Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to live?

cyrusjulian
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Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to live?

Post by cyrusjulian » Sun Oct 26, 2003 10:39 pm

Hello everybody,

Just wanted to ask feedback from everybody? Where is an affordable place to live in the United States where there is a thriving art community and you actually like living there? I currently live here in the Bay Area and it's expensive as hell to live here. I often find myself working way too much just to live without enough time that I'd like to have to just record and play music. I've been to Portland, and that's a pretty cool place as it's really affordable there but I haven't been to many other places. I was just curious if anybody here could give any opinions to where they live. I've also heard some negative feedback about a lot of other places so it'd be nice to know what places to stay away from also? Oh, and what type of music is popular there too? Here in the San Francisco area, IMO, there are outlets for almost every genre of music so long as you can hook up with the right people. It's really nice as it's very diverse and open minded here but as I said earlier, EXPENSIVE...

Thanks,
Cyrus

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ahmedgarcia
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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by ahmedgarcia » Mon Oct 27, 2003 8:52 am

Austin or anywhere in Central Texas. I have never left.

After the earthquakes in Cali in the early 90's it seems like everyone left for Austin, which more than doubled our property values, but not as expensive as San Fran, was I was told. It was like a house was worth $40,000.00 for 15 years and then all of the sudden the price went up to $140,000.00 in three months. I know I saw it happen. There were even bitting wars against Californians trying to buy the same property and over-inflating it.

It was also the advent of the internet, IMO. Once you did not have to be on the coasts to be able to make money in business, rual America got expensive. But everyone was still making the same amount of money here.

I saw whole nieghborhoods that had more the 50% musicians being kicked out by increase in property values and rent. No more $400 a month rent, unless you have a slumlord as your landlord. So people that lived close to downtown and in or near the music district had to move miles away and into the country.

Things have calmed down since the tech bust, but it did not go back down to pre-boom prices. So we have places like www.musiclab.net

but now people have jobs at Dell or IBM or Motorola where I was a janitor or a sales clerk at Circle K. Different era.

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by musicjon » Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:42 am

I just left Santa Cruz for Nashville. I never knew what cheap was till I moved here. I'm still shocked by how cheap really nice houses are. Even food is half price, seriously.

This might not be the scene you dig, but there is quite a bit of music going on here.

-Jon

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by 30 ips » Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:39 am

Philadelphia isn't bad. I was suprised when I moved here at how many bands there were and how few fans came out to support them. It's really quite sad. Most of the bands from Philadelphia rarely play here. Usually people travel to the suburbs, NYC, and even Washington. Here there is a studio on every corner whether it's indie or major label. The city is pretty cheap and a great place to live but we need more people that come out for the music and not to check out the latest haircuts and imported beers. I'd give Philly a 50/50 shot for anyone.

A really cheap place with a great music scene is Tampa, Florida. Well, I guess that depends on what kind of music your into. Alot of redundent singer/songwriter stuff seems to get by in Philly, but there is no place for it in Tampa. In my short life I have yet to see a town with such a great group of kids that go to all lenghts to support local musicians and touring acts that make it all the way down there. It is a huge undiscovered realm of indie, puck, and possibly the greatest most loyal underground hardcore scene I have encountered.

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ahmedgarcia
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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by ahmedgarcia » Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:51 am

30 ips wrote:A really cheap place with a great music scene is Tampa, Florida. Well, I guess that depends on what kind of music your into. Alot of redundent singer/songwriter stuff seems to get by in Philly, but there is no place for it in Tampa. In my short life I have yet to see a town with such a great group of kids that go to all lenghts to support local musicians and touring acts that make it all the way down there. It is a huge undiscovered realm of indie, puck, and possibly the greatest most loyal underground hardcore scene I have encountered.
I remember Florida being that way during the Metal years. When metal died in the 1990's it appeared that Florida kept it alive, at least in a hardcore kind of way.

