing with underground indie bands known almost exclusively to fellow islanders.

“There’s always been a strong tradition of going out to see music and share music. It’s one of the strongest themes in local culture, really,” Lien said. “It’s an island, so if you don’t have a local following, you’re not really successful, at all.”

The most well known venue in St. John’s is The Ship Inn, a restaurant and pub that holds no more than 150 people but draws packed crowds of music-goers. The Ship predominantly hosts indie rock and folk bands, but punk shows are also common. A long stretch of George Street is lined with other pubs and bars that regularly host live music. Lien said just about every genre has thorough representation in the city with the exception of electronic, which hasn’t really taken off yet in the North Atlantic.

The Scope first became involved with the RPM Challenge in 2008 and collected 22 finished CDs from area artists by the end of February. But Lien said he expects greater participation this year, and his prediction appears to be correct. By Feb. 2, 117 bands from the St. John’s area had registered, beating out every other RPM hub community except the Seacoast—not that it’s a contest.

Oakland/Berkeley, California
combined population: 502,452 (2006)
median age: 32.9 (2007)
geography: 108 square miles (combined), across the bay from San Francisco, 370 miles north of Los Angeles
local publication: East Bay Express (www.eastbayexpress.com)

The East Bay region of Oakland and Berkeley, like many of its California counterparts, has given birth to a multitude of bands that have achieved national stardom in just about every genre. In the punk arena, there’s AFI and Rancid. More soulful selections include En Vogue and Tower of Power. The Bay Area also weaned alternative rock legends like Green Day and Counting Crows. And that’s just skimming the surface.

Located a mere eight miles from San Francisco, Oakland’s music scene is not quite as reputed as its neighbor across the bay, but it is, nonetheless, a highly regarded arts community. Berkeley houses a campus of the University of California and its 35,000-plus students. The school’s music department, founded in 1905, is one of the oldest and most prominent in the country.

Sarah Hammill, marketing manager for the weekly publication East Bay Express, said the Bay Area’s music scene is strongest in the fields of hip-hop and indie rock, but there is also plenty of jazz, funk, metal, country and folk.
“It is an extremely eclectic scene, as much as anywhere else in the country. That is one of its defining characteristics,” Hammill said in an e-mail.

Although an array of famous acts have emerged from the region, there are countless others that dwell comfortably within the local underground, spreading their music digitally to develop a fan base.

“Independence is a prime virtue in the local scene, leading some bands and artists to avoid steps that could lead to ‘making it big,’ instead embracing their local and/or underground following,” Hammill said.

Popular music venues in Oakland, include Yoshi’s, the Stork Club, Ashkenaz, La Pena Cultural Center, The Uptown Nightclub, The Starry Plough Pub, Freight & Salvage Coffee House and, most recently, Fox Theatre. But many music fans still tend to cross the bridge to catch live shows. “Live music has a strong foundation in San Francisco, less so in the East Bay,” Hammill said.

All the more reason for area musicians to concentrate on recording during the month of February. At the start of the month, 72 Bay Area bands had signed up for the RPM Challenge.


Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
population: 1,448,394 (2006)
median age: 34.2 (2000)
geography: 135 square miles, southeastern corner of the state, across the Delaware River from New Jersey
local publication: Philadelphia Weekly (www.philadelphiaweekly.com)

For an idea of the eclecticism in Philadelphia’s vibrant music scene, look no further than The Roots. Philly’s most admired hip-hop band was among the nation’s first acts to heavily saturate its rap style with live instrumental jazz and soul improvisations. Since the early 1990s, The Roots have been at the forefront of a bustling hip-hop scene in Philadelphia. Of course, Will Smith is from Philly, too. He’s done OK.

But according to Brian McManus, music editor for alternative publication Philadelphia Weekly, the city’s music scene stretches far beyond hip-hop. There’s an active contingent of psychedelic bands led by groups like Espers and Asteroid #4. There’s a swelling indie rock community churning out bands like Dr. Dog, Man Man and War on Drugs. And there’s also a major metal scene, covered closely in Philly’s own Decibel magazine.

McManus said support for local music in the area is exceptionally strong, with new record releases occurring every week. Philadelphia Weekly’s music section includes a regular column devoted to informing the public about local CD release parties. The paper also hosts a summer concert series that rarely fails to draw enormous crowds of people hungry for live local bands.

“We host a concert series in the park each summer—four consecutive Wednesdays of free concerts featuring local acts—and the response to them is overwhelming,” McManus said. “Especially if the weather is nice, you might get a few thousand people out at the park to hear a local band they might have never heard of before.”

