Concert Scene Comment

Concert Scene Comment

Dear Sun,

Being the former U of M Events Director, booking agent, and basically the person who initiated and for three years ran the UAC-Daystar Concert series, I read with some interest your concert article in the last issue. I felt the article pointed out the situation fairly and your facts were nearly always accurate. I simply wanted to emphasize the conclusion the SUN drew in the last paragraph when you said "A solution would be University funding of local cultural events, as chosen by a coalition of student and community groups independent of outside direction. Bu the University has never regarded its concert series as an important service to its students..."

The U of M, its administration, and UAC fail to understand they cannot compete with the outside forces in the music business. Good facilities and past performance aren't enough to insure future results. One university college cannot hope to offer agents, and groups the kind of continuing incentives needed to attract top talent. Promoters have the agent's "ears" because of the volume they buy. The U of M, in its isolated position, can't afford and can't attract the personnel needed to compete. A successful promoter. with connections and financing, is never going to step down and work on one University concert program. If such a person could be found, after two years on the job, his or her former connections are going to be limited because of the reduced influence, activity, and ultimately buying power that person now has. Agents deal with individuals and not Universities, and put their trust or non-trust in people they have experience working with. Universities and Colleges are usually just filler dates and get secondary attention after big city markets. The whole music business is inflated, and the manager, agents, and promoters have pushed for bigger and bigger shows in larger arenas where greater profits can be made in a short time for less work.

What I'm getting at is that the U of M is stupid to think they can compete without funds and skilled personnel. They will lose money as they have this semester, and out of desperation turn to the promoters who are offering guaranteed profits. At this point the local music scene loses its importance, and control of itself. It only exists to present mediocre talent, and mainly to make money for the promoters.

What the former UAC-Daystar concert series tried to do was to ultimately put the series in a position where the music presented was not dependent upon profits. I and the students members of UAC-Daystar pushed in every way we could for University funding so that music could be presented in a cultural, social, educational, and of course entertaining way. We tried renting the U of M Stadium for laree summer shows, but administrators with positions to keep found that too dangerous and too controversial. What was hoped for was a realization by the U of M that being an educational institution they had an obligation to directly fund contemporary musical programs. There is plenty of funding for musical programs featuring classical artists. Perhaps the Regents and administration consider Blues, Jazz, Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues, and Country and Western primitive and undesirable forms of music. If they had any sense they would understand the contemporary importance of these forms of music to the student body and the community. To the average student, contemporary music will constantly be an influential and important part of their whole lives and not just something to get over as they mature and grow older.

I honestly don't feel it would be difficult for the U of M, with any kind of commitment and priority, to fund a series with $40-60,000 a year. Schools all across the U.S. fund musical programs like this. This kind of funding would enable a fairly competent staff to present a full range of contemporary music featuring some 40 or more shows a year. Admission prices could be tremendously reduced and artistically the results might be amazing.

After all the work myself and many others put into the ANN ARBOR concert scene it's a shame to see what's happening, but until the administration understands what they are dealing with, I'm afraid we're all in for more problems and less music. The only solution, if any kind of meaningful series is to be achieved, is yearly, direct, non-returnable U of M funding. As far as I'm concerned it's way past time the U of M realized its educational, cultural, and community responsibility. Any other approach is just too hard to achieve, too speculative, non-musical, and will ultimately leave the whole thing up for grabs.

-- Peter Andrews