Also, this entire endeavor sounds like a multimedia fit to me: “Bands will book space to launch their tour, record tracks, and commission music videos. Television and web platforms will follow, with channels like VH-1, CMT, BET and MTV coming in to shoot “behind the scenes” and “unplugged” footage.”

From the AFS Persistence of Vision journal on 6/12 - “Soundcheck Austin is a new Austin business founded by the owners of Soundcheck Nashville. Soundcheck Nashville serves the 300 bands that call Nashville home, offering full production rehearsal, tour prep services, set and equipment storage, cartage and backline.”

“Full production rehearsal, tour prep services, set and equipment storage, cartage and backline” are not services allowed under the proposed council recommendation.

The problem here is that there are already companies here in Austin that offer the above services and who have never received any “below market value” rent or any other kind of financial support from the city. The idea that the city is offering ANY any incentive to bring an out of state company to Austin to directly compete with established, self supported taxpaying companies will be meet with a great deal of criticism and resistance.

If Soundcheck wants to enter the Austin market on a level playing field by buying or leasing their own facility at market prices, build or finish out a facility at their own expense, advertise and bid on jobs, fine.

As an employee of one of the companies that will suffer from Soundcheck’s favored status, you can be assured that I’ll be at any city council meeting with even a hint of AFS or Soundcheck activity to voice my opposition.

California and New York are both Privilege-To-Work states, which facilitates footdragging by those who wish to remain Luddites. Texas being a Right-To-Work state, provides a freer regulatory environment to those who wish to cross the traditional media boundaries, that arose when each major medium used an entirely different technology to convey the artistic experience to an audience.

I applaud the directors of AFS for having the foresight to create a new-business incubator, and to attract professional audio recording engineers, to the 51st Street campus. This can only improve the already-wonderful community of independent film and music that has evolved, organically, from the efforts of hundreds of Austinites who create music and motion pictures, and the many thousands of Austinites who relish the variety of artistic work product near to hand. Having personally watched Michigan repeat the same set of blunders made by the German government 20 years ago, when it tried to create an animation industry by throwing money at people, I am confident that Michigan’s unsustainable 45 percent production credit will fail to create a local film industry. I am equally confident that Austin’s homegrown film and music industries will continue to succeed, even as major players in New York and LA struggle through rough financial times. Why? People don’t come to Austin for money. They come to work with the folks who’ve made the Austin artistic community what it is today, and will be tomorrow.

A lot of those folks, like me, belong to AFS, and I’m proud as punch to see this kind of foresight and planning coming out of our Board.

Thank you kindly!