Cover Story: Local Music Almanac
Music Midtown is just a tiny piece of Atlanta’s music scene
To you, dear reader:
For Creative Loafing’s first-ever Local Music Almanac, we chose a week when lots of people with music on their minds would be flocking into the city. A week when people would be so inundated with every sort of sound that only a comparably loud and large hodge-podge of useless information — punctuated by the occasionally useful nugget — could keep the people’s senses in balance.
And yet, you’ll notice, the following Local Music Almanac — a clearinghouse of lists, maps, diagrams and features that mine our vast institutional knowledge of the Atlanta music scene — does not even mention Music Midtown (for plenty of that, see Vibes). Why, you ask, create a Local Music Almanac and not include the year’s largest local music event? Don’t get us wrong — we love Music Midtown, and far be it from us to dis a Clear Channel enterprise. But one thing that Music Midtown does not makes its focus — nor does it claim to — is local music. Sure, there’s the Locals Only Stage ghetto and Next Level winners kicking off the main stages on Sunday. But Music Midtown is mostly about the chance to see Tony Bennett and Def Leppard and Ashanti in the same place on the same weekend.
So this here Local Music Almanac provides an alternative to our more expansive music indulgences this weekend — a handy reminder of all we have going for us (or not) right here in Atlanta. We hope you find it edifying and illuminating — an apt companion to your musical adventuring.
Yours,?
?R. Sarig, Almanac farmer-in-chief
LOCAL MUSIC ALMANAC 2003
Almanac Farmer-In-Chief: Roni Sarig?
?Editors: Hobart Rowland, Suzanne Van Atten, Lea Holland?
?Designer: John Yardley?
?Chief Historians: Gregory Nicoll, Lee Valentine Smith?
?Key Contributors: Kevin Moreau, Ronda Racha Penrice, Nikhil Swaminathan?
?Head Fortuneteller: Jamie Allen?
?Other Farmers: Mark Gresham, Hal Horowitz, Kristi York?
?Thanks for their two-cents: Jim Stacy, Dick Delicious, Aerial, Shamgod, Knamiproko, John Graham, Drew de Man, Joe Giddings, Mike Goldman, Nerdkween, Black Love, Clay Stricklin, Paul Sforza, Sometimes X, Kodac Harrison, John Phillips, Adamsday, Lindsay Smith, Alastor, Daemon Records, Jarboe, Breeze Kings?