Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Richmond’s Creative Class and the Indie Music Scene

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James A. Bacon
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Source: Wonkblog, Washington Post

Richmond is no one’s idea of a cultural trend setter. I often joke that the last cultural innovation that originated in my fair city and spread beyond its borders was the festival flag (an adornment whose allure has long since peaked and faded). Perhaps I could add the Geico Gecko and Cave Man commercials that emanate from the creative geniuses at the Martin Agency.

But it turns out that Richmond registers on the map of independent music, a sign of its emergence as a regional center of artistic creativity. (See “Art as Richmond’s Future.“) A new paper, “The Geographic Flow of Music,” tracks which cities around the world have the most influence over musical trends by analyzing listening habits on Last.fm, a musical website that pinpoints users by geography. By this measure, as shown in the graphic above, Richmond ranks fifth — right below L.A. and Boston — in influencing the indie music world.

Carbon Leaf, one of Richmond’s best known indie bands.

Sums up Brad Plumer at the Washington Post: ” The largest cities aren’t always the most influential adopters of new music (or snubbers of stale music). New York and Los Angeles don’t appear to have nearly as much influence over listening trends as, say, Montreal, even though those areas are presumably home to many more local bands and musical groups.”

Too bad the Post didn’t take note of the awesomeness of Washington’s smaller, neighbor to the south. That’s OK, the people who live in Richmond know what we’ve got. And many welcome the transformation of this old southern town focused on the past into a vibrant creative center with an eye to the future.

Meanwhile, notes the Times-Dispatch, the Chamber of Commerce is leading a delegation of 150 business, government and civic leaders to Boston to learn what they can from that city’s success. The message from Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino:  It’s all about public-private partnerships.

Dudes, it’s the 21st century. Top-down doesn’t work any more. Bottom-up does work. Forget copying other cities and see how you can stimulate the creativity that’s already here. There’s lots of it, if you know where to look.

Hat tip to “FreeDem.”

— JAB

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  1. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    A few thoughts:

    (1) As far as the “awesomeness” of Richmond, aren’t we getting a little too boostery?
    (2) Richmond has had an innovative music and arts scene for years. It WAS not the result of some Greater Chamber of Commerce trip to Boston. It was organic, springing up on its own over a period of decades DESPITE the local elite establishment NOT because of it.
    (3) The fact that they are shipping 150 “leaders” to Boston, including VCU President Michael Rao, shows me that Richmond’s “elite” must not have much to do otherwise. These trips must cost someone and they make Richmonders seem like local-yokels. Haven’t these people been to Boston before? Besides there are not many similarities. Richmond may have a lot going for it, but it simply cannot compete with Beantown’s collection of fine universities and innovative companies. Comparing the Flying Squirrels with the Red Sox, as some have done, is simply absurd.
    You are right to praise Richmond for some of its bottom-up art. But you are dead wrong in pretending that the ruling elite here made it happen and for being so boosterish.

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Peter, you and I agree 99% on this, although, because you are being your usual contrary self, you can’t see it.

    (1) I’m not being “boostery.” I’m trying to identify Richmond’s unrecognized strengths so we can build on them.

    (2) Of course the growth of the local musical art scene was organic and had nothing to do with Richmond’s elite! I never insinuated otherwise. That’s why…

    (3) I praise “bottom up” efforts as opposed to “top down” initiatives.

  3. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Ok, I do see where you pushed the botom up approach. But why mention the pooh-bahs going to Beantown? If you look at a list of names the Richmond paper published (in lieu of real news — they were taken off the chamber of commerce website) it’s the usual muckety mucks who had absolutely nothing to do with the decades’long work of some of the musicians I know here. They are trying to grab credit they don’t deserve for Richmond being the “Capital of Creativity” — a buzz word of the newspaper publisher and booster-in-chief whose only real contribution to the area is to kiss corporate butt and ride the newspaper into the ground before it’s sold off.

  4. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    I take note of the Boston trip as an example of top-down thinking — in contrast to the bottom-up activity of the Indie musicians.

    If we want to replicate the economic success of Boston, all we need to do is build up VCU’s endowment to $32 billion like Harvard’s, UR’s endowment to $9 billion like MIT’s and VUU’s to $1.9 like Boston College’s. Until we can figure out how to do that, all the rest is B.S. and we need to find another path.

  5. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    It’s a little more complicated than just building up endowments. The Boston schools have decades if not centuries of experience and all the aggregated knowledge and connections that implies. And, there are many more of them there than just Harvard, MIT and Boston College (strange mention) which came from a Chamber of Commerce release regurgitated by the Times-Dispatch. Among the other colleges are Wellesley, The Boston Museum School of Fine Art, The New England Conservatory, the Berklee School of Music, Brandeis, Boston U., U Mass locally, Northeastern and Tufts (my alma mater). Best not to rely on the RTD for basic source material and their very strange worldview.

  6. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Of course, Boston has a lot more colleges/universities than the ones I mentioned. Higher ed is one of the city’s leading industries, and it’s something that cannot be replicated. Prestigious, well endowed colleges with strong ties to private industry take decades if not generations to build (Harvard’s almost four centuries old).

    Richmond has done a decent job with what it has — UR and VCU have gained prestige in just the 25 years that I have lived here. But it’s a very slow process.

    VCU is not exactly a prestigious institution today. For the most part, it’s an ordinary, run-of-the-mill state university. But that actually represents progress. I remember moving to Richmond in 1986 and VCU had no respect at all. It was a joke. If you couldn’t get into any other state university, you went to VCU. Mediocrity is actually a step up.

    An interesting comparison is George Mason University. The school has a pretty good reputation… but it’s no Georgetown. NoVa has a lot more money than Richmond does but the size of the GMU endowment is half the size of VCU’s.

    If the Richmond delegation could learn anything useful from Boston, perhaps it’s how to build a world-class higher ed cluster.

  7. FreeDem Avatar
    FreeDem

    Richmond’s creative class scene and it’s “hipster cred” is reflective of Virginia’s own appeal and what we need to leverage in the years to come.

    Richmond, compared to the rest of the Northeast’s urban corridor from Boston to Washington, has affordable housing. Our Southern heritage and agricultural bounty gives Richmond the potential for the best food scene in the Northeast. I’m lumping Virginia in compared to the rest of the Northeast because I’m certain we still are far behind North Carolina on quality of local artisan food products . . .

    Virginia is still more affordable, more business friendly, more tax friendly than any other state we’re competing with in the Northeast. We also have a much more appealing climate and a public university system second to none.

    A few years ago I was working in Danville and was told that the management for the local Ikea plant, for the most part, didn’t live in Danville but lived in Greensboro about half an hour or so south of Danville. They didn’t want to live in Danville. You can throw all the tax credits and Governor’s Opportunity Fund money at a project you want, if you don’t make the location appealing to the business class it’s still going to lag behind.

    Virginia needs innovative solutions to ensure we stay a low tax state with a low cost of living, particularly for housing and transportation. But we have to understand we’re not competing with Alabama and Mississippi or Mexico for the bottom rung of manufacturing jobs, we’re competing with Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts for the top rung of creative class jobs. Being branded as the state of transvaginal probing and neo-Confederate sympathies is the last thing we need.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Nicely put. I like the way you think.

  8. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Carry me back to old Virginny,
    There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
    There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
    There’s where the old darkey’s heart am long’d to go,
    There’s where I labor’d so hard for old massa,
    Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
    No place on earth do I love more sincerely
    Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.

    CHORUS:
    Carry me back to old Virginny,
    There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
    There’s where the birds warble sweet in the springtime,
    There’s where this old darkey’s heart am long’d to go.

    Carry me back to old Virginny,
    There let me live ’till I wither and decay,
    Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wander’d,
    There’s where this old darkey’s life will pass away.
    Massa and missis have long gone before me,
    Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
    There we’ll be happy and free from all sorrow,
    There’s where we’ll meet and we’ll never part no more.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Grrrr…

  9. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Don’t blame me. It used to be the state song. Wasn’t it also the anthem of your alma mater, UVA? I’ll have to ask my cousin who graduated in 1966 back when it was all guys who wore coats and ties.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Grrrrrrrrrr…..

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