I couldn't have said it better myself

I apologize (again) for the lack of recent updates. I am afraid that my absence of regular interesting posting has resulted in practically zero subscribers, but for those noble few of you who still remain, I would like to call your attention to a recent post by a local blogger who has shown much more ambition than I have over the past few years.

As you may know, I have complained for years about the state of local radio in Salt Lake City. In fact, I feel that I have complained about it too much. I was beginning to feel like an old man in some retirement home complaining about everything invented after he reached the peak of his existence. By complaining about how much radio currently sucks, I'm basically admitting that I feel things were better in the past, and that really makes me feel old and somehow irrelevent.

So, I was happy to see Gavin, from Gavin's Underground, comment on the recent developments concerning X96. This past week, long-time X96 DJ Portia Early quit the station, and took with her the only program on local radio focusing on locally produced music. Gavin's entire article can be found here. I would highly recommend reading it, and everything else he writes.

My own experience with X96 seems to match up closely with his. When I moved to SLC in the fall of 1993, I was 19 years old and starving for good music. I grew up in a small town with maybe 4 or 5 radio stations - none of which catered to my particular taste in music. When I arrived in SLC, X96 was like an oasis. I listened most of every day for the first few years I lived here.

Back in those days, I didn't have a computer, so I spent a lot of time in the Marriot Library on the U of U campus. Radio reception in the library was terrible to non-existent, so I came up with a plan. I was living in a dorm room that measured maybe 8 feed wide by 12 feet long. I was never really out of arm's reach of my stereo system. I put a blank cassette tape in the tape deck and hit "record" whenever anything good came on the radio. When I filled up a tape, I put it in my Walkman and listened back to it whenever I was cloistered away in the bowels of the library. I filled up about 15 tapes that year, and I still have them in a box with me now.

I stopped listening to X96 some time around 1996. That was about the time when they got into the post-grunge "Alternative" format, which basically consisted of some whiner vocalist screaming about something over stop-start Nirvana-esque grungy dynamics. I got sick of it soon, particularly after the death of Kurt Cobain. I went years without tuning in to the station, but I found myself tuning in again, listening to Radio From Hell (the morning program), a few years later, after I became fed up with everything else on the dial in the morning hours.

I still listen to Radio From Hell every day. Kerry and Bill (and, yes, Gina) are the most reasonable voices that can be heard on Utah radio. I am quite proud that, despite a gap of a few years when I didn't tune in, I have been a Friend Of The [Radio From Hell] Program since the fall of 1993. I have enormous respect for what they do.

As for everything else about the station.... I have no respect for that whatsoever. The music programming on X96 is a ridiculous joke. It has now devolved into some kind of bizarre mix of mid-90s grunge-nostalgia and contemporary screamo. It's complete bullshit, and I have mentioned it here several times in the past.

From what I have been able to gather, the most-recent ratings book showed that X96 took a serious tumble the latest period. People seem to be tuning out. I, personally, couldn't hope for anything better to happen and I wonder what took them so long. Has everybody finally grown sick of hearing the same 50 songs that they have heard since 1994? Local radio is by-and-large worthless, and it's really quite sad that it has come to this current state. I have loved radio since I was 5 years old, and I honestly believe that there is a vast population of this city who is not getting served by anything on local airwaves. I held out a brief hope that KRCL would put something together, but their "new" format is now a year old, and it's still generally as unlistenable as ever.

I really would recommend reading Gavin's article. It's the sort of piece I wish I had been able to write. My own experience goes back about as long as his, and I feel like I share in his frustration.

[As a side note, I know Gavin has commented here in the past. I have looked for a way to contact him (you) directly, but haven't been able to find an address. I would love to commiserate in the future. Email me at formaline @ gmail. com if you can.]

(Of course, anybody else is welcome to send me a message there too. I would love to hear from anybody... I swear. I will come up with something interesting to announce soon.)

Continued optimism

I'm not sure if it's the warmer weather that has boosted my spirits somewhat, or maybe the unexpected day off that I received this Good Friday, but I'm still actually feeling a certain level of general optimism.

A few more quick items...

