A buddy of mine may be heading to Greensboro, NC and was wondering how the music scene is there. Anyone from around there that could give some feedback?

Thanks

Rob

I'm out there a lot, from what I see it's pretty small.

I am a NC boy, and I lived there for 2 years. I very much miss it. Smaller town, but very VERY Vibrant music scene. Right near the NC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem(also a great music city/scene) so you get all the talented arts folks and the people in the music program. UNCG has a fantastic music program(and theatre) so you get the benefits of being attached to a cultural school. it isn't LA or NYC, thankfully. There is a VERY healthy economy that exists outside of the major cities/major labels, and greensboro , in my opinion, is a perfect place to cultivate young bands...

I moved to Raleigh this year and have been very busy as a drummer and doing mobile recording. Great scene and people are generally relaxed. I find that the musicians here do a lot of referring, if you are serious, and there is plenty of work to go around.

Also it's only an hour away from Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area...and 2 hours away from the beach and the mountains including Asheville... and somewhere in the middle away from Charlotte so you have options. NC is a nice area to live also...I like Greensboro/Winston-Salem.
cam

Awesome, thanks everyone. He's deciding between Savannah GA and Greensboro NC, so he was wanting some ideas on the music as well...

Thanks again,

thumbsupthumbsupthumbsup

Savannah is ok, but the music scene in NC is better, much better(particularly in the G-Boro/Triad area..

Wow I totally didn't get that impression when I've worked there. I was considering relocating there at one point, my wife is from Gibsonville, so I went out there a few times to scope it out. Seemed like the last place I'd try to make a go at music. But it's really hard to go from a huge music market to a satellite city, it always feels weird. I left LA in the mid 90s and went to a mid size city and it was a horrible experience and not that there wasn't music there, just wasn't the music scene I was accustom to in LA. For me personally I thrive more where the action is ala LA/Nashville. But again that's just me some people go to cities like that hate it and go home. But again it depends on you and what you do, my bread and butter is Nickelodeon and Disney so LA is where that game is.

Apples and oranges.

I lived in Gibsonville for 2 years & Burlington for 3 years. I thought the music scene was great. Lots of talent, loads of good regional bands flowing through, considering the size. But yeah, coming from LA would be a bit of a culture shock. When I left the area (it's been a few years) there wasn't a whole lot going on with the recording side of the biz. Most guys I knew traveled down to Charlotte to make their records. I'm sure it's changed by now. One of my fav bands has a room there now. (Kudzu Ranch Recording)

There's an excellent music scene in NC, but it's a totally different vibe than what you'd get in LA or Nasvhille (I lived in Nashville for a while and hated it with all my heart - like a previous poster mentioned).
The scene in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area is excellent. There's tons and tons of bands, some really great festivals -Troika, Hopscotch, etc. The scene here though is underground, independant, and kinda DIY oriented. There's no big money to be made like in the big cities, people do it because they love it - but that atmosphere has created some of the best music I've ever heard. Bands that I record consistently blow me away.
The band/musician community tends to be really supportive and helpful of one another as long as you don't come across as someone trying to exploit what's going on. It really is kind of a true community. But don't come here if you're trying to 'make it'. It's not that kind of place.

The women here are fantastic too.

There's a couple KILLER bands in Gboro. There's a band called HOUSE OF FOOLS that are definitely worth the time to check out. Another group called The Urban Sophisticates that are pretty awesome too.

A couple cool venues too.

Brandon-

I've mixed The Urban Sophistacates more times than I can count at The Cat's Cradle. They are pretty damn good!

I always get that song stuck in my head..."I wanna marry a girl from Chapel Hill"

It definitely isn't a "mainstream" type place... more homegrown, DIY.. Guys that play because they truly love it, not to make the next big hit. Underground. FAR removed from the glitz/glamor/commercialism of the big cities. Ive lived in both Nashville and Greensboro.. the smaller communities just feel more real/genuine because noone is trying to fit into a "scene" or a "target market", they are just doing it for the love of it. A nice living can be made there. You won't be rich, but you can make it. Any city that has a large music program near it is going to be ripe with opportunity.

Mitch Easter has been living in NC for a long time, and he thrives there... he is one of my heroes.. Recording grassroots/underground bands at his home in NC... No mega-hits(REM of course) , just great bands with loads of artistic integrity and heart. http://www.fidelitorium.com/

http://www.mitcheaster.com/

Asheville is a nice place.. Echo Mountain studios is there, owned by the Polvo guys.....but Greensboro has always had a healthy music scene. The School of the Arts crowd and the UNCG music students are RIPE with opportunity. Triangle is great too, of course...but G-Boro is good to go. thumbsup

Man, I used to have a BLAST in the early 90s...Greensboro was the epicenter of the NC Rave Scene, used to go to parties at the Train Depot.. man, fun times. Makes me want to move back there, actually.

Greensboro had kind of a happening punk scene in the 80s, but not much these days. I've played one gig in Greensboro (and lots of others across the state) in the last ten years or so and it was really depressing. The few people I know who have lived there in recent years have hated it. I've recorded maybe six or eight bands from Greensboro in the last five years and I'm almost two hours away.

The advantage that Greensboro's got (aside from The Yum Yum) is that it's relatively close to the Triangle and there's a pretty good music scene there.

There are several great studios around the state, my favorite being Mitch Easter's Fildelitorium, which is close to Greensboro. Rick Miler's Kudzu Ranch in Mebane (closer to Chapel Hill) is cool, as is Wes Lachot's Overdub Lane in Durham. I can't think of one long-standing studio in Greensboro that I can name.

If I were gonna move to NC and had any interest in music, Greensboro is quite possibly the last city of any size I'd consider moving to.

Of course, last time I was in Savannah, I almost walked right into a gunfight, so I might choose Greensboro over Savannah if I had to.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Wow, complete opposite of my experience, and ive been a carolina resident all my life. Maybe the "punk" scene isn't happening, but the music scene is healthy. a very healthy classical scene too...wonder why the people "hated it" and where they came from?? A lot of northerners or people who are used to being in big cities sometimes hate the smaller southern towns, but it has nothing to do with the potential of the town, and more to do with their comfort zone/prejudices. As someone who grew up on a farm and has lived all over Europe and the US, I Can say without any shred of doubt that there is nothing sucky about the Greensboro music scene, or the town itself..unless, you , like Mr. Lugo, are used to the big city pace and life.


This interests me a great deal, seriously because it is the polar opposite experience from mine.

you also have MERLEFEST, which is one of the largest Bluegrass/Roots music festivals in the country only an hour or so away in Wilkesboro.

MerleFest 2011

if nothing else, it is in a strategic location from the cities that are "commonly known" as the big music cities in NC.

to the OP..is your friend going to school there or?

Going there for work. I may be interested in it as well :-)

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone using Gearslutz

I don't get the assumption that people who make music in major markets for money don't do it for the love of it. First off IMO just because you're trying to go all the way doesn't make you not heartfelt. I don't believe that. As for me growing up my father owned a car dealership I could have gone into his business and been rich today instead I moved to LA when I was a kid and lived in my can for a looooong time! Talk about committed and heartfelt. I don't live where I grew up, my family's 3000 miles away and I still struggle and I did it all for music!

James, I agree wholeheartedley, but living in your can??? That must have been horrendous!!! :-D


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Honestly it was fun. Winter was rough, LA gets cold at night but it was 1986 LA was mecca if you were a rocker. So it was cheap beer, leather jackets, eye liner and Aquanet. lol Good times, miss'em sometimes. Music has lost some of it's fun imo. People talk **** about the 80's but we had the time of our lives. I crashed at Axl Rose's for a while, Huodini's mansion, woke up on the beach watching the sunrise, partied with all my heros, played quarters with David Lee Roth, took guitar lessons from Paul Gilbert, fun stuff. For a kid from Pompano Beach Florida it was heaven. Reality was a million miles away.

I didn't mean that the way it came off, James. My apologies. Did not mean to offend you.

I just meant to say that the focus is different, and in major markets you have a lot of people trying to fit into an image or a target market,, pressure to write the "big hits" get radio play, get placements, etc..., commercial success.. you know, "making it". In a lot of small communities, there are no illusions of any of that. free from commercial pressure there is a lot more variety, and I dare say artistic integrity(im not referring to you because you are obviously passionate about what you do) .

Commercial success in my mind means that someone is very good at adapting to what the mass market/record company/media mogul suits want, being shoehorned into an image or "box". Nothing inherently wrong with that....and i know that folks are passionate and driven in the big markets, but in so many cases there doesn't seem to be much substance...thats to be expected when expression is throttled for monetary considerations(of course there are exceptions...the Black Keys being one, Arcade Fire and Wilco being others)

but that's just the nature of the beast I guess...you hear all the time about artists paying the record company pipers so that they can "Finally make the records THEY want to make"...

thats where my vote for Greensboro came from.... it is a small place, but full of insanely talented people. There is no music marketing machine or people trying to get their songs placed(or not as much). you have a school there with a great music program and another school a few miles away with the best music school in the state.... a tight knit community of musicians who don't have any illusions about "making it" commercially...and when a band has no pressure like that to deal with, the music tends to be better, much, much better( im sure there are exceptions) Garges said there weren't any "long standing studios"...but these days that doesn't really mean much. I actually see that as an *opportunity*!! Big Facilities are becoming less and less important(although talent is in high demand). There are no doubt plenty of people wanting to be recorded there...as is normal when you have a music university(UNCG and NC School of the Arts) town.

I prefer the small scenes, the DIYs, the underground. A fine example of a person that does well occupying this "underground" world is Silver Sonya/Chad. He had some fantastic thoughts on this. Theres a whole world out there, a separate economy/ecosystem for those that live outside of the "commercial machine"
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/5735409-post121.html

again, James, my apologies if I came off the wrong way. I did not mean to imply that you were not passionate or anything like that. You are obviously an extremely motivated guy, passionate about music. you said it best when you said that the two worlds are "apples and oranges"

I grew up in NC and go back quite often now.

Over all it is a very nice market for music. It also has a lot of work for video and corporate stuff.

One thing you do have to be aware of is you probably need to be more versatile in working with different styles of music. While major markets like LA tend to gravitate toward a limited style of music, in markets like NC you will get every style on a regular basis.

I lived in Raleigh and went to the NC Scool of the Arts in Winston-Salem. It takes less time to drive between any of those places than it does from the Valley to LAX.

The final thing I will say, I've never known anyone that lived in NC who didn't love it. It's a special place.

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Cool man, School of the Arts alum. That is awesome.

1976. Go Pickles!

thats the year before I was born.

That's back when the school was 7th grade through collage and had about 500 students total. It was a great time. I was just back last year. Nothing but the best memories.

No prob Teddy. I love NC, I'm there a few times a year. I want to live there someday. My in-laws have a beautiful life in Gibsonville. You ever go to Sound Pure in Durham? My cousin works there as an engineer and session guitarist.

i've been producing artists in raleigh and greensboro for a few years now, but i've been playing clubs here since i was 14. the music is great, the people are amazing, and the vibe is great...however it is not a major music market, so if you want to make real money you may need to relocate as i prob will be at some point. check out underground sound in greensboro...great room/gear!

Underground Sound Recording Studio Greensboro NC

that being said, it is a great launchpad.