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by cyrusjulian » Mon Oct 27, 2003 11:04 am

Wow, thanks everybody for all your feedback. This really helps a lot. I'd have to say that the style of music that my band plays would probably be labeled shoegaze/indie music, although I would prefer to live in an area where there is a diverse mix of music and tastes as it helps my creativity (hey, I like metal, hip-hop and disco too, hehe) Forgive me if I sound like a hippie here, but I guess I'm more concerned if the place has a good energy and overall good vibe so Tampa sounds kinda kewl.

Ahmedgarcia,

Something similar happened in San Francisco a few years back where there was the big "Dot-Com" boom. It seemed like every dot-com wanted to move to SF to attract "creative" people, but it was a such hypocritical situation because they caused rents and values to go up, thereby forcing a lot of artists out. They even closed down this pretty well known rehearsal studio (although I can't remember the name) where there were I think at least 100 artists, bands, dancers to sell to some dot-com. It's died down since then, but the prices are not where they used to be.

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by cyrusjulian » Mon Oct 27, 2003 11:11 am

Whoops, I forgot that I posted this topic up in two sections. If anybody is interested in this topic, it's also in the

"Off Topic / Off Color / Off The Cuff" Section and there are more posts there.

cyrus

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by cyrusjulian » Mon Oct 27, 2003 7:11 pm

Thanks for the info Adam. Just to let you know, this topic was also posted on the Off Topic/ Off Color/ Off the Cuff section so if you're curious to get opinions on other places, there were a lot more posts on that thread.

Cyrus

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by pleasantmusic » Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:03 am

Well,

If shoe Gazin' Indie rock is what you're into, check out Chapel Hill or Durham NC. Here's a good reference
http://www.trianglerock.com/music/index.html

-Sean

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by cyrusjulian » Tue Oct 28, 2003 11:29 pm

Thanks Sean.. I never knew that about Chapel Hill or Durham.

Cyrus

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by mr scratchy esq » Fri Oct 31, 2003 6:15 am

Pittsburgh is a pretty cheap place to live. You can get a decent apartment for under $400/month (of course you have to find a job here...) There are a lot of talented musicians involved a pretty wide variety of genres. It is not hard to get shows, make connections and get noticed. It's also a good geographic location to base a band out of (you are within a 8 hour drive of many major cities). Although I'd also have to say that Pittsburgh isn't the best place for hoegazing/indie pop. There are very few bands in that vein here.

Good luck,
Bill

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by LaSalle bon Dioxide » Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:26 pm

You'll probably laugh when I say this, but Salt Lake City has a thriving music scene with everything from shoegazer indie rock to hard edged math rock. There are several touring groups in town. There's a very supportive scene, there are lot of people with a wide variety of tastes who actually go out and see local acts. There are several very good engineers. Oh, and it's pretty cheap. You can find a two-bedroom apartment for around $600.00 per month. Don't let me forget, there's a very strange local cult to laugh at.
If you try once and fail, try three times harder and if you fail, maybe it's time to re-evaluate your approach.

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by NewPunk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:05 am

B-More, yo! This city has weird/eccentric running in its veins. One hour to DC. Two to Philly. Four to New York. Two to Atlantic City (read as 'two hours and I can be playing blackjack, without having to live in New Jersey'). I pay $375 to live by the water and the bars. This HAS to be the cheapest city on the east coast that's north of Richmond. And if you support your music habit by waiting tables like I do, there's a lot of spots to work. Ridiculous amounts of construction in this city right now, so prices might go up. Plenty of venues for indie. I get the sense that there's a hip-hop scene, but I don't know anything about it. Everybody smokes. Everybody drinks whiskey and beer. Generally quality art scene, and awesome for film.

-Matthew in Baltimore

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Re: Artist Friendly Cities:Where's an affordable place to li

Post by NewPunk » Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:08 am

And I might add that Pittsburgh is, in fact, the BEST city for 'Hoe-gazing'.

:D

-Matthew in Baltimore

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