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Tim Fulton 00:08
welcome to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment and people of our city. I’m your host. Tim Fulton this week, how do we take a music community and turn it into a music economy? I sat down with Walker Evans, editor and co founder of Columbus underground, to break down the findings of a new study commissioned by the Columbus music commission. We dig into the $1.3 billion valuation of our local music ecosystem, what’s working, what’s missing, and what it might mean to create a music district in the city. We also talk about how music fits into Columbus’s broader identity, and whether a more focused approach could help the scene grow. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluencecast.com enjoy the interview. Sitting down here with Walker. Evans, the editor and co founder of Columbus underground. Walker,
Walker Evans 01:13
how are you? I am doing better every day. Good. You’ve
Tim Fulton 01:17
had quite a summer, yes, Haven’t we all? Indie, yeah, I suppose so, yeah. Here today, I think the first thing we wanted to talk about was the Columbus music commission just commissioned a study about the state of music in Columbus and sort of recommendations for what can be better, what can be improved upon, and where we are right now and where we are right now, yeah. So what did the study
Walker Evans 01:46
say? The big, the big number attached to the study was the current, you know, what, what the music economy equates to, currently, okay? And that number is 1.3 billion, okay. And that is a mix of, you know, what musicians are paid, what is brought in, in terms of, like, tourism dollars. And this is from the you know, singer songwriter playing during happy hour down at the local bar all the way to, like, the big shows that sell out nationwide arena. Okay, the Cole plays to use a very current, current
Tim Fulton 02:18
band to reference, okay, yeah. What else talk about, sort of like the methodology for the study, because it’s a pretty deep
Walker Evans 02:24
dive, yeah, yeah. And I gave it kind of a heavy skim, so I would recommend anyone just go read it for yourself if you want, like the full okay, it’s like 30 ish pages, I think, yeah, yeah. But there’s a helpful infographic. Oh, yes, yeah. And so it was commissioned by this Austin based consulting firm called TXP Inc, you know. And it took a look through again the numbers of what that sort of stuff means, but also comparing to some other, you know, comparable metros, and I would say, also non comparable metros like Los Angeles, okay? And I think, you know, the what it said we excel at is diversity of music types, diversity of like, venue sizes, okay, things like that. We have a very young demographic in Columbus, so it is a music consuming community, generally speaking. I think what we fall short in, which is sort of stating the obvious, is kind of industry side of it, okay, the music industry largely exists in a handful of cities in the country.
Tim Fulton 03:25
Yeah, it’s New York, Nashville in LA, yeah, Austin, I guess, to an Austin
Walker Evans 03:29
to an extent, Chicago to an extent, you know. But so some of those things, you know, can we even replicate in this era? Right? I think Nashville really, what might have been like the last, the last one to be able to plant that flag, yeah, in a way that, like in the 90s, like, oh, Seattle is like the new music capital through all the grunge and alt rock sort of stuff, I don’t think you can really sort of build that anymore, in a way that, like regional sounds used to exist Motown in Detroit and the Memphis sound and that sort of stuff. Like, everything is everywhere now. Well, and you K Pop is everywhere. Yes, that’s not a regional sound anymore. You know what? I mean? Yes,
Tim Fulton 04:14
yeah. Well, and that’s your philosophy about a lot of things, right? That is your
Walker Evans 04:18
the internet, for better or worse, like, has just made everything everywhere. If there’s a hot restaurant trend in New York, yes, today, yes, it’ll be in Columbus tomorrow. Yes, it doesn’t take five years for, like, the Midwest, to catch up to the coast enjoy your ramen. Yes,
Tim Fulton 04:31
yeah, yeah. Well, and it’s, I think the interesting thing there is that Columbus has always sort of been that way, that it has always been, you know, I don’t like the phrase test City USA, but it is always sort of been like, Oh, we’re going to have a little smattering of this and a little smattering of that, and that basically has become our identity, right? And so everywhere has become. Columbus.
Walker Evans 05:00
Yeah, and I feel pretty strongly about that, like we always beat ourselves up for not having a more recognizable brand. We got to put Columbus on the map, exactly what’s it gonna be. And you look at a city, you know, music wise, you look at something like Seattle or Nashville or Austin to like, use these examples, maybe Austin’s a little more blurry, but Nashville is the country music capital, right? Yep, does everyone who lives in the Nashville Metro enjoy country music? I would doubt that. Yeah. I’m sure there are people that hate it, right? Same way we like Vegas. You know, does everyone in Vegas gamble or work in the casino?
