The December 17th issue of Second Supper, La Crosse's excellent arts and culture rag, was dedicated to the past, present, and future of the city's local music scene. Editor Adam Bissen put together an interesting cover story with quotes from local venue owners and bands about live music become such an integral part of La Crosse's culture and why it continues to thrive there, despite the usual setbacks:
The La Crosse music scene is not typical, not for a city our size and not for a city in the Midwest. On weekends — and even during the week — live bands play bars, clubs and cafes all over town, and almost all of the talent is locally grown. And it’s good!
Of course, our scene isn’t perfect. When it comes to booking touring bands with national relevance, we’re almost always left in the cold. That’s because our venues are small, and almost all of them are smoky bars without a big stage or a booming sound system. We have a pretty homogeneous population so you won’t find much world music, the electronica scene is buried and, despite its popularity, we have almost no local country bands (although some may view that as a positive).
What we do have in La Crosse is a plethora of traditional music, guitar players, rock bands, open jams, jazz cats, singer/songwriters, collaborations, experimentation, open-mindedness and bars. In our own Midwestern way, we accept everybody that wants to play, and sometimes it seems like everyone is in at least a couple of bands.
“I think compared to most cities this size, La Crosse smokes ‘em. No comparison — smokes ‘em,” said Dave Orr, who has been playing gigs in this town for over 20 years and has been in more bands than he can remember. “A lot of it is because this is a river town. A lot is because it’s a college town. It’s a bar town. It’s always had live music.”
True, back when the music world was more grounded and transportation costs were lower, La Crosse used to pull in big name acts as they made their way across the country. Elvis Presley famously performed at the Mary Sawyer Auditorium in 1954, and Louis Armstrong played Oktoberfest 10 years later. The La Crosse Center and the Warehouse booked a number of important bands in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but in the past decade — when the price of gas ratcheted up and record label support crumbled — midsize clubs in La Crosse closed and the big tour buses just rolled on by.
But instead of drying up into yet another small Midwest city without much music, La Crosse looked to within and a homegrown music scene began to blossom.
Read the entire article HERE
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