MECA Godzilla

This weekend has marked the first annual MECA Conference here in Chicago. Not that you would know it. A cursory search of the Tribune and Sun-Times websites yields one quasi-result tied to a world music column. New City and the Reader turned up nothing. If a four-night industry confab falls in the woods, and there's no one covering it, has it actually happened?

Large-scale music conferences in Chicago have a long, storied tradition of massive failure. First, at least in my memory, was the very short-lived Midwest Music Conference back in the very early nineties. That one may have lasted two years. Then it was the Independent Label Festival, vowing to use a not-for-profit model as a vehicle for success. Not only did it not last, but there was ultimately a rising chorus of venom and criticism towards it's founder, Leo Lastre. Whether it was justified, I can't really speak to, as the ILF prided itself on being perhaps a more "cozy" festival, and therefore never really got on my radar.

Next up on the docket was, and is, MOBfest, which is very little more than it's head honcho inviting talent scouts to see bands he either manages or knows well. Booking of showcases is very clearly based more on degrees of separation than on quality. The insularity and cliquishness, and ultimate ineffectiveness, of the effort would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Two out of three of these -- and maybe the MMC as well -- have had deep-seated personality conflicts working against a broader sense of unity for the "Chicago music scene," and this is one of several reasons none of these festivals have ever been successful. On the one hand, there are clubs that want no part of what they see as ego-fueling exercises for people they don't like. On the other hand, and this is something I've heard a number of times from those very same music critics who have been absolutely silent on MECA this week, many of the higher profile clubs can book better shows on their own than the conferences can afford them, so why bother? What makes this slate of shows any different than any other weekend in Chicago?

That's a horribly debiliating and self-serving mindset, and yet emblematic of the deep divisions in the local scene. Nearly everyone in Chicago has seen the kind of atmosphere generated in Austin for South by Southwest -- mostly because the appeal of somewhere warm and sunny and musically rich in March in Chicago is irresistable in the absolute -- and yet we actively resist any sort of recreation of that vibe at home.

ChicagoGigs.com, who are the sponsors of MECA, looked like they were in a good position to help change that, as the website has created lots of what appear to be good relationships with a lot of clubs. Apparently, though, it's not quite enough, as Metro, Hideout, Martyr's, Double Door and several other key clubs either chose not to participate or only gave up a fraction of the weekend to the festival. More disturbing is the abject lack of press. Did MECA drop the ball on this, or is it active resistance on the part of the local media? I could see maybe The Reader and New City seeing ChicagoGigs.com as a threat to their business on some level, but that doesn't explain the silence of the major dailies.

Then again, it's only the first year of this thing. MECA looks like they've put a lot of positive effort in, and the next step is clearly to get the major players to sit down together and find out what it will take to get them behind this thing, otherwise it's doomed to repeat the failures of the cons that have come before.