The perpetually youthful leader of the seminal indie band the Modern Lovers performs this evening at One Eyed Jack’s. The show starts at 10 PM.
How did I know he was performing? I read it in the Times-Picayune’s music listings.
Yet, today is one of the days of the week scheduled to no longer have a printed edition of the paper (along with Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays) this fall. Somewhat lost in the larger discussion of what effect the new print schedule will have on readership and advertising is the impact on musicians, clubs and music lovers.
I just got in from out of town. My plane was packed with tourists looking to go out and hear some live music. A few months from now, when the plan to move to a three-day print schedule begins, all of those tourists will wake up without the daily music listings in the Times-Picayune that are an important part of the music economy in New Orleans.
The powers-that-be suggest that all the information tourists (and locals for that matter) need is on the web. But the web site is very tough to navigate and the music listings are buried within every other entertainment option.
While it appears that this decision is a fate accompli, I just figured that this part of the loss deserves mentioning. How the clubs will communicate who is playing on four out seven days a week is a big unknown. How they will weather the change is an even bigger one.
