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Good musical town to move to?

#21
Toronto - Fantastic music scene for any type of music. However, not so easy to get a working visa and expensive to live in the city limits. Very cool city for everything.

Nashville - Great place for music.

Virginia Beach - Lots of pluses for the Tidewater Area.

Western and Central Pennsylvania - Avoid like the plague. Gigs are not here anymore and the pay is worse than 30 years ago.
 
#24
Din Of Win said:
+1 to Gainesville. I almost moved there with my girlfriend a few years ago... we couldn't deal with Florida climate though.
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Yeah, it gets bad in summer for sure. Thanks heaven for the Itchetucknee and many other springs, and of course swimming pools and A/C.

That's cool about Insubordination, I've heard of the Beatnik Termites and even have a few singles of theirs on comps and such.
 
#26
Detroit is a mixed bag where what you put in is what you get out.

Pros:

1) The local scene is pretty welcoming of new artists, but you'll have to bust your ass and have something really good to stand out. Lots of mediocrity here, but a lot of potential if you can stand out above and beyond.

2) Cost of living is dirt cheap right now.

3) You're a one-day drive from a ton of places: Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Nashville, Toronto, Buffalo, almost every Big-10 campus, and even places like the Twin Cities, Philly, DC, Baltimore, and NYC are just a couple pee-stops away.

Cons:

1) Job market is terrible, so have a skill that's worth it's weight in gold if you come here, or you can find yourself unemployed for a long time.

2) With the job market being so terrible, a lot of musicians aren't able to financially support their musical interests right now, which means finding quality folks to play with might be difficult.

3) There's a huge seperation between different genres of music here. You don't see much diversity in crowds - fans are pretty fickle at times unless you're the cream of the crop, and even that might get you hated before you're loved.
 
#28
WyrmDL said:
I'm genuinely ignorant about this; why avoid NY?
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low balling "band bookers" have sprouted like weeds.
No shortage of bands willing to play for free
Pay for play "scene" is gaining momentum
Bar owners/tenders balk at giving you a single free or reduced price drink
Basic pay for gigs same as 25 years ago
Rehearsal space is not cheap
Hard to book your new band in a "good" joint unless you can bring 50 people
Mayor Bloomberg
NYC's ancient Cabaret law makes dancing illegal in most bars
Should I continue?
 
#30
Pros:

1) The local scene is pretty welcoming of new artists, but you'll have to bust your ass and have something really good to stand out. Lots of mediocrity here, but a lot of potential if you can stand out above and beyond.

2) Cost of living is dirt cheap right now.

3) You're a one-day drive from a ton of places: Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Nashville, Toronto, Buffalo, almost every Big-10 campus, and even places like the Twin Cities, Philly, DC, Baltimore, and NYC are just a couple pee-stops away.

Cons:

1) Job market is terrible, so have a skill that's worth it's weight in gold if you come here, or you can find yourself unemployed for a long time.

2) With the job market being so terrible, a lot of musicians aren't able to financially support their musical interests right now, which means finding quality folks to play with might be difficult.

3) There's a huge seperation between different genres of music here. You don't see much diversity in crowds - fans are pretty fickle at times unless you're the cream of the crop, and even that might get you hated before you're loved.
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This is pretty much all right on the money.

The only other negative comment I would add is that there doesn't seem to be many national acts coming out of Detroit per se. Not including the White Stripes, you're talking about a town that still thinks Kid Rock and Eminem are greatest things since slice bread, even though they broke out 10 years ago.

In short, it's not a town worth moving to in order to pursue a musical career. However, if you're already here, there are definitely worse places to try to get noticed and you can make the best of it, which is pretty much what Ground Pounder opened his post with- you will get out what you put in- if you're lucky.
 
#33
Din Of Win said:
For my old band, Detroit was our second home. Played some RAD shows there with Circle Takes the Square and Suicide Note.

Heavy music of all varieties is pretty well represented there and it's a pretty good scene all together.
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Heavy music. It seems every band I see in Detroit is either "I'm so emo my tears cut my eyes", doing Journey covers, or seizing on top of their instruments. I guess that last one is "heavy" music. I don't think listening to someone choke to death on a microphone while the guitarist defecates on top of his instrument is enjoyable. At least the drummers are usually over-the-top energetic.
 
#38
KRSplat said:
Baltimore has a developing pop-punk scene and, of course, DC has a great hardcore punk scene (if you were into that.)
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I would say that Baltimore beats DC on pretty much everything. I play in a power-pop band, a thrash band, AND a hardcore punk band and all three of them are based out of B-More.

Don't get me wrong, i'm FROM DC... but these days; Bands, Venues, and ease of finding musicians all swings in Baltimore's favor.

As a city also... Baltimore is WAY more bikable... pretty much DC has the metro going for it and that's about it.

Haha, all that being said, i live in Frederick. The cool and nice thing about Maryland in general is that we're pretty close to a TON of different cities...
 

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