*caution* the # number of times I say "visalia" in this blog will bug you, sorry I just have to get it out of my sysetm*

So around 7AM this morning I get a text message from Aaron Gomes who runs sound'n'vision magazine and has booked some of the top indie acts in the country at The Cellar Door located on Main St. Visalia. It says...'dude,your on the front page of the Visalia Times Delta, with a big awesome photo'. So I'm thinking..."uhh, SWEET!" I take a look at the article and there's a quote right at the beginning from a Visalia native that says "pound for pound, Visalia has the best music scene of any city I've been to" Whats right next to this quote? a big picture of me rockin' out on the violin from my set at The Visalia-All Music Festival.Hey Visalia, I love you to but ....I'm From Fresno!! 1st and Belmont to be exact.
Sure, this Visalia Native's quote is a bit biased. To me though this begs the question, "where is this sort of attitude in Fresno?" . 70% of the time I only hear what we don't have, what we're missing, and that we need to unite more..instead of just supporting what we do have... like Visalia does.

In fact, many of the people that came up and talked to me after my set at VAM assumed I was from Visalia..and mentioned how proud they were to say our band was from their city. Well, you know what? thats cool with me! I'll be an honorary Visalian. People are so damn nice and supportive and they are interested in hearing new and fresh music instead of just "something with a good beat". I remember when I used to play in the Tulare County Symphony which held its concerts at The Fox Theater down there. It would be packed!!! I kept thinking how I'd never seen a small town support classical music so much. But the more I experience V-town, I realize this support crosses over to other genre's as well.

Now we are having something very similar coming up in Fresno. FUSE festival. There is going to be all local acts at 4 different venues, this is very similar to this years VAM which was a success. I really hope this does as well as VAM. This is a great idea that I think is gonna kick start something great. But as much as the bands are gonna try and pull people in from their own disctinctive crowds, ultimately we have to have a city that supports its music. Do we have that yet? I know we have pockets of really good people working hard to make this happen.

But I guess this is the million dollar question people have been asking for a long time, "what is it going to take?"