Tim Fulton 05:35
It is a industry, part of it, yeah. But I
Walker Evans 05:39
mean, you could work at like a tech startup in the suburbs of the Las Vegas metro area, and like never go to the strip,
Tim Fulton 05:47
right? Absolutely. But also, fun fact, Las Vegas, I think, still, this is true. They have more churches per capita than any other. And it’s not like Elvis churches,
Walker Evans 05:57
real churches, the little impromptu, like the I met this person yesterday, and we’re getting married today,
Tim Fulton 06:04
exactly, yeah, not the chapels, yeah, yeah. What are the other recommendations that the that it has,
Walker Evans 06:13
the couple of big ones. Let me see there were three, like major bullet points. Number one was, create a visitor centric music marketing campaign with existing partners like experience Columbus, potentially like OSU, different, different things like that, kind of leveraging some of the big 800 pound gorillas in town, okay, which I, you know, I could see, you know, benefits to that. To an extent, experience Columbus has a lot of industry based, sort of pillars like the coffee trail or the distillery trail, or they could, yeah, a music trail, or something like that, yeah, yeah. But also, people don’t really think of so my snarky pushback to that was going to be like, Oh, good. We’re going to try to rebrand ourselves as a music place now. But I don’t think that the coffee trail really made I don’t know that it’s bringing in any tourism. However, I also don’t think anybody thinks of us as a coffee place, except for you being the proprietor of the Columbus Coffee Festival. We planted that flag 10 years ago. Indeed, we’re there now. Yeah, we did it.
Tim Fulton 07:21
But yeah, I think a minor focused, like, adding a pillar there would be
Walker Evans 07:25
good well. And I think that the trick too, is that, like, if you’re into coffee, and it’s like, here’s 30 local roasteries you should check out over the next couple of months, and you go and check them all off. Like, if you’re a coffee fan, like, you’ll go check them all out, because they’re all coffee, right? Yeah, if you’re a music fan, it’s like, Well, are you into pop, country, heavy metal? Are you into the symphony? Are you into vapor wave? Are you a K Pop? Are you into like, shoegaze, Lo Fi, you know, like, there’s, there’s so many different options for that. I think it’s tougher to say, like, oh, you should go check out Dick’s den and the Lincoln theater and Sweeney’s on a Friday night. And, you know, like, yeah, it could be all different kinds of music at all different price points too. I mean, a cup of coffee is generally around the same sort of price. Yeah. Are you dropping $1,000 on Taylor Swift tickets at Nationwide arena, right? Are you going to like, a free night at, you
Tim Fulton 08:26
know, Sweeney, yeah, yeah. I think, what do I think
Walker Evans 08:31
it’s, it’s just, it’s tough to like, I feel like it’s tough to just wrap one big and that’s why something like Nashville has been successful, because it’s one genre, right, you know. But also I look at the success, it’s also the worst genre, hot take, what’s that? I said it’s also the worst genre, okay, country music. That’s fair, especially the fake like pop country, okay, yeah, let’s save that for another episode. That’s okay. So
Tim Fulton 08:54
I guess I look at the success of First of all, music festivals tend to kind of migrate to one genre, generally, sure, right? Sonic temple, Yep, yeah. Even Lollapalooza, it’s like, you’re not. It’s all pop music, basically, but some of it’s rap pop music, and some of
Walker Evans 09:15
Yeah, yeah. And breakaway is a good example that too, where it’s like, it’s hip hop, it’s EDM, it’s yes, but it’s all the zeitgeist.
Tim Fulton 09:22
But also then I look at the success of things like South by Southwest, where it truly is like, Oh, I’m going to see like, something that I’ve never seen before, or something that I’ve never considered, or really solid examples of very different genres. So I guess there could be a spot for it. I mean, we’ve tried to do some music festival II kind of stuff here, yeah, beyond, I’m not talking about like, comfest or Independence Day, yeah, talking more about, like, multiple venues
Walker Evans 09:54
trying to emulate a Bonnaroo or South by Southwest, yeah, yeah. And there’s been a. Mix of success and failures. I think for every FMF, which I was just talking to someone about the other day, fashion meets Music Festival, it’s around a couple years, and it’s not around anymore, correct? There has been stuff like Breakaway, which is a gigantic success, yeah, and they do it in multiple cities now, and it’s, you know, it does really well. Sonic temple, again, you know, I think sold out all three or four days, yeah, this year. I mean, it was like traffic jams on the highway because it’s so popular. Yeah, yeah. And so I think it’s easy to look at something like South by Southwest, and say, we want that, and it’s like, Well, we already have different versions of that. Like, can we just support and grow what we already have? Or do we need to create an entire new wheel from scratch.