I walked around a little around downtown last weekend, and noticed a few new businesses that I had not seen before. I got coffee at a place on 100 South, which reminded me a little of some of the Seattle places I visited last October. They're open late, and on Sundays, so I'll probably walk over again soon. I saw signs in the windows of four downtown buildings announcing the opening of a new restaurant in the next couple of months. I'm particularly looking into the new place on West Temple, near the W Lounge, which used to be a club called Naked. It's being remodeled and opened by a few of the former Port o' Call people. It should open in June.

I had sushi this past week at Shogun, for the first time ever. That place has been on Main Street since the Pioneers arrived (not quite, but still...) yet I had never made the effort to get in there. It was well worth it. There are at least three new sushi places opening downtown soon, but I'm thinking Shogun will become one of my regular spots. I'm definitely excited about trying the new Peggi Whiting sushi place on 600 S and 300 W. She's the former owner/chef at Ichiban. It opened this week. I'll get over there this weekend.

I really cannot express how relieved I am to see the end of the Private Club law coming. I know I mentioned this last time, but I am actually putting together a list of places I intend to visit as soon as I no longer need to buy a membership. The downtown economy is definitely going to see a boost from the new restaurants, bars, and the removal of the private club restrictions.

As for me, personally, my economic situation is getting a big boost from refinancing my mortgage. I'm cutting my monthly mortgage payment by at least 1/3, and that's money I intend to use to pay off debt, put into savings, and to have a bit more fun this summer than I have been getting over the past 6 months. I'm thinking the economy is going to turn around this summer, and I know that my own personal job situation is much more secure now that it was at the end of 2008.

To add to it, the summer concert schedule is getting better every week. I'm going to see Glasvegas later tonight. I don't know what to expect from that, but there is a good live show coming up every 10 days or so from now through the end of July. The Twilight Concert Series shows at the Gallivan Center have been announced for July. They're going to be packed. I'm hoping the bands booked for August are equally impressive.

I'm thinking this is going to be the best summer that SLC has had for some time. That is, if it ever arrives. I'm sick of the weather.

And the radio still sucks. I could go on about that, but I don't want to sound any more like a crotchety old man than I need to. Some other time, definitely.

On an optimistic note

I know, earlier this year, I declared that I intended to write here more often. I set a goal of posting a weekly update of some sort, but various distractions crept in and I put things here on hold again. I'm still trying to figure out some kind of new direction to go into here. We'll see.

I realize that most of my recent posts have been fairly pessimistic, so I thought I would write a brief note now on a few things that have sparked a little note of optimism in my outlook lately.

First, I went out with a group of local photographers last weekend. We walked around downtown and shot pictures for a few hours. Unlike this past week, it was pleasant and warm last Friday. We ended the evening with dinner outdoors on the patio at The Atlantic. It was good stuff. The service was a little slow, but nobody was complaining. While we waited, and chatted about photography, I was amazed at the number of people walking around on Main Street that night. There was a new restaurant, Eva, opening a few doors north of The Atlantic. People were streaming in and out. The bar next door, Cheers To You, was also busy. I had not seen so many people out on the streets in SLC in years.

As any long-time reader might remember, I absolutely hate Utah's Private Club laws. I feel that they did more to kill off any kind of night life and music scene in SLC than any other single aspect of Utah culture in the last 30 years. Personally, I opted to quit playing the "membership" game. I made a few trips to various western cities over the last few years, and saw the way that the rest of the country lives. After that realization, I simply stopped going to private clubs for any social purpose, and I wasn't the only one.

Now that the private club system is scheduled to end July 1, I'm solidly optimistic that this city will begin to see a turnaround this summer. I have a long list of places, most within a 15 minute walk from my place, that I plan to patronize when I no-longer need to fill out paperwork and pay a fee to get inside.

Look for a big boost in night life this summer. It should be good.

Living in Utah

I have probably set up more than 50 different Google Alerts on various topics. If you're not familiar with this particular service, it works as a sort of ongoing Google search. You set them up at www.google.com/alerts by entering a particular search term. Whenever Google discovers a site that mentions that term, it sends you an e-mail message.

A few of my Google Alerts are broad and general, mostly to catch items of local interest, such as "Salt Lake City" and "Utah". Yesterday, an Associated Press story was picked up and it appeared at least 20 different times in my inbox (after some point, Google stops returning duplicate articles). The article is titled "States Look to Booze for Shots to Economy." This is the first paragraph:

Feb 15th, 2009 | SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah is the only state that requires people to fill out an application and pay a fee before entering a bar.

