Georgia on my mind

Here's what I have to say about the Americana/bluegrass music scene in my beloved hometown, Atlanta:
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Yeeeeeah. Because that's about all that's going on ... that I know of. And here I should offer up a big ol' disclaimer: I haven't lived in Atlanta full-time in, oh, 10 years. And when I did live in Atlanta full time I was 18 or younger, so there may have been a bangin' music scene going on in bars and clubs I couldn't get into. (No fake ID for me -- I'm 28 now and I still look 12, so it just wouldn't have worked). Anyway, so really I'm just fishing for enlightenment here. If you are in the know and find my ignorance appalling, by all means, let's hear it! You can even use dirty words if you want. I can take it.

So anyway, I am perplexed by the lack of Americana (and for the sake of brevity let's take that to include bluegrass/roots/etc., for the rest of this post) music in Atlanta. It's a Southern city, it's a sizeable city, it's an artsy city, it's a city with a diverse population racially, culturally, econonically and regionally -- by which I mean people from Atlanta are rarely actually from Atlanta. They're from all over, which you think would result in a great big melting pot o' musical goodness. But nooooo. Not only are not many Americana-ish bands from the ATL, but also I've never been able to find a record store that really caters to Americana listeners, and there is virtually no Americana music on the radio in those parts -- AM or FM. For a while some of the mainstream country stations would do an hour or so on weekend nights of "classic country," but I'm sure that's died out by now. An AM station out of Cumming used to do some Americana/bluegrass programming, but I think sometime in the late '90s the station changed format to Christian talk radio. Greeeeeeat. The only glimmer of hope I know of, really, is 99X, the alternative rock station, which on weekends would do a show called "Organic X" which was always a nice few hours of stuff like Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, etc. So one radio station. For maybe three, four hours once a week. In all of Atlanta, a Southern city of what, 3 million people or so? It just doesn't compute.

I have some theories about the reason for this shortcoming. Maybe it's that Athens, an hour's drive away, is just a little too close, sucks up all the good music talent. Or maybe it's that all of Atlanta's music chi is invested in hip-hop. And that's cool: I'm right proud to hail from the same city as OutKast, India.Arie, and Kris Kross. But isn't there room for everyone? Thank God Atlanta is definitely on the map enough to be a tour stop for pretty much anyone you'd want to see and has some venues known to be Americana-friendly (Cotton Club, Smith's Olde Bar, Tabernacle, Variety Playhouse), but I just wish there was more homegrown Americana coming from my hometown.

The Paste Rock 'n' Reel festival there this past weekend (did anyone go??? How was it?) gives me hope ... now I just need someone to open a kickin' Americana record store, start an Americana radio station and nurture some bands into the spotlight. Is that asking so much???