So I’m thinking of moving to Chicago for school, however I’ve been writing songs for a few years and would love to be in an area with a good scene. LA & NYC are extremely expensive, and I need to find a good middle ground.
I play dreampop & indie rock mainly. I’m hoping to be in an area where I can get experience playing and build some sort of fanbase. Is this possible?
I’ve heard a lot of people say that the music scene sucks, others say it’s really good… I’m not really sure what to believe.
So yeah, just want to accurately get a depiction of how it is.
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the only people who i’ve ever heard say the music scene here sucks are people who make zero effort to be involved in the scene. that said, it’s a big city and there a ton of different scenes, but mostly everybody ive met and worked with is super supportive and welcoming. i love it here 🫶🏼
genuinely really good, you gotta be involved and show up to these shows but there’s so much talent in chicago for real
It's the best in the country. Honestly. The high talent level and the low levels of elitism make it unbeatable. Plus, it's easy to get to a billion venues.
Our music scene is solid. In my experience, the bulk of the people who complain about it are the ones who don’t put in effort, don’t show up to shit, and/or don’t attempt to better their craft.
We have a lot of great independent venues of all sizes, a scene has a wide variety of sub-scenes for different genres, and a lot of people who are doing some pretty awesome DIY stuff.
If you end up here, go out to as many events as you can, network with others in the scene at events and online, go support local bands who interest you, talk to people who work at venues, get out to the open mics, etc. There’s something going on every night of the week here ranging from open mics and networking events to local shows of all genres - there truly is something for everyone here.
I literally run an underground venue and DIY music festival. The music scene is on FIRE here.
name?
Venue - My Place Ohio (lol yes, trust me)
Festival - Yardapalooza (in Forest Glen this year)
Holler over here if you ever want a country act.
Hey, any chance I could DM you about an opportunity?
Hit me!
It's great.
It’s great. As others said - if you don’t go to shows or try to have a sense of community, you’ll have a weird experience. Be involved and show up to shows and connect
If you’re into meeting other musicians, go to open mics like Artifact Events, Reggie’s, or Gallery Cabaret.
So many venues, so many bands. Sometimes hard to actually get ahold of the venues but that’s common anywhere I’d say. Definitely go to lots of shows and talk to people, you’ll most likely find your place and a great community to go along with it no matter what your music is
It’s great but in the last 5-8ish years we’ve had almost a dozen small-medium sized venues close down, roughly 150-250 cap rooms.
DIY scene is doing fine though and once you’ve gotten your chops and a decent following in that scene you can move onto the bigger rooms in legal venues.
Source: been a talent buyer for the last 10 years before pandemic hit
That’s great to hear. Do you think it’s a good place for people who are serious about music and building something?
Yea definitely! It’s the cheapest of the biggest cities to live in and still has a working class mentality which I think is important for musicians since they don’t exactly make much money.
Eventually when some acts get big enough they’ll move out to LA or NYC but whether or not they continue to make it as a musical in such high cost of living cities is a crapshoot. Plenty of those musicians are working hard all day doing grunt work in tangentially related music industry business stuff like working in studios, production, etc.
But if you’re trying to fully make it as a full time musician and get rich from it, that’s not going to happen for 99.99% of humanity. Even acts that get popular/famous don’t necessarily stay that way.
what’s your music name??? i’d love to check u out and maybe collab cuz we (my band and myself) plan to move out there too!!!
Awesome! Here — I’ve got some stuff on SoundCloud
I haven’t uploaded anything in a year honestly but I’ve been recording non stop… planning on releasing an EP soon
It’s the best in the country I think. You can find affordable rents in the city. You can’t say that about LA or NYC. That combined with the number of small venues makes it possible for lots of musicians to be here and hang out and learn from each other. If you’re new to the city, go to a local bar like Reeds and ask them about filling a slot. There are tons of places like that to get a start. Great scene