Source: Wikipedia

Minneapolis’ First Avenue night club is urging its supporters to oppose a proposed merger between Live Nation, one of the nation’s largest promotions companies, and Ticketmaster the nation’s largest ticket seller. The United Kingdom approved the merger last week prompting venues and consumer groups to ramp up efforts to urge the Department of Justice to reject the merger on anti-trust grounds.

“In the last 12 years, since Live Nation and its predecessor started its widespread take over of the concert industry, concert ticket [prices] have shot up 82 percent while the consumer price index has gone up just 17 percent,” read an email sent to First Avenue supporters on Monday. “We are concerned that if the two concert industry behemoths, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, were permitted to merge, the variety and quality of artists coming to local venues would be affected, and your prices could rise further and faster.”

Ticketmaster and Live Nation say the merger will have the opposite effect.

“If our plan happens … it can, should and will result in lower ticket prices in the primary market,” Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff told the Los Angeles Times. “If that plan fails to come to pass, artists, consumers and the industry will not be the better for it.”

But when questioned by Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a Senate hearing on the merger in February, Azoff conceded that past mergers hadn’t brought ticket prices down.

“Have past acquisitions that you’ve made brought tickets down, because the numbers I look at show tickets going up?” Klobuchar asked.

“No, tickets have been going up,” he replied.

Klobuchar has been skeptical of the merger.

“[Minnesotans] particularly like to listen to live music, whether it’s at larger venues, like the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul or at small music venues, such as the Minneapolis club ‘First Avenue,’” Klobuchar said in February. “Consumers deserve to know how the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation will affect them.”

The American Antitrust Institute, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, the National Association of Ticket Brokers, the National Consumers League and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) have launched a new website called TicketDisaster as a clearinghouse for opposition to the merger.

Consumer groups say the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger will create an entity that will have impact in every segment of the concert business.

“This merger would allow the merged entity to determine the prices of access to venues, concert promotion, ticketing, and other services — permitting a single firm to dominate virtually all aspects of the live event market in most cities across the country,” a statement at TicketDisaster says.

In June, 50 members of the U.S. House have sent a letter to the Department of Justice opposing the merger. First Avenue is also urging its customers to contact DoJ to reject the proposal.

“The government needs to hear from music fans now,” read the email from the nightclub. “Tell the Department of Justice that you’re against these monopolies amassing illegal power over consumers, before it’s too late.”

Lisa Goodman

Conrad Sverkerson is a legendary figure at First Avenue. Conspicuous for his dreadlocks (although more recently sporting a Jewfro), the iconic rock club’s stage manager has spent more than two decades making sure shows go off without a hitch.

Now there’s a movement afoot (or at least one blog post) to land Sverkerson a job at another iconic Minneapolis locale: City Hall. The Minus Manhattan blog is encouraging voters to write in his name for the Ward Seven city council post currently held by Lisa Goodman.

The impetus for this campaign is the recent opening of Hennepin and First avenues to two-way traffic. The plan, which has been championed by Goodman, is supposed to spur business development along the downtown corridor. But First Avenue (the rock club) has complained that the new street design eliminates a critical area where bands (and beer trucks) load gear in and out of the venue. Now all the equipment will have to be lugged from a block away. Chris Riemenschneider deftly described the conundrum in the Star Tribune a couple of weeks ago.

A block might not sound like that far of a jaunt. But can you imagine lugging 10 cases of Summit beer, a $10,000 soundboard, a $15,000 case of guitars or the entire Wu-Tang Clan herbal supply that far through the snow and ice in February?

On top of that, the First Ave staff figures it will have to hire security workers to safeguard the equipment. Plus, it worries that touring bands might balk at the situation altogether and go somewhere else to perform.

But Goodman expressed zero sympathy for the downtown rock club. “Why should they get any preferential treatment?” she asked Riemenschneider.

Of course, to some the answer to that question is obvious: First Avenue is a cultural jewel that makes downtown Minneapolis a vibrant place worth visiting. Even if Sverkerson isn’t working the stage. Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe can’t really make the same claim.

For more on the race: Ward Seven: Despite full campaign coffers, lawsuit clouds Goodman’s prospects

Source: Wikipedia

Minneapolis’ First Avenue appears to have canceled an Oct. 4 concert by controversial Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton after the Minnesota Independent inquired about the appearance. Banton, whose lyrics have advocated killing gay men — both with submachine guns and by pouring acid on them — has had a handful of shows canceled by venues after pressure from the public.

“Two man a hug up on an’ kiss up on an’ lay down inna bed, hug up on another anna rub dung leg,” Banton sings in Boom Boom Bye. “Send fi di matic an’ di Uzi instead. Shoot di batty boy come if we shot dem.”

The song extols woman as the “prettiest thing God ever put on di land,” then includes this threat to gay men who might approach Banton: “Guy come near we, then his skin must peel. Burn him up bad like an old tire wheel.”

But controversy surrounding Banton extends beyond his lyrics. In 2004, he was investigated over the beatings of six gay men in Jamaica’s capital city of Kingston; he was acquitted in 2006 for lack of evidence. Human rights activists pointed out at the time that Jamaican authorities tend not to handle such cases aggressively.

“There is a pattern of police indifference to attacks on gay men in Jamaica that goes far beyond what Buju Banton is alleged to have done in this case,” Rebecca Schleiser of Human Rights Watch told The Guardian in 2004, months before Banton’s trial. “Neither his fame nor the stigma attached to the victims should stand in the way of a full, fair and complete police investigation.”

