The Cartel is a go. No, that’s not Homeland Security code for “so long, Civil Rights,” nor has your mule arrived from Medellin with your “trinkets.” Rather, it’s the latest attempt to put Charlotte on the nation’s music map.
The brainchild of the Cartel is Bill Walker, president and founder of MediaEvolved, a CD/DVD replicating business in Charlotte. Walker envisions the group (which has yet to adopt an official name) as a kind of clearinghouse for information and networking possibilities — a chamber of commerce for (mostly) music-oriented entities in town, in other words.
Meeting for the first time on Aug. 25, a diverse collection of 35 people — including representatives from local venues, music labels, recording studios, independent radio stations, entertainment attorneys, Muzak, NASCAR, the Bobcats and county government — spent two hours discussing the viability of the idea and what exactly such an entity might entail.
Walker said he envisions something along the lines of the Austin Music Foundation, the Texas music capital’s pilot program designed to provide education and professional development opportunities and resources to Austin’s musicians.
This initial meeting of the Charlotte Cartel was designed to test the local waters for interest, Walker said, and to see if there was enough groundswell to put something together. The reaction among those in attendance seemed positive.
“Charlotte is primed to do something,” one attendee said.
By the end of the meeting enough momentum had resulted in several volunteers offering to help get the entity up and running before the next meeting. Walker is currently suggesting that musicians and bands wait until the Cartel is more established before contacting it, but urges other interested parties to contact him at bill.walker@mediaEvolved.com.
QCU venue waiting on permit
If you’ve attended any Queen City Underground shows downtown recently — well, you haven’t.
By now you no doubt know that the venue owners were forced to shut down by police a few weeks ago for failing to have one of Charlotte’s infamous “Dancehall Permits” ($700 — should they deign to give you one), the city’s knee-jerk reaction to the after-hours rave craze of a few years ago. For now, SK Net Cafe on Elizabeth is temporarily hosting QCU’s scheduled shows.
But the cops’ appearance — their third weekend visit in a row — was initially in response to an anonymous call claiming the club was selling alcohol to under-age kids. Unlikely, since the club doesn’t sell alcohol to the over-age kids, either.
The pattern of harassment has many wildly pointing fingers. Last December, however, Harper’s magazine ran an investigative story on a well-known Philadelphia promoter who suddenly found himself getting shut out of venue after venue before eventually giving up altogether. From the Harper’s story:
“On July 17, 2002, as a band called The Boils was preparing to play, seven men with badges, police officers and agents of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections, walked into the basement of the First Unitarian Church at Chestnut and Van Pelt. Nobody knows who tipped them off, but it was clear that someone wanted the Church, as the club in the basement was called, shut down. The show’s promoter had been booking acts there for six years, but before the night when the inspectors appeared his shows had not warranted a single official complaint.”
In other words, after years of successfully booking shows without any problems, a promoter is shut down by anonymous callers who seem to share the same knowledge of obscure city building codes that, say, an expensive corporate entertainment lawyer might. Who might have been behind the Philadelphia anonymous calls? Who has been calling the police and wasting taxpayer money with bogus accusations? It may remain a mystery. Or maybe the answer is right in front of everyone’s noses. In other news….
Clear Channel switches format
If you tuned in the other day to Magic 96.1, Charlotte’s most popular Oldies station, expecting to hear those “great hits from the 60s and 70s,” but got a dose of Usher, Beyonce, and Eminem instead, well, get used to it. Clear Channel — yet to meet a format it couldn’t co-opt — has switched formats at that site on the dial and gone to CHR (Contemporary Hits R&B).
“There are 30 ratings shares split between two radio stations appealing to the 18-34 year-old CHR listener, and we feel the market deserves a choice,” CC’s press release said, apparently oblivious to the notion of irony. “We are energized for the battle.”
We bet they are.
This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2004.
