My home and native land....

Although Cincinnati is not my home, nor my native land.

This is a Venomous Valdez inspired posting. The darling red head showed up mere hours ago and I await her patiently at The Rutledge now prior to a short show where I am running the doors and then embarking on a Nashville adventure with one of my Cincinnati girls.

Prior to this we were sitting around entertaining Abby (temporary roommate and drummer for The One Through Tens) with how incredible Cincinnati is. When I say incredible I think more "unbelievable" than "awesome". It all started when Venomous spoke the words "I've only heard gun shots maybe this many times." Please don't get me wrong. This is far from the reason I left, but you will never catch anyone in Nashville saying that. You won't catch most people in any other town saying that. It makes me giggle when people talk about you not wanting to be in any part of Nashville because someone got their car broke into one time or something lame like that. Those are suburban crimes where I "come from". The actual projects here looks like a really nice neighborhood in Cincinnati. I'm not saying to not be cautious, but you should be cautious no matter where you are. This is coming from a girl who earlier in life had been robbed in every way, shape and form in every single type of neighborhood you can imagine. Not truly the point though.

I am terribly hard on Cincinnati because, well, I'm bitter. Cincinnati was once a place that got me excited about music business. It's the town that made me realize that there was something more out there than cover bands and that people really wrote their own music too. It was where I learned I could just ask people to come play shows that I liked and they'd usually come. There used to be a message board where people would go and talk and get excited about the shows and there used to be several groups that would meet and talk about ways to improve the scene and put together compilation CD's. Venues were open to new ideas and the local rags would actually talk about local events. Several festivals popped up during this time and were really awesome until they became corporate jokes. They didn't need to pay bigger named acts to try to draw attention to themselves, the event drew attention all by itself. Everything else got pushed under the bus.

Right after things stopped being cool I finally got my own venue to book and tried to incorporate as many of the old beliefs as I could think of, but I'm only one person, so I brought in more people. Everyone had lost the good old "rock is awesome" and "rock shows are cool" vibe. I started becoming convinced that even the musicians didn't like music anymore. People would make up any excuse they could think of to not play a show that a venue was actually exicted to promote them.

It is extremely hard to let go of what the scene once was and have to admit it and move because I couldn't find people even interested. Those of us who were interested (Ms. Valdez) included were pushed under the bus by the people who were left with a say so in the press and media. The people who were actually excited about making the scene thrive were told we couldn't anymore. Most just lost interest. Others are still there trying. Most are half ass trying and giving up and playing Applebee's acoustically (you know who you are) because they can't find enough people that want to know about them and what they create. The few actual venues that do actual shows are so impossible to deal with and treat the bands so poorly that I'd want to play Applebee's too. That may not be a fair statement though since there are a few venues that I've never had the "pleasure" of being in and quite a few of them. There was a time when so many venues closed that it was nearly traumatizing to the scene, but I've noticed more pop up and maybe this is something good.

Maybe you are in Cincinnati and feel differently. You're allowed to comment on my posts. I have no opinions that I'm not up for an intelligent argument on. Maybe you think everything I ever say is stupid. That would be amazing entertaining for me. I'd really like to see Cincinnati in an uproar because it would mean any of you give a shit again. I miss these days when you all did. I can never get that initial feeling I had back of the "first time" that I thought that the music scene could be a cool business to work in, but I don't miss the feeling of it's demise.

I know that no matter what now, regardless of any of this, that I am home. I've never had that feeling of being excited to go home. When I left Atlanta a week ago it was a bittersweet feeling. I've never had that before. I could never, in my entire life, wait to get out of Ohio. I do miss the times when it wasn't so bad though. I do miss buying liquor on Sundays, wine in grocery stores, Prego mini-meatball sauce, Sorrento's and a few very close friends (who just need to move closer to me).

Although none of this bullshit will seem a surprise to most of you, I really felt that it was time to explain my intense bitterness regarding this if not for you, for myself, cause that's really the number one reason I'm writing any of this in the first place.

Enjoy your rock and roll Monday night, but good luck finding one of those shows in Cincinnati. I love 5 of you. Thank you and good night.