MAMAView: Roaring into a New Decade
By Middagh Goodwin
It is quite hard to believe that it is the year 2020. It seems like just yesterday that many of us were celebrating a new century or were worried about Y2K. I like the rest of you do not know what the next decade has in store for us but I do know if we do not work together and support each other it will not be what it could be. I hope we will be entering a new era a 21st-century roaring twenties.
I am urging everyone in this New Year to at the very least share your fellow artist’s events, make plans to go out to them and to bring a friend or two. We all need to take ownership of our arts community for it to thrive. Over the last decade, we have lost some key live music venues, Fat Cat, Hero’s, Plea for Peace and annual events like X-Fest are no more. If we want to see new venues open and events to come back or new ones to grow we need to all support what we have. We need to show that there is a market for live independent music in Modesto and the 209. This year make a resolution to go out and support the art. Buy some merchandise, create a podcast, zine or maybe a label and put out a compilation of your favorite band. Help spread the word about your favorite musicians any way you can think of.
I have been spinning local music on KCBP 95.5 FM our local community radio station since the end of November, tune in to Modesto Area Music, weekly, Monday 5 pm, Friday 9 pm, and Saturday at 6 pm. Several artists are in regular rotation on the station as well. If you are interested in having your music played email beathappybooking@gmail.com and musickcbp@gmail.com. Hopefully, with regular airplay, we can help build our local music scene.
Looking forward to some great events coming up this year booked by the MAMAs, Music in the Plaza, PatioFest, the Sampler, the local stage at the Stanislaus County Fair and bringing back Acoustic Christmas to the State Theatre. We hope to see you at these and many other events in the coming year.