Tim Fulton 10:42
Fair point, what are the other recommendations?
Walker Evans 10:45
Yes, that was number one. One of the other ones was invest in music based economic development efforts. I’m not entirely sure what that means, other than just funding music Columbus through
Tim Fulton 10:56
this organization that commissioned this study,
Walker Evans 10:59
basically, yeah, which you know, fair point. You know, there are advocacy group you know they want to, you know, continue to exist and do more to help. But the second recommendation, which I found to be the most interesting one, was to create a music district,
Tim Fulton 11:14
okay, and there’s not really quotes for people that are just listening.
Walker Evans 11:18
I don’t know why I did that, because I’m reading it and there’s quotes on it and so, oh, okay, I’m using literal quotes. Music district got it through branding efforts, special zoning accommodations. It points out that other cities that have things like this oftentimes you have to go lighter on, like,
Tim Fulton 11:36
audio, oh, restrictions, like public noise. Yeah,
Walker Evans 11:41
noise. Aren’t thinking noise restrictions, things like that in places like, again, Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, that have like a neighborhood or a strip or something like that, designated as kind of the music zone.
Tim Fulton 11:55
So and I realized that I’m sort of thinking it, of it as, like, nightclub zones, but yeah, when
Walker Evans 12:05
you think of Nashville, what is it? Is it Broadway? Yeah, the main strip through there, it’s very Park Street esque, yeah, if you wanted to make a comparison,
Tim Fulton 12:13
South Street in South Street, or Eighth Street in Austin, 666, street, yeah, street, yeah, where it’s just all these venues and stuff, yeah, but it’s also just a lot of bars, yeah? And so we’ve had brewery district. We’ve had, we still have it well, but it’s not as active right now. Yeah, there is not a bridge to there right at the moment,
Walker Evans 12:38
correct? But, but it was like the nightlife district of the 90s, yes,
Tim Fulton 12:43
yeah. And then in the 2000s we had Park Street Yeah, which has kind of gone away too, like it is not the Yeah, the number of venues, the popularity of venues that was like the spot to go to, right, right. And it sort of benefited from when the gateway was coming, all the South Campus bars got torn down, so the college kids didn’t have anywhere to go, right? And this leads into a whole larger trend of like, well, kids don’t drink that much anymore, and they aren’t as social, and they like sitting in their dorm doing their gummies and playing their video games. Nothing wrong with that. No, I guess I don’t know if a music district, yeah, would be successful,
Walker Evans 13:32
yeah. Well, and you raise a great point is, is this a music district for all music lovers, or is it a nightlife district for people under the age of
Tim Fulton 13:40
35 right? You know well, because on Sixth Street to like, I
Walker Evans 13:44
doubt you see anyone there who’s like, 60 who’s really into, like, the country music act that’s playing at the bar. They’re like, hell no, I’m not going down there on Saturday night, right? It’s just drunken children and fighting
Tim Fulton 13:55
and cover songs like, yeah, a lot of quote, unquote, working musicians who are hired like a trivia host is hired to come in and hey, you’re gonna play for four hours. Yeah? Or, like, a friend of mine happens to be a pianist at the top Steakhouse, yeah? Like, that’s a working musician, absolutely, yeah. I just don’t know if we need it. Just sounds like an entertainment district kind of idea, yeah, and
Walker Evans 14:26
not to go off on a total tangent, but this study does dive into some of those numbers because they did some public polling. We, I remember, we filled out a survey as like a music industry adjacent, okay, we we publish and we write, you know, we cover the music scene as a publication, but a lot of the survey, like the other branches of it, where are you a musician right now? Like, do you have a day job, all that sort of stuff. So there are some numbers, and they kind of pointed out that we are the lower side of like, people who are able to support themselves financially, like, sustain themselves just on, like, music gigs, right? Like, a very hyper. Percentage of them need to have a second job or a primary job, which then takes away from their creative endeavors, because they’ve got to go do whatever sort of thing they got to do for work, yeah? Versus, like, write new songs and be out there practicing,
Tim Fulton 15:12
yeah? So I mean, at the end, these goals seem fine to me, yeah. And I want a burgeoning music community. Yes, that’s like, I want art. Like I want, you know, so
Walker Evans 15:24