As of Tuesday morning, First Avenue had the show listed on its calendar. The Minnesota Independent wrote to the promotions and marketing departments early Tuesday afternoon asking if the club had faced any pressure for booking the show and what policies they have on hosting controversial acts.

The club didn’t respond to those requests, but by Tuesday evening, the event had been removed from the club’s website and the show’s Ticketmaster page listed the show as canceled.

First Avenue didn’t return a request for information about the cancellation. First Avenue’s cancellation adds to a growing list: Last week, promoters AEG and Live Nation canceled six of his shows due to outrage from LGBT groups in Chicago and Los Angeles.

“I hope this victory sends a deafeningly loud message to other promoters and concert venues that singers who glorify violence against LGBT people, or any group of people, should never be welcomed,” said L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Chief Executive Officer Lorri L. Jean, after the center spearheaded a successful effort to have Banton’s shows shut down in Los Angles. “It shouldn’t be necessary for us to pressure promoters to do the right thing; people like Banton should never have been booked in the first place.”

While seven shows have been cut, Banton’s tour still includes 20 other scheduled stops.

Dessa of Doomtree. Photo courtesy of Bo Hakala

Whenever Dessa, perhaps best known as part of the Minneapolis-based hip-hop crew Doomtree, finishes a big project, she cuts her hair and makes a donation to Locks of Love, an organization that makes hairpieces for kids dealing with long-term medical problems.

Given how big 2008 was for Dessa and Doomtree, this writer, emcee and singer probably ought to be bald: Doomtree released its first “official” record featuring the entire crew, the group’s annual December “Blowout” at First Avenue was just that, and — the reason her hair was recently lopped off — Dessa completed a book of essays and poems, due for an early ’09 release (all while keeping a teaching job at McNally Smith College and hosting the occasional trivia night at the Nomad Pub). I caught up with her via e-mail to see what kind of year she hopes 2009 will be.

Doomtree has never shied away from “politics,” but (aside from playing at an Obama fundraiser at the Turf Club) you haven’t been particularly focused on electoral politics. How will you or the group be “political” in the (mostly) non-electoral year of 2009?

Doomtree is a collective of solo musicians who’ve founded a business to promote their art. Politics sometimes appear in our music because political issues and policy effect in our lives. But we certainly don’t have an explicitly political agenda. In 2009, as in all the years before, we’ll make songs about the stuff that moves us.

You’ve been known to donate your hair to Locks of Love every time you finish a big project, giving some four feet to mark the publication of your new book. Do you believe the political is personal — and, if so, how will you continue enacting it in ’09? Also, any big hair-cut plans/projects expected in the coming year?

With any luck, my hair won’t be long enough to cut by the time my next project is released. I cut it this month to mark the release of my book, Spiral Bound.  Next up: my full length album. I’ve been recording for what feels like years (because it was).

To answer your question about the potential intersect between ‘the personal’ and ‘the political’… Yes, they seem related to me. The political arena often seems to determine what kind of institutional support we give to pretty personal choices. We give tax breaks to support some kinds of behavior and we use regulation as a disincentive for other behaviors. Gay marriage and small farms come to mind.

My favorite art blog, C-Monster, lists Things from ’08 that we don’t want to deal with in ’09 (stories about the death of print, Obama art, art about excrement, etc.). If you were to create such a list, what might a few items on it be? Or, since you’re a poet, what words/phrases would you like to see go away in the next 12 months? (For me: “Go rogue” and “Lulz.”)

Words I’d love to lose:

Brah (from the San Diego school of talk)

Boomers (as slang for mushrooms–what was wrong with ‘shrooms’?)

Thinking outside the box (to use this phrase is to be stapled into a very tired box)

Photo: Bo Hakala

Police blocked vehicle traffic on 1st Avenue in front of the Target Center and many Rage fans simply sat on the curb waiting for something, anything, to happen. It would be half an hour before police ordered people to disperse or be arrested, and police on horseback had assembled a line on 6th Street.

The order to disperse on threat of arrest triggered a round of chanting: “Who’s Streets? Our Streets!” — a familiar chant the last three days. Four people with makeshift American flags marched toward the police line on 6th Street, then doubled back, taking a crowd of about 50 people with them up 1st Avenue.

Police in riot gear lined up on all sides of the 50 or so marchers making a turn onto 7th Street past the First Avenue music venue and shoved another 100 observers up the street, including me. After 20 minutes of holding the 50 marchers (and after several waves of mace), the police line allowed them through and the marchers emerged. I was able to rejoin the protesters.

The march moved down 7th Street, where the tail end was cut off by a 4-wheel tear gas vehicle and several dozen police on bicycles. About 20 people, myself included, were ordered to cower in a doorway under the threat of being maced. And they meant it.

One woman, who was swept up in the mass on her way home, asked if she could walk around the corner. She was denied: “Step back ma’am or you are going to be maced,” said an officer wielding a large spray can. Another young man demanded to return to his bike and head home. When he was refused, he went anyway and got a face full of mace.

I lost track of the marchers as they headed up 7th while I was detained, and as riot police shut off each intersection between them and me. Once we were released, riot police formed a line behind us.

Police maintained blockades on 7th Street and Marquette Avenue for another half an hour. By the time I was able to get near the scene, most of the activity was gone.