This article will likely be read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. It's not an article about Utah exclusively, so residents of the other states mentioned further down; Georgia, Connecticut, Indiana, Texas, Alabama, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kentucky, California, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia, will likely see the article in their state's and major newspapers and websites

Nobody skips over the first line of a newspaper article, and people who occasionally enter a bar in their hometown, or while on vacation, who see nothing shameful or immoral about it, will probably make a tiny mental note that you need to fill out an application and pay a fee before you can legally enter a bar in Utah.

These kinds of thinks strike most rational people as odd. The liquor laws in this state perpetuate the negative stereotypes that the rest of the world, rightly or wrongly, believes about Utah - particularly that it's a pseudo-theocracy where alcohol is banned by the majority Mormon population for religious reasons. Close to half of this AP article focuses on liquor laws in Utah:

Those opposed to reforming Utah's liquor laws cite concerns about overconsumption and drunk driving. But religion also plays a key role.

About 60 percent of the state's residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which tells its members not to drink alcohol. An even greater percentage of lawmakers - 80 percent to 90 percent - are Mormon, though some of them are open to changing the law for the sake of the state's economy.

The state's private club system as it's currently known, was created in 1969 after voters - encouraged by the church - killed a proposal to allow the sale of liquor by the drink in restaurants.

But for Utah's $6 billion-a-year tourism industry, liquor laws are a major issue, too. They say it hurts their efforts to compete with neighboring states like Colorado for the lucrative convention and ski market.

If there was ever a question if Utah has an image problem because of its quirky liquor laws, business travelers like Marty Cano can answer it.

"Originally, I thought alcohol was illegal here," the Austin, Texas IT consultant said one recent night after downing a few pints of beer at the Poplar Street Pub, a few blocks away from the downtown Mormon temple.

Utah's bar industry has come up with a compromise to the hassle of making patrons fill out forms. Its leaders have proposed scanning driver's licenses before customers enter a club to verify nobody under 21 enters. Some lawmakers would like information about who goes into a bar stored on the scanners so police could use it.

There are other ways in which Utah's liquor laws are getting stronger. Last year, it became the only state to ban the sale of flavored malt beverages from grocery and convenience stores.

Other states, meanwhile, are trying to eliminate much less onerous hassles associated with buying alcohol.

Over the last 10 years, we have seen Salt Lake City's downtown district wither and die. Just last week, the largest bar in Utah, Port o' Call, was permanently closed to make way for a federal courthouse complex which will occupy one half of a downtown city block. A corner of the city which once was bursting with night life will now be completely deserted after 5:00 on weekdays, and closed completely on the weekends.

I had not entered Port o' Call in at least 5 years, partly because I didn't want to deal with purchasing a membership to a bar that I typically didn't visit more than once or twice in a year. Those fees add up when you're required to purchase one for every private club in the downtown area. After some stretch of time, it simply doesn't seem worth it to bother with the hassles, and we're seeing the result of that right now.

Downtown is nowhere near as active as it was 10 years ago. People in the business community talk about "Downtown Rising" as if the city is going to be some vibrant, bustling, urban center where people get live, work, and relax in modern, upscale, mixed-use developments like the City Creek Center and The Gateway. If that's the future of the city, I am thinking more and more that I don't want any part of it.

It's the public places that define a city. Port o' Call was a place where you could meet people from everywhere. I worked for a company based in Baton Rouge for a year, and whenever we had visitors from the main office, the first evening was always spent at Port o' Call. It helped to dispel many of the misconceptions about this city. As much as I occasionally like to wander over to The Gateway, I know it's a privately owned and operated outdoor mall where undesirable elements of the population are kept safely out of sight. There won't be a corner bar at The Gateway or the City Creek Center any time soon.

There aren't many corner bars left in Salt Lake City. The number of small music venues has mostly dwindled to a handful dispersed around the outskirts of the urban center, too far from each other to allow for any kind of nightlife district. Who wants to walk 6 blocks and pay another fee to see if a better band is playing at a different venue on a Friday night? The private club laws and the zoning laws that only allow a small number of nighttime establishments to exist on any single block have killed any chance for that kind of social scene to take root in this city.

