Dinner
What a great evening!
We took the gondola into town… You go up, and then you go…DOWN! It’s like a thrill ride, definitely an E-ticket. So steep. Can’t wait to come here to go skiing.
Meanwhile, we’re on the gondola with two other people. One a stoner bike rider and the other a fortysomething woman. And they accuse us of being Californians. Which ultimately leads to Felice saying that I’m originally from Connecticut.
"Where?"
Fairfield.
"Me too!"
It was the rabbi’s daughter. The one who caught my sister skipping Sunday school. I had to dial up my mother from the ‘dola, to tell her the story, she’s calling Arnie in the morning.
Meanwhile, Verizon works here. Solid bars, all the time, everybody on AT&T is frustrated…
Anyway, when we got down we walked a block to La Marmotte.
Telluride is like a toy town. A Swiss village in the Rockies. You feel instantly at home.
And we found our posse sitting outside. Coran Capshaw, his main man Jason Colton and promoter Don Strasburg.
I should have filmed it, even though Coran’s all about off the record. Hanging with these guys one couldn’t help but get EXCITED about the music business.
Strasburg is saying how he’s killing it in the under 2,000 seat venues. Talking about bands that are in some instances barely on my radar.
And Jason told me about his act Blind Pilot. They were featured on NPR on a Saturday and immediately sold 1,400 units. That’s the most powerful mainstream medium. When I refused to go to Culver City to be on the radio, Laura Sydell told me they reach more people than the network news, that their cume was 18 million. Whew! All I know is when I’m on NPR, my inbox fills up. From people not on my list, who I grew up with, or went to college with.
All the press is about stealing music, about shitty shows with low attendance. No one denied these facts, but everyone pointed to a whole ‘nother business, not reliant on airplay, where music sales are secondary to the gig.
Music is alive and well. Tonight’s dinner made me hopeful for the future.
