I’m writing this at 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 12th, as I sit on the top floor of Sipology, looking out on one of three bands that have been playing within two square blocks of each other. Simultaneously. And, especially in the case of the bands at 1st & Linden and 1st & Elm, stepping on each other’s sound.   

Ridiculous.

It’s often said that Long Beach is a small town. So why can’t we coordinate and cooperate any better than this?  

Every second Saturday, the East Village Association—which, if I’m not misinformed, is rather controlled by Marek Dzida, owner of Hellada Gallery—holds an artwalk. Live music on Linden is generally some part of this (though I’m unaware of whether each month there’s an unintended Linden battle of the bands).

Going on since 4 p.m. over at 1st & Elm has been Future Legends, the inaugural event in this year’s Summer And Music Series, the architects of which are Rand Foster, owner of fab record store Fingerprints, and Justin Hectus of the Arts Council for Long Beach.

Listen, this is not a news piece. I’m not interviewing any of the principals to get their rationale about what efforts (if any) they made to coordinate with each other, to try to find out who was unwilling to cooperate with whom, etc. Rather, I’m just wanting to say about the resulting East Village cacophony: Come on.

(For the record, I like SAM, I like artwalks with music, and I even like music at coffeehouses sometimes. But, um…)  

Maybe the SAM people shouldn’t have scheduled one of their events to overlap chronologically and geographically with the EVA’s monthly artwalk. Or maybe the EVA should have forgone live music this one time—at least at 1st & Linden. Or how about just coordinating things so that no two bands were playing at the same time? I’m no event organizer, but wouldn’t staggering the performances have been a great way to give the people there specifically for either event incentive to stay longer, to flow more coherently throughout the East Village? Instead, we got overlapping, clashing performances that scattered the audience and debased the aesthetic experience for all.

Believe it or not, it seems the coordination was even worse than it appeared out on the street. Supposedly Dzida and Sumako, curator of Sipology’s music events, had arranged things so that there would not be live music at Linden & Broadway in order to accommodate an event of sorts happening here inside, but somehow that arrangement went to hell, and at this moment Lili De La Mora and Rodney Sellars (of The Year Zero) are trying to figure out if they’re going to play at all, since it would be futile for them to perform their softer sounds with the loud electric blues band going right out front.¹

I’m sure all of the organizers involved would say that, in featuring live music, they want the best possible situation for both performers and audience. But the net result tonight is that to some degree all of the performers got screwed, and the people who came out got neither the best possible entertainment nor the chance to experience as much as they might have otherwise.

Whatever personal opinions I may or may not have about who among of the principals has in the past proven better or worse at playing nice with others, what’s certain is that tonight’s bottom line was discordant.

And in a small town—even one that’s the 38th most populous city in the United States—harmonizing your coordination is important. Performances, events, and groups—musical and otherwise—should not be working at cross-purposes. I’m not sure everything is necessarily a zero-sum game, but no pie is infinite, and so when someone is incautious or gluttonous in cutting one up, our community as a whole is likely to end up underfed, emaciated, starving. Let’s not waste our sustenance, our bounty.

I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised by tonight. Isn’t this the Long Beach model? Isn’t our city notorious for giving select individuals (call them “friends of theirs”) preferential treatment with projects that are often far from being a benefit to the city as a whole? Wouldn’t “Never Minding the Big Picture” be at least as apt to memorialize on City Hall as “The Most Bicycle Friendly City in America”?

Some people say finger-pointing is never good. I think it depends on the situation. Sometimes no one is to blame. Sometimes blame is hard to ascribe. But sometimes certain people knowingly make selfish choices, with no regard to how those choices will affect others. When that happens, we ought not let politesse prevent us from talking frankly about them. And if it’s true that a bad apple can spoil the bunch, whenever we come across one we ought to consider putting our unspoiled apples in a different basket if it’s at all possible.

Let’s give everybody the benefit of the doubt—which it’s very possible everybody involved deserves. Let’s say the schedule on paper wasn’t as bad as it was in practice circa 9 p.m. Let’s say the three-bands-at-once thing wasn’t an all-day thing. Let’s say there were technical difficulties, bands showing up late or running long, set-up or load-off problems, what have you. That still wouldn’t explain away everything.

Or let’s say it’s actually a great idea to have more than one band playing at once (for example, because you want people who don’t like one band or style of music to stick around and check out an alternative option).

That still wouldn’t entail having bands play within earshot of each other. Why not coordinate things so that, say, bands on 1st & Elm play and Broadway & Linden play sets simultaneously, then a band at 1st & Linden plays a set while something is going on at Sipology? Etc.

Am I missing something here?

Even if I am, one thing that seems clear enough about tonight is that, someone—singular or plural—screwed up. Maybe it was out of selfishness, ego, intransigence, disinterest, ignorance, pugnacity; maybe from a sin more venial—I don’t know. But it was a night when Long Beach did not put its best foot forward—a misstep that was completely avoidable.  

There’s room for discord in music; there’s no room for it in planning life in your city—including its events—if you give a damn about your performers, your audience, your community, the common good.  

But it’s probably the case that not everyone actually gives a damn. And that’s a problem.

Footnotes
¹ They ended up playing in the gallery space next door, making the best of a bad situation, since the blues ended up playing for much longer and could still be heard clearly.