I started this off by writing about the perception of Utah's liquor laws in other parts of the world. I'm not one who believes in many conspiracy theories, but lately, I'm beginning to suspect that these laws were written with a certain intent. Namely, these laws were written to destroy the nightlife in Utah. To make it known to certain elements of the populace that their presence is not entirely welcome by those who pull the levers of power in this community.

I hope to be proven wrong before the end of this legislative session.

I know I have said before that I'm thinking of leaving Utah. With the economy the way it is now, I should not quit my current job and put my condo out on the market. But, when things turn around, that's an option I'm seriously going to consider. If I see signs of progress in the meantime, it will affect my ultimate decision.

I'm not holding my breath.

I highly recommend reading that Associated Press article about Utah's ridiculous liquor laws, and the reader comments (if any), in these various online news sites:

The Salt Lake Tribune
The Provo Daily Herald
The Washington Times
The Seattle Times
Yahoo! Finance
Business Week
KARE - Minneapolis, St. Paul
AOL Australia
The Clarion Ledger
The Malaysian Insider
KTLA Los Angeles
WCCO Minneapolis
San Diego Union Tribune
Lawofficer.com
Centre Daily Times - Pennsylvania
WMC-TV Memphis
Marietta Daily Journal
Sacramento Bee
Washington Post

Want more? Google it...

And remember, "Utah is the only state that requires people to fill out an application and pay a fee before entering a bar."

Spring shows: Bird, Kiwis and Scotsmen

There are a few good upcoming live music shows, which should make us all feel warm and happy about 2009.

I bought two tickets to the Flight of the Conchords show this morning. It's happening in May, at Abravanel Hall, and should be quite an event. Tickets were difficult to get, through the Smithtix website, and it apparently sold out within the first 20 minutes. Pre-sale tickets were available last week in other cities, if you logged into the ticket sites with the code word "sugalumps", but I didn't hear that us locals could call Smithtix and drop that word to get early tickets in SLC. Members of Abravanel Hall may have been given special reserved seating, so it's likely that a good number of tickets sold before they went on sale to the public this morning. Still, I'm not complaining about getting two tickets on Row 26. I'm not sure whom I will invite along, but May 17 is long time off, socially speaking.

What's not too far off is the Andrew Bird show. It's coming up on Feb 25 and should be quite good. He sold out Carnegie Hall about a week ago, and is stopping through Utah on his way to Denver after some west-coast shows. He's playing at the Murray Theater, which is a venue I have never visited. I obtained his most-recent CD recently. I think I'm liking it more than any of his previous stuff. His free show at the Gallivan Center last summer was possibly my favorite of the series. I'm hoping this venue is a little more conducive to listening. To a majority of its attendees, The Twilight Concert Series seems to be more about socializing, which is fine. I would just prefer to hear more of the performer on stage and less of the local half of the cell-phone conversation 15 feet behind me.

Two interesting Scottish bands are also coming in the next 2 months. Glasvegas will be at the Avalon on April 10. They're fairly new, and one of their songs, "Geraldine", has probably been played or discussed on every music podcast I have downloaded over the last month... which is a good thing. I need to look into more of their stuff, but they're quite the buzz-band at the moment, and it's likely that I'll make the effort to get to the Avalon -- another venue I have never patronized.

Eleven days after Glasvegas, my current favorite Scottish band, Franz Ferdinand, will be at Salt Air. I saw them there back in 2005 and was converted. Prior to that show, I had largely dismissed them as a gimmicky indie-pop art-band, one that was still better than The Killers, but still nothing really demanding of much attention. But, they completely blew the roof off that place. It was one of the most energetic live shows I have seen to this day. Totally professional. Their new CD is darker and sleazier than much of their previous stuff, but still poppy in the best way. I love that, and I'm quite stoked to hear the new stuff performed live.

Franz Ferdinand will be on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (another Scotsman) tonight, (Friday, Feb 6) and it looks like the singer, Alex Kapranos, will be interviewed. I heard an interview with him on NPR's Fresh Air a while back, and he's an interesting guy. He wrote a food and travel column for The Guardian a few years ago, while he was on tour after Franz Ferdinand caught on big, and turned it into a book which I have been meaning to read for some time now.

