If you’ve come this far, you’ve probably already sniffed around here a bit. Created in April, 2007 as the online presence for a somewhat notorious, now discontinued music and politics e-zine, Lucid Culture is as much a resource for adventurous fans of music and the arts as it is a necessary antidote to the reactionary, lockstep conformity that pervades much of the blogosphere. We celebrate the kind of edgy creativity that was for centuries part of the public consciousness but has lately been relegated to the fringes by the entertainment-industrial complex and its evil twin, the corporate media. We intend to change that. If you’re really interested, here’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek interview with one of Lucid Culture’s founders.
And in the interest of being able to do even better, we’ll be undergoing some renovations here that will probably last until about the beginning of November, 2009 – until then, expect the pace here to be considerably slower than usual. We ask you to please bear with us while we gear up for better things and sharing more information with you.
One of our primary goals is to provide an accurate overview of what’s available to audiences in New York, this multicultural city we call home, without stooping to political correctness. We also endeavor to give equal time to women artists without being obvious about it. In addition to live music, we also regularly review cds, art shows and the occasional book, film or DVD. We haven’t yet used the blog to post recipes or cute cat pictures, but…you never know.
If you missed American Idol last night and are wondering who got the boot, you won’t find the answer here. Nor is this the place to go for the latest news on Aimee Mann or Gogol Bordello, wonderful as they both are. Lucid Culture is where you might discover the next Aimee Mann or Gogol Bordello before they get really popular. Like the music, art and artists we cover here, we fly pretty much under the radar. It gives us a lot of freedom and a certain exclusivity – you might even call it cachet. We’re happy to share it with you.
Lucid Culture offers four essential resources:
- A NYC live music calendar, which when we post it extends about five weeks ahead. We’ve been putting a new one up about once a month, with pretty much daily updates.
- Regular reviews of live shows and albums.
- A fairly comprehensive, detailed, constantly updated guide to New York area live music venues.
And a myspace page, which we encourage you to use as your own personal online listening room. As we continue to discover good bands and artists, we’ll add them to the page.
Why the focus on live music, as opposed to recordings? At this point in history, with the internet enabling independent artists to sell directly to the public, the major labels will soon be finished (at least as far as new product is concerned). Likewise, the majority of the indie labels will soon be toast (although there are a few specialty labels who seem certain to continue to thrive). For these reasons, live shows are where pretty much everything is happening right now. By all means, please continue to support your favorite independent bands and artists by buying their albums and merch, if you have the money, and going to their shows.
We also have access to an archive of over a thousand concert reviews dating from the early 1990s, most of which are previously unpublished, which we put up from time to time when we don’t have anything new to report (or to keep the front page fresh when contributors are late with their posts!).
If you’re a musician, artist, filmmaker, writer, etc. and you think you have something that might be up our alley, click here for review guidelines and contact info.
