I'm a bit too fried to write much about our press conference today on the steps of City Hall. But just wanted to say that we had a nice turnout of about 40 musicians. We read our petition to the press and Marc Ribot, Ned Rothenberg, Patricia Parker, and Cooper-Moore all spoke.

Photo by Jason Gross

Alan J. Gerson, City Council Representative for District 1, sponsored our conference on the steps of City Hall, and releeased the following statement:

The closing of Tonic is a call to action for all of us who have been fighting for the survival of creative New York, and a wake up call to those who have not yet engaged in what now amounts to an existential struggle for New York City’s identity in the face of the new global urban competitiveness. I challenge other elected officials to come to the table on the issue of public interventions to save artistic creation in NYC. The cultural value chain runs on a matrix from production to consumption and from low end to high end with intersecting vectors of non-profit and commercial contracts. Until we deal with this reality and create some market buffers, we will continue to suffer this “market failure” and we will have allowed the total collapse of what used to be a world-class professional circuit of venues for new jazz and alternative and avant-garde music.

He will be proposing legislation to give music venues tax abatements; and wants to organize a summit meeting (with the help of State Representative Martin Cooper) about other legislative ways the City and State can help our experimental music scene.

I'll try to write more later -- until then, read the stories that have been published in:

Thursday's Newsday, Wednesday's AM New York, Wednesday's Metro NY,
The New York Times Story by Nate Chinen, 4-16-07
And European press is covering this as well. There is a story in the Swiss newspaper NZZ,
in the magazine Jazz Thing and one in the Berliner Zeitung...
Plus blog entries at:
The Village Voice
The Villager
Bob Arihood's Blog - Neither More Nor Less
The Gothamist
William Avery Hudson's Blog
TimeOutNY blog by Mike Wolf
Three entries from BrooklynVegan are here , here and here.
Curbed Blog
New York Observer Blog
New York Magazine's Daily blog