I'm sure I will be at all four of these shows, and possibly a few more in-between these dates. I'm becoming more and more concerned that the live-music events are moving out of downtown Salt Lake City. It's not a good indication that downtown is actually rising. But, that's another topic for another time. I'm happy, for now, to see good shows on the calendar again.

The CW

I don't know much about local music. To remedy that, I'm going to try to get out to a few of the upcoming City Weekly Music Awards live shows this weekend, and next. Read about the awards here: on my favorite local entertainment/interview blog.

Apparently, some of the lineups have changed this Friday, but I'm mostly interested in getting out to a few places I haven't visited in some time. I'm thinking I'll stop by Monk's on Friday. Way back in the old days (ca. 1995) I worked in the Kinko's upstairs from what is now Monk's. Back then, it was a jazz club, known as D.B. Cooper's. I would hang out there, or the Manhattan, with a couple of coworkers after our shifts ended. I haven't spent much of any significant time there in the last 5 years. The music changed, but mostly it was the ventilation system and the thick cloud of cigarette smoke that kept me away. After the Twilite Lounge, Monks' was probably SLC's smokiest bar. Now that the smoking ban is in place, I will likely spend more time in both places.

On Saturday, I'm thinking I'll get over to Burt's. There was an article in the City Weekly last month about the local band Subrosa. I should check them out. Burt's is a little outside of my downtown walking radius. I don't like to drive if I'm going out. My Saturday-night schedule is not yet completely nailed down. I may try to catch them at another time and a closer venue.

Either way, I'm determined to get out of my place both nights this weekend, for the first time in at least 6 weeks.

No news is good news.

I should make it a goal to write something, at least one thing, every week. The problem is that not much is really going on right now. There is so much else available to read. I'm not sure that I'm contributing much of any value at the present time. I'm mostly waiting out the last few weeks of winter before I start making more of an effort to get stuff going.

Since November, my schedule has mostly consisted of work, the gym, and evenings at home. I'm trying to get in shape for the half-marathon in April. I have been running about 20 to 25 miles each week since the start of January. I'm feeling much better, and have lost a few pounds, but I have hit a barrier this week. I'm noticing some shooting pains in my lower legs again, and I'm terribly afraid of developing another overuse injury. I cut back a little on the mileage this week, but I'll try to get back on track tonight.

I'm also slightly freaked out about the economy. My company did a round of layoffs about a week before Xmas. I wasn't included in the cuts, and I don't think I'll be cut in the near future, but it's a bad sign for the business as a whole. I would not be surprised to show up one morning for work and find a "closed" sign on the office door.

I'm trying to pay off some bills and build up some kind of emergency fund. That, (and the fact that I haven't really paid any attention to what has been happening around town over the last few months) has meant that I usually choose to spend most weekend evenings at home, or with a group of friends who occasionally meet at a coffee place on Fridays. I'm feeling incredibly anti-social as of late.

My mood level is improving, however. The inversion appears to have blown out of the Salt Lake Valley, and even though it is snowing outside as I write this now, at this time of year, winter has lost its grip on this place. It can still snow several feet as late as April, and get cold for a few days, but those are short-lived events. We're more than a month past the Winter Solstice now. Spring is about to tip.

With spring comes the start of the band touring season. I'm trying to catch up. I'm making a deliberate effort to read through my list of music blogs daily, and to try to stream a few of the better radio stations a few times each week. I'm thinking of seeing DeVotchKa this Wednesday, at In The Venue. I haven't heard much of their stuff, but their previous live shows got good reviews.

Spring will also mean that there is more time for me to get out and snap photographs after work. I'm hoping to get more of a portfolio built up and possibly start taking a few paying jobs later in the summer. I spent an outrageous amount of money on photography equipment last year. It would be nice to see a financial return from some of that investment, but that was never my motivation for getting back into photography.

We'll see. I still need to find some way to present my stuff.

I'm quite happy about politics. I took last Tuesday off, and watched the Inauguration Day events from home. It was one of my better days off.

It looks like the Private Club law in Utah will finally be killed this year. It's too early to call it "dead" yet. I'm afraid that there will be some kind of "compromise" in which the Governor agrees to go along with some new stupid restrictions in order to get rid of the private club requirement. We won't be safe until the legislature shuts down in March, but there is some cause for hope.

No big news yet.