A Different Breed of Bullies

I suppose it’s a little odd to be writing about the Live Nation building permit that was issued this week. The good men and women of Oregon’s National Guard are preparing to report for duty here in Portland on Thursday. It’s hard to think about concert politics.

But really it’s all of a piece. We’re getting bullied. Big guys imposing their will on Portland because they can. The federal government, the giant corporation — they give zero fucks. At least back in grade school there were principals and teachers and maybe a playground monitor who exerted some authority to keep the assholes in check. That’s the function our courts have always played.

But these are a different breed of bullies. They’re like the really bad kids who figured out that even the grown-ups could be intimidated into cowardice.

So yeah, we’re on our own.

Live Nation, in case you haven’t been following along, is the corporation that owns Ticketmaster and dozens of concert venues around the country. They’re also the guys defending themselves in federal court against forty states that have brought an antitrust suit against them for cannibalizing local music scenes from Austin to Des Moines.

When these guys come to town, according to the good guys at Music Portland (our grassroots advocacy org for the region’s “musiconomy”), they purchase and close smaller competing venues, force all the local venues to use TicketMaster (price gougers!), overcharge for the use of their space (price gougers!), and even require local artists to sign contracts that limit their ability to perform.

Portland is the only large US city without a Live Nation venue. Despite the protest of hundreds of Portlanders whose lives are dependent on (or just enriched by) our uniquely independent music scene, both the City of Portland and the State of Oregon have seen fit to let Live Nation proceed with their building. The project is a 3500 capacity music hall on those large vacant lots just north of the Hawthorne Bridge near the east bank of the river.

Bullies are losers. They love to do their work in the dark, like cockroaches. They are miserable, unloved and consequently dangerous. Which means they must be stopped. This is one of those rare unambiguities in life. Bullying is disgusting and pathetic. No one would argue otherwise. Stopping them early is best, but difficult. Stopping their influence is usually a necessary and ongoing battle.

What they can’t tolerate is the light. The city council in Portland, Maine recently issued a moratorium on Live Nation’s plans to build there. One city councilor said the city was pausing the project because so many regular folks raised their voices. It’s a stall tactic and it may not work. But then again it might. Tuscon, St. Charles, Missouri and Michigan City, Indiana have each recently rejected data center projects after community outcry. Tiny La Crosse, Wisconsin, decided to do battle with the monopolists manufacturing fire trucks by suing the three companies colluding to raise prices for their equipment. The anti-monoply movement is growing, even if under the radar.

It’s troubling that the City of Portland didn’t follow Music Portland’s policy recommendation on this one, although I know why it didn’t. These land use decisions must be based on compliance with development standards only — in this case, things like safety due to the nearby train tracks, the lack of available parking, water quality impacts, and whether there’s a true public benefit.

It’s hard to prevail on these but what’s more maddening is that they aren’t even the real concerns, which are about untangibles: the security of small and local enterprises and their value in a creative economy. The small and local are always at risk, in part because they’re never codified into ordinance. It takes a courageous city councilor to find a legal way to get to “no,” anyways. We’ll see if the good folks in Portland, Maine can get there. I’m rooting for them.

And that’s why I’m writing about this. We need to stick together, and to stick to our values. If you’ve made it this far, you need to know you are one of us. You are part of the fight for a more sane world, right here in Portland. There will be both wins and losses. Either way, we carry on.

We will always need to fight for the local, the small, the independent. We’re lucky to live in a place that has defended those things in the past. Our job, my job, is to help to keep Portland a place apart. To lift up real alternatives to corporatism and cronyism in business and in the arts.

The bullies are coming. We get it. But we are here. We’re going to keep playing our music. No matter who shows up.