my big question about the music district thing, do you do you take an area that already exists and and blow it up? Because when I think of music district in Columbus right now, I’m thinking of the two blocks of Old North, yeah, between like, Hudson and Arcadia, yeah, Dodd Ridge, like that whole area up there where you’ve got space bar, lidos, dirty dungarees, dirty dungarees. Asa cup, excuse me, ace of cups. Bossy girl, yep, I looked the other day. There’s like eight venues in those two blocks, yeah, and more, if you have a couple of small bars too, yeah, exactly, yeah. And like a record store, Yep, yeah, but, but also, what’s up there? You know, also, especially as you start to expand outside of those two blocks, there’s rumba Cafe a little bit further away. There’s dicks down a little bit further down, yep, south on High Street. But you’ve got, like, gas stations and like, that gigantic parking lot where, like, the rallies and the goodwill is, and so it’s like, if that’s going to be developed and filled in, it’s going to be an apartment building, yeah? So like every other Yeah, yeah. Are there going to be accommodations for like, more music, sort of stuff around there. And what does it look like to accommodate that? From like, a economic development standpoint, do you do put, like, bollards so that, like, maybe on Friday and Saturday night, you shut that street down to be pedestrian only to make it easier to, like, bounce between venues, yeah, and throw some food trucks out there Sixth Street, yeah, put up, put up a temporary stage in the parking lot outside of ace of cups or something. So there’s, like, more of a festival atmosphere, because, to me, that builds upon something that’s already there. And also, like, talk to all those venues and see if they even want any of this, right? This is just my, you know, my, my five second, you know, thoughts on it, yeah. Or looking at an area like Franklinton, we talked about Sweeney’s, but across the street a secret studio they’re already doing, like, very music focused, and I think that’s sort of the plan for that street in the long term. Yeah. Do you support that? Or do you say, Oh no, we’re gonna just pick a random spot downtown and, like, build from scratch, right? I think that’s where we could get into the like, everyone just starts rolling their eyes, yeah. And we kind of set up for failure, because we’re not, we’re not building upon an existing culture. We’re trying to just completely reinvent the wheel. Yeah, and I hope this doesn’t go that direction. I don’t think that it would. But like sometimes things in the past have gone that direction.
Tim Fulton 17:51
What infrastructure Do you think it would need in order to be successful? Besides just, you know, closing a street make putting some food trucks out there. Like, do you think it needs hotels? Do you think it needs I, you know, we mentioned the noise ordinance thing, but yeah, you know, there is a an area commission. There’s the campus area commission, and then there’s the Clintonville
Walker Evans 18:26
area. Yeah, it’s gonna say you’re just gonna block outside of
Tim Fulton 18:28
Clintonville. So, yeah, yeah, and I assume they butt up against each other. I will look at the map, and I will put it in the show notes, the
Walker Evans 18:37
ravine or whatever is like the divider. There you go another block north. Like luck? No, I know where.
Tim Fulton 18:44
I just don’t know if the area commission properly covers not every part of the city is represented by a commission.
Walker Evans 18:51
I believe everything that we’re talking about is, is university district, area commission, yes, yeah, that’s what I think, yeah, all the way up to the Clintonville line. I got it 90% sure. Look at them. Look, we’ll look at that. Yeah. I mean, again, like, really, these people know better than anyone else. So ask them what they need in terms of support. And a lot of times it just comes down to, like, money and funding. And, you know, I’m sure some businesses are more successful than others, and some are probably just struggling to keep the lights on, sometimes, especially if it’s like, oh, we’ve got this band from Idaho coming in on a Wednesday night, and we’re struggling to sell tickets. Like, how can we offset that with grants or some other sort of funding if we want this to be, you know, committed as a music district, a lot of times it’s just like, throw money at it, yeah, give, give people money so they can be creative without worrying about paying the rent. Yeah, you know that that’s part of it, sometimes
Tim Fulton 19:48
well, and to GCA sees credit. They do do artists grants for musicians, yeah, additionally, when they partner with the. Other organization that they’re like, hey, we’d like to have some buskers. Like at gallery hop, there is an edict that, it is you will pay this
Walker Evans 20:07
person, yeah. And I think too, that, like, if we want to create a true music district, it has to be something that like, let’s make sure that if we’re gonna plant a flag and put a spotlight on this, that we’re getting the type of people and the quality, like the music lovers to gravitate toward this, okay, rather than just saying, this is a nightlife district, because I’m sure if you said, Hey, ace of cups, you know, and I want to speak on their behalf, of course, what if we just got, like, a ton of like, 20 year olds to start showing up every Friday night. They don’t think they’d be like, right? Yeah, they want people there who are there for the music, right? So how do you kind of navigate those waters? I think
Tim Fulton 20:49
is what I will say to that little area is credit it. All of the venues do a good job of booking shows of pretty diverse types of music and diverse quality of music, honestly, yeah, like
Walker Evans 21:07
