This is the brand, spankin’ new Google Voice, in action,
The new Austin City Permits Google Voice Number is (512) 850 – 5446
Ask a Music Permit question, or leave message. SxSW South by Southwest Google Alert text. Ha!
(512) 850 – 54-46, that’s my number.
Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco, and a good explanation of the music:
Ray Charles illustrated that Country Music was Soul Music:
Prior to Jan 15th, 2009, the Outdoor Music Venue Permit section of the Noise and Sound Ordinance worked just fine. That’s the day certain members of the Austin City Council chose to sabotage the Permit and the Public input process, through a series of underhanded, coordinated, and wonky maneuvers.
Ever since the OMVP was introduced, things worked smoothly. It took a concentrated effort to read the Code, and understand what it said, and, more importantly, what it meant, but, after I gronked it, if I had my paperwork in order, and my proposed locations were well chosen, according to the stated Code, I could call a number of required Inspections, walk into a number of offices, present my applications, with site layouts and other required information, and walk out, sometimes the same day, with my client’s Permits, and the only objections, ever, were from one, single, solitary source … the SxSW/AusChron founders and foot soldiers who tried to, unsuccessfully … ;^p … block my efforts.
Due to past experiences, when I spoke before the City Council on January 15 (you may have to click the “Video” tab, at top of Agenda table, to access 01-15-09 video), I was concentrating on the effect that the proposed Amendments would have on SxSW 2009. I received assurances from Mayor Wynn, and the City Council, and major assistance from the City Manager’s office, specifically Sue Edwards. Ms. Edwards helped me negotiate new policies that had been put in place, largely at the request of the SxSW org, to prevent Outdoor Music Venue Permits on commercial locations without a building on the property. Even though the Code refers to a commercial location as a building or land, they had gotten some City attorney to read it that way, and “no shows on empty lots” was the current policy. Relatively minor annoyances like that were handle creatively, working with the Code, ;^p – and the shows went on.
(An aside – The Chronicle’s relative silence on this whole recent blow up makes me wonder. I see their fingerprints all over it, but they appear to have gone underground.)
I do not, for a minute, trust MOST of the people who appear to be involved in deciding just who is going to be the “accountable official”, the one individual who is being given an extraordinary amount of discretionary, decision making power over who does, and does not, get to put on Live Music in Austin, based on a loosey-goosey set of vague non-parameters.
Who is going to sit in that chair, and decide that one particular business can’t have Outdoor Music, because one resident, who lives within 600 ft. of the venue, objects to their getting a Permit, because they get splitting headaches when the music is going, and they have lived in the house for 70 years, and ain’t, by god, movin’.
The Outdoor Music Venue, and Noise and Sound Ordinances were harmed, back in January, February, and March, beyond being able to be fixed with these recent, temporary patches. The holes in the process, that should guarantee legitimate rights, has been put in place by an underhanded few, who inserted bad language into the Code for later use.
The Outdoor Music Venue Permit section of the Noise and Sound Ordinance needs a complete overhaul, like the City Manager’s Office was directed to do in the first place. That didn’t happen. Now, it should, or these new Amendments are going to have a lot of people unhappy, or happy, but fighting, for a long long time, and the Music Department, under the current circumstances, is going to be a major part of the disharmony. But that’s just my opinion.
Some might say that Scott Traitor, aka Trainer, the Austin Live Music Task Force member who utilized a well orchestrated take over of live music regulation, shutting down the music at Shady Grove, temporarily, with a 9-1-1 call , is last week’s news. I think he’s just the tip of the iceberg of underhandedness that is invading our city government, and city services. I so hope that the truth will come out, and the back room shenanigans that have disrupted live music in Austin, will become known.
Traitors, Treason? This is Austin’s fight that will determine the music you get to see at SxSW 2010, and throughout the year, chosen by a few, underhandedly, and behind the back of the majority – It’s a coup in progress, and it’s already becoming yesterday’s news!
Buildings and People, Land and People, Objects and People, Cities and People, People and People. How we interact with our immediate environment, and how that set of interactions basically guides our path, and determines our individual life stories. These interactions stand out, to me, during this post-radiation recovery period. It’s all good.
In the video below, Andy Goldsworthy works with objects, pieces of various natural materials found on site, to create works that stand in stark contrast to the land from which the materials come.
Well done, Will. Proud to call you a friend.
Like the bass player says, “the mayor of Rock & Roll”