Some of the better known live music venues in Philly include Johnny Brenda’s, the First Unitarian Church, Theatre of the Living Arts, Connie’s Ric Rac, the Khyber, World Café Live and The Fire. But McManus said just about every neighborhood in the city has at least a handful of venues.

Once word got out about the RPM Challenge, McManus said, the response was instantaneous. Within a single day of linking to the RPM Web site, about 20 area bands signed up, he said. As of Feb. 2, that number had swelled to 38.

Jackson, Mississippi
population: 176,614 (2006)
median age: 31 (2000)
geography: 104 square miles, slightly southwestern part of the state
local publication: Jackson Free Press (www.jacksonfreepress.com)

In case you’re utterly unversed in music history, Mississippi’s got blues. This is the land that gave birth to Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Elmore James, Big Bill Broonzy, Mississippi John Hurt—the list goes on and on.

Many of the Delta’s famous bluesmen sowed their musical oats in the state capital of Jackson. But the city’s music scene has extended far beyond blues to embrace jam bands, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, folk and indie rock.

“Jackson has an extremely talented music scene,” said Todd Stauffer, publisher of alt-weekly Jackson Free Press, in an e-mail. “I’ve lived in New York, California, Texas, Colorado—and I’ve never been in a city where most of the acts you drop in and hear are really good musicians.”

The only drawback, according to JFP music listings editor Herman Snell, is that Mississippi’s music has become such an international commodity that the state often loses its brightest stars. Major labels often snatch up local talent and put them on a larger national stage.

“Hot Mississippi talent that gets this taste is often convinced by their shiny new label to strike out for Austin or L.A. They maybe get a gig on a late night talk show or a national commercial,” Snell said in an e-mail.

In addition to the bluesmen of old, Mississippi has been home to Jimmie Rodgers, Elvis Presley, Jimmy Buffett, Faith Hill, Cassandra Wilson, Blind Melon, 3 Doors Down and Afroman, among others. But while many of the state’s native heroes have moved on, a new crop of talent is on the rise, including acts like The Weeks, Roosevelt Noise, Passenger Jones, Owen Beverly and Rhonda Richmond.

Stauffer said support for local music comes and goes in Jackson, with a current lack of venues hampering the scene. But that could change soon. The Ole Tavern at George Street recently reopened, and The Auditorium will officially open this month. The city is also working on reviving the historic arts district around Farish Street.

Jackson was a bit late getting the word out about RPM, but with JFP spearheading a last-minute push, Stauffer hopes to see participation grow. As of Feb. 2, 18 bands from Jackson had signed up.

Austin,
Texas
population: 709,893 (2006)
median age: 29.6 (2000)
geography: 251 square miles, 80 miles northeast of San Antonio, 165 miles northwest of Houston, 200 miles south of Dallas
local publication: The Austin Chronicle (www.austinchronicle.com)

Austin is known as the live music capital of the world, a slogan earned in the early 1990s when it was determined that the Texas capital had more music venues per capita than any other destination in the country. Today, the city is home to hundreds of venues and thousands of avid musicians.

If you have any doubt about how serious Austin citizens are about their music, pay a visit to the Stevie Ray Vaughan memorial statue on Lady Bird Lake. The blues guitar master is one of the city’s beloved native stars, along with country idol Willie Nelson. Both legends were born elsewhere in Texas but came to Austin to cultivate their styles and win over adoring masses of loyal fans. 

An all-star list of other musicians and bands have either launched or cemented their musical careers in Austin, including The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Janis Joplin, Lucinda Williams, the Butthole Surfers and Okkervil River. Another noted Austin regular, singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin, is on her way to Portsmouth for a sold-out gig at The Music Hall with Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin.

There is a sprawling music district in Austin spread between Sixth Street, Red River and South Congress. Bars and clubs of all sizes and musical preferences can be found around the city, fed by music fans and students at the University of Texas campus.

The annual Austin City Limits music festival in Zilker Park brings more than 100 bands to eight stages for three days each September, and the five-day South by Southwest festival features music and film from around the world each March. The Austin Music Foundation helps aspiring musicians launch their careers and works to keep the local scene vibrant.

Although it is not an official RPM hub because the staff is preparing for SXSW, The Austin Chronicle has been advertising the challenge in its weekly publication. As of Feb. 2, 20 bands from Austin had registered.

Although February is underway, it’s not too late to sign up for the RPM Challenge. Visit www.rpmchallenge.com to register.