I went to and again, this a little bit. This is like a few blocks south dixton, yeah, I kind of got drugged there with some comedian friends. Yeah, on a Tuesday night, it’s bluegrass night. Why not? And I’m like, whatever I enjoyed, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? It’s like, my only connection to bluegrass music. And we went there on a Tuesday night at like, 11 o’clock, and the place was fucking packed, yeah, oh yeah, wow, yeah. And, I mean, that was, like, a talented band, and whatever, you know, I’m really there for the music, but like, everyone else was, and it’s like, this is great. Like, if you’re into this scene, and you know, this scene, and you know, this exists like, this is probably your favorite thing in the city, yeah. And that’s awesome
Tim Fulton 21:45
well, and I think it’s, I’m talking to myself back from not thinking this was a good idea. It is sort of like events like that happen. And also I see, you know, I don’t get up to ace of cups as much as I’d like to, because I’m getting older, but the you see that there is certainly an appetite, right? Yeah, I don’t know that sort of the cross pollination of it will happen, yeah, because it doesn’t happen right now. Yeah, it’s been a very long time since I’ve gone from ace of cups to lidos to what used to be Kobo and is now space bar. Yeah,
Walker Evans 22:23
well, and if you’re not, I feel like music festivals are the time when you’re like, I’m going out and I’m watching 10 bands in a row, yeah? And I’m gonna just sort of day drink and get sunburned and be on my feet all day. Yeah? I think normally, if you go out to a show, you’re kind of like, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna watch too. I’m gonna go home, yes, maybe get food and whereas my reservation beforehand, yeah, yeah. I mean, I went to a concert a month ago, and I was tired after standing inside the LC, wait. LC, Kimba, sorry. This
Tim Fulton 22:56
is a columns history, but
Walker Evans 22:58
yeah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but yeah. I mean, you know, I walked there and I watched the show and I walked home, and the last thing I wanted to do was repeat the whole process again, yeah, next door, or, you know, for whatever was going on, yeah. So, yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s interesting. I think there’s something there. Yeah, I and I hope, if that recommendation moves forward, that stakeholders are involved, absolutely thoughtful process. I think. The other thing too, and we could probably spend another hour talking about this, is that, like, you know, arts districts used to be the thing. And the Short North was and is still our arts district, right? A lot of people say there used to be more galleries. It used to be more artist friendly. Artists could afford to live there, you know? And now it’s a little bit of everything for everyone, which is kind of the natural progression for arts districts all over the country. This is not a Columbus problem, yeah. But as some of the art galleries have either been priced out or have just looked to move, you know, for different customer bases, we’ve got galleries all over the city now. We’ve got murals all over the city. We’ve got pop up events all over the city. So it sort of begs the question, should arts be sequestered to one specific geography and metro area, or should we have the arts in every community? And most people would say we should have the arts in every community. So now you’ve got Franklinton Fridays. We’ve got these downtown galleries at gay and high Yep, every suburb has art galleries. Like, that’s a good thing generally. Yeah. So should we be looking back to this old model of like, we need to establish a music district, or should we just be thinking about, like, how do we make more live music and more music industry opportunities, opportunities for working musicians? Yeah, region wide, that’s an excellent point, but it’s hard to put a branding campaign on
Tim Fulton 24:43
that. That too. Yeah. I mean, you’re saying everything. I like, it’s sort of a yes and right, yeah. It’s like, yeah, that’s a good idea. But, like, how do we make sure that we’re fostering growth all over? Yeah? So yeah, it’s,
Walker Evans 24:56
it’s tougher to get people’s attention. Like, pay. Tinge, like music is important. Pay attention to this. And then just be like, there’s a little bit of it everywhere. And it’s like, okay, well, that’s not, that’s not cool, that’s everything, that’s everything. Everything is everywhere, yeah, all right, but great, great information. I recommend everyone read the study. We did a quick little write up, but link to the the PDF. So, yeah, yeah, okay, it’ll be in the show notes, I assume
Tim Fulton 25:22
indeed it will. Yeah. Walker, thanks for your time. Thanks, Tim.
Tim Fulton 25:37 Thank you for listening to the confluence cast presented by Columbus underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the confluencecast.com Please rate, subscribe. Share this episode of The confluence cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite musician. If you’re interested in sponsoring the confluence cast. Get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at the confluencecast.com our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I’m your host. Tim Fulton, have a great week.
