Down On The Corner
• As the end of the year comes charging at us, many folks tend to fall into retrospective and/or contemplative moods and your humble editor is no different. At the end of the school year last spring, I wrapped up a non-music-related web project that both improved my web coding chops and earned some welcome cash. I set out to make progress on the total rebuild of the LMN website, which I have been holding out at in front of me as a carrot for longer than I care to think about.
I am happy to report I did make some progress on the rewrite, although not as much as I hoped, partly because I thought of several new features that suddenly seemed to be absolutely necessary. (Ever the fate of optimists). However, I intend to make it a New Year's resolution to have version 1.0 of the new site up and running by March. (Note that I am only vowing to make the resolution, thus giving myself lots of wiggle room.) My hope is that I can have it up and going before some new, gotta-have-it feature appears before then.
The part of the site that will take longer is uploading all of the old LMN content, some of which is saved in digital format and some not. I figure that it will be possible to go back to 1995 or so without too much trouble. So stay tuned.
• Our thanks go out to Don and Greg Underwood, owners of the 1954 American LaFrance fire engine used on the cover photo this month. We really appreciate it and, no, it's not an `evil engine.'
• Portlanders can now look forward to some live music up in their end of town, now that the old Nelligan Hall, 2210 Portland, has been spiffed up and reopened. They're adding music on Fridays and Saturdays. Musicians interested in playing there should check it out as well. Call John Owens at 290-9257.
• Musicians interested in playing at the 2006 5th Annual Six Flags Thirsty Melon Music Festival & Conference can sign up early and save a coupla bucks. Log onto http://thirstymelon.com/ for more info.
• Arriving over the same email address as the Thirsty Melon notice is a note from the Louisville Music Industry Alliance that membership renewals are due. Logon to http://lmiacentral.com/join.htm for more info.
• Speaking of LMIA, I ran into Executive Director Lesa Siebert at the MERF event at Headliners earlier in November. She was handling hosting duties. We commiserated about the declining fortunes of the music bidness, not to mention related organizations. What to do, what to do...
• For those of you unfamiliar with the Kentucky Arts Council, you should know that they have several different `arts opportunities' that are available to Kentucky artists (including musicians) that are handed out at various times during the year. You'll find the programs for individual artists here: http://artscouncil.ky.gov/indartprg.htm
• We get email from artists from all over the country, including a fairly small number from Lexington. Since the Lexington School for the Recording Arts has been kind enough to distribute 800-1000 copies of the paper there for the past several months, we would like to know if readers there are interested in hearing more about Lexington artists. Email your response to editor@louisvillemusicnews.net.
CODAS
• Kelty, John O., 74, died on November 12. He was a vocalist with the Kentucky Opera Association and the Motet Singers when that group sang for Nixon at the White House.