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Who Really Controls The Rock and Roll Farm?
Topics: Bakersfield, Bakotopia, Bakotunes, music, Benham, arts, Events, Conspiracy, Lords, Belardes, Buck, Bakotopia.com, podcasts
Posted by thenovelist Wed Sep 6, 2006 18:16:44 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments You remember the old Rock and Roll Farm article from February, 2005? I wrote about the pizza-a-go-go, A.K.A. Jerry’s Pizza, A.K.A. The Rock and Roll Farm:

…now having become a punk hardcore metal frenetic zone where bands pay to play, and the young, like cockroaches scamper in to feel the music pitching them in a torrent that makes them ignore the slovenliness. They embrace Jerry’s as some kind of rebellious Bakersfield punk empire right in the heart of copland. …Jerry’s farm, its machinery was churning them out as fast as it could.

Has Jerry’s Pizza changed? Nate “The Baseball Bat of Poor Consciousness” Berg is back, sort of. His buddy Jon Coley, The Kerouac of Kmart is in… and the Rock and Roll Farