Introducing: This Used to be the Place
Exploring the intersection of live music, culture, economics, and policy, This Used to be the Place reflects on the challenges facing local music and nightlife ecosystems.
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while—write things down, share thoughts in an organized way, connect some dots out loud. Not because the answers are all here (not even close), but because the same questions keep coming up about the music industry, and no one seems to know where to take them next.
Live music and nightlife are shifting fast. Venues are closing, costs are rising, audiences are changing, and the old models just aren’t holding up. But when people try to talk about it, the conversation often gets stuck—too vague, too convoluted, or the hypotheticals are too far removed from what’s actually happening on the ground.
This Substack is a place to explore that middle space. The real-time tension between culture, business economics, and policy. The invisible labor that props up local music scenes. The zoning fights, the policy memos, the door splits, age restrictions, show cancellations, beer prices, wages, house shows, ticket fees, tour bus parking, real estate moguls, streaming services. It’s all connected. This Substack is for anyone who’s looked around and thought: “This doesn’t feel like it used to. What changed?”
Some themes that will show up here:
The disappearing middle class of live music
Why the old business model for independent venues doesn’t work anymore
How consumer expectations are colliding with economic reality
What music-friendly policy actually looks like (and why it’s so hard to pass)
Why we need to start telling a better story about who this industry really serves
This isn’t a space that points out wrongs while claiming to have all the answers. It’s also not a step-by-step guide to navigating the modern music business. I think of it as an open notebook—for anyone who cares about live music not just as entertainment, but as identity, as an infrastructure, and as their community.
A necessary disclaimer: the writer of this blog currently works in city government. That means there may occasionally be some (relevant) screaming into the void about bureaucracy, broken systems, and the surreal experience of trying to improve cultural policy from inside a machine that seems to be always working against us. But if anything, that’s just another reason these conversations matter. For me, this will be an exercise in balancing honesty about my experience while trying to not burn future bridges by being too…outspoken.
If that sounds like your kind of thing, stick around.
