Las Vegas Weekly

Interview Issue: James Woodbridge

Photo: Bill Hughes

James Woodbridge

Music promoter, philosophy professor

Interviewed June 25 at Yayo Taco

In the two years you’ve been doing shows, how has the Downtown music scene changed?

There have definitely been some ups and downs, but overall, it seems like the scene has an upward trajectory. There is, of course, the ever-present issue of venues—can we get enough of them, and are they stable, and are they gonna get appropriate sound equipment—but overall, it seems like there’s an increase in activity and productivity and engagement and community.

What one thing would you say the scene is most in need of right now?

I wanna say, some good, slightly larger, 400-600-person venues, in the Downtown area, because my main interest is helping to create a real urban center with a real entertainment district. The city has a lot of lip service about an entertainment district, but I really feel like they could be making things easier and doing a lot less to make things more difficult. They really seem to be cracking down in a stifling kind of way on the possibility of an organic, up-from-the-roots type of entertainment district. They’re really cracking down on licensing and creating new licenses, like the DJ licenses. The city seems to be nickel and diming—as far as I can tell, solely for the purpose of getting minuscule revenue—a community that’s trying to create culture and an entertainment district from the bottom up. They’re just making it harder and harder. So one thing? We’d like to have the city on the side of this, rather than being an obstacle.

What’s your opinion of the overall quality of local bands today?

I think there have always been good bands here, but it does seem to me like right now is an especially good time in terms of the number of quality bands in town. I’m really excited about the fact that I can put together these shows with a good out-of-town band and put a really good local band with them. That’s a nice feature of the scene.

Are more people taking note of that, or is it largely the same folks turning out for every show?

It seems like the same people. I would like to see more people getting more involved. There’s a very devoted, fairly sizable group of people that come out to shows and support. It would just be nice if more people got more enthusiastic about coming out. Probably, what it’s gonna take is more people coming in from Henderson and Summerlin. And I know it’s a bit of a drive, but Downtown needs that; it needs people from the other parts of the Valley to come in to help create this urban center. In other cities, people just go Downtown; sometimes they don’t even know what’s playing. But here, there seems to be a little reluctance to engage in that type of adventurous activity.

What do you suppose that is?

It might be because geographically, things are spread out a little bit more here, and there’s no real public transportation. So a lot of it is logistics. And a lot of it is cultural history. Everybody keeps telling me, “People are used to getting things for free here,” and I understand that. But you know what, $5 is free. It just is. Somebody who will go and spend $5 at Starbucks without batting an eye will bitch about paying a $5 cover charge to see three great bands. If you’re going out at night, $5, or even $10, is free. But I don’t feel like I get as much of that [at the door] as I used to, so maybe more people are getting more used to the idea. Maybe people are understanding that when we’re doing a show, we’re not looking to make money off of it. The money really is going to the bands.

You lost a few thousand bucks on this past spring’s Neon Reverb festival, yet here you are—in a terrible economy, no less—planning another installment for the fall [September 17-20]. How and why?

I’m in the fortunate position that I don’t do this for a living; I have a job. I’m doing this as a labor of love. And I want to live in a culturally vibrant community that has things like great shows several times a month and a cool festival that happens twice a year and hopefully, will be moving toward getting some national recognition. If I have to be part of the machinery that makes it happen, then that’s how it is. You can’t sit back and wait for things to be handed to you. If you want things to be a certain way, you have to contribute.