MY NAME IS COREY BELL AND I AM A LOVER OF LIVE MUSIC
I credit my love of music to my friends, my community, my peers, my teachers…but most of all, I love music because my parents love music. They shared their albums with my sister and me from a young age, and we were hooked. They showed us the magical fantasy of the Beatles, the bizzaro beauty of David Bowie, the hammer and shriek of Led Zeppelin. We experienced heartbreak in the songs of the great songwriters: Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Edgar Winter, Harry Nilsson. We tasted acceptance in the lunatic calm of David Byrne and lamented the mundane in the profound emptiness of Brian Eno’s ambient works. Brian May unknowingly taught us how to air-guitar, and Freddie Mercury showed us courage and perseverance that I still go back to on rougher days.
MY STORY
Live music didn’t really come into my life until I was in high school. Sure, there were the odd concerts I would attend with family members here and there before then—mostly stuff I had never heard of and was beyond my youthful attention span. In high school I befriended a girl who was part of the Mohegan tribe, and could score free seats to shows at the Mohegan Sun Arena, the large concert space at the nearby casino on the Mohegan reservation. I would go see things with her, and sometimes she would hook me up with tickets for myself. One of those times, my Dad and I went to see the Moody Blues, a band he has always loved for their lengthy narratives and nuanced use of different instruments. This was a huge moment for me in terms of our relationship as father and son, and became somewhat of a touchstone that I can look back on with much delight. Something about that night ignited a flame within me that burns brightly to this day.
When I moved to New York City for college, my concert outings became more and more frequent. By the year 2007 rolled around, and I was living a somewhat stagnant, carefree existence, I began hanging out with people who adored live music and wanted to share their knowledge with me. I started going to festivals and seeing dozens of different acts over the course of several days, collecting new favorites along the way through these seemingly limitless opportunities for discovery. Over the course of the next three years, the quantifiable amount of shows I had seen had reached triple digits. This was way more than a hobby; it had become a significant part of my life. It was an obsession, an addiction I could not and would not shake.
Living in New Orleans for several years following my time in New York opened me up to the sheer amount of local bands that exist. Since at the time New Orleans was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s ravenous destruction, only a handful of venues in the city could cater to the moderately successful bands and artists that dominated disk space on my iPod and computer, so the prospects of seeing one of these acts were somewhat few and far between. However, all over New Orleans were small hole-in-the-wall venues that had music every night: jazz clubs on Frenchmen, bar stages like at the Banks St. Bar, even street corners in the Quarter always had some sort of uber-talented musician or group of musicians playing their hearts out whenever they could. These venues were always alive with people, all sharing in the experience of connecting with the very heartbeat of their city. Every place was special, even the ones that would sometimes book a “foreign” act I wanted to see. Even the House of Blues—which is a chain of restaurant/venue hybrids--in New Orleans is unique in its own, New Orleans-y way. At no point while at the many shows I caught at the HoB did I ever feel like I was at a franchise of some national company; it felt like New Orleans and that’s all that mattered.
SONIC HIGHWAYS
When I was in my undergraduate program, I wrote a thesis entitled “Sonic Highways: Musical Immersion on the Roads of America,” in which I explored the way music can interact with—and ultimately enhance—the experience of driving a car along certain roads (or types of roads) that boast natural beauty as their main environment, rather than empty miles of concrete and metal signposts. I noticed that these relationships are drawn between the self and two types of spaces: the space within the car, a machine of power that you are propelling forward with some sort of purpose; and the greater space outside the vehicle, the space being travelled through. I’ve now realized the same relationships can be explored regarding actual venues: between the viewer and the space of the venue itself, and between the viewer and the city that it’s located within—its cultures, its people, its climate…they all play a role in how one experiences live music; it isn’t just about the place itself.
I’m a curator at heart. I find joy and fulfillment in shaping experiences for others so they might get the most of it as they can. Those brave enough to open a venue and run it efficiently are simply trying to do the same thing, by taking something at their disposal—a room, a theatre, an open field—and turning it into something that brings people joy, through the power of live music. The goal of this project is to find these people and explore the places they curate for the public. Their history, their idiosyncrasies, their place in the macrocosm of their home city…I want to know what makes them tick. What makes these places so special to so many? I want to share the best of what all these venues have to offer; from the hard data to the philosophical impact they have upon those who go there. I want to share these spaces with you, so that you may end up experiencing them yourselves one day.
YOU CAN BE STAGE TRAVELER TOO
So let me take you on this journey with me as I travel the globe in search of the special places where music is breathed into life. Together, we’ll meet the people behind the scenes running the show, the talent that comes to play, and the passionate people that allow for all of this to happen – the fans. Grab your dancing shoes and hop in – you can be a Stage Traveler too.
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