Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2008 > March > 22
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Shhhhh! Music being played
We hear a lot about the music business “going green” these days, but noise pollution is a much worse problem in local clubs. Austin audiences are known for their understanding of and passion for live music, but this town is turning into Dallas, where half the audience has its back to the bands, while they’re chatting away.
I went to Momo’s last night to see the amazing South Austin Jug Band, who could be the best band in Austin, now that Spoon’s Britt Daniel lives in Portland, Okkervil River’s Will Sheff moved to Brooklyn and the Gourds’ heyday has passed. Dennis Ludiker and Brian Beken are master stringmen and with the addition of drummer Rob Kidd, SAJB is more musical, more driven than ever before. I’ll have a story in the paper on them next week.
The set was marred, however, by two groups of unbridled jabberers. There was the table of four women, practically shouting to hear each other over the music, and a trio of burly, guffawing, beer drinkers who were carrying on like they were at a backyard barbecue. An incredibly fluid musical conversation was happening onstage, but these louts were lost in their trivial nonsense. I mean, I don’t think they were discussing Heidegger.
Rather than spending time on campaigns like Troy Dillinger’s “Year of Austin Music,” Austin should get behind a citywide awareness program to get people to stop yapping when guitars are a’strummin.’ Maybe print bumper stickers that say “Paying cover doesn’t give you a license to jive.” Or something like “Nobody’s here to hear you” at the entrance of clubs. When I asked the guys at Momo’s to pipe down, they got defensive and a bit belligerent, but they eventually took their chitchat out to the patio. I think a lot of folks have no idea that their prattle is rattling the rest of us.
I love what Lane Gosnay does at the Bugle Boy in La Grange, giving a little speech before the show about how talking will not be tolerated. Our clubs have got non-smoking sections; why not implement blather-free zones? Churches have crying rooms; why can’t clubs have chatter boxes in the back?
I’d like to see Momo’s, which has a great inside/ outside layout, take the lead on this, by putting up a sign by the sound booth that says “Listeners only beyond this point.” And I’d like to see Mayor Wynn spearhead a campaign where a concerned citizen group, like Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels, goes from club to club, looking for blabbermouths. When they find some, they hand them balled up pairs of dirty gym socks as a message to put a sock in it.
Let’s let the world know that we truly are serious about live music here and we’re not going to let the experience be negatively affected by a couple of loudmouths debating whether or not D.J. Augustin should go pro next year. (He shouldn’t, by the way, unless Texas makes it to the Final Four in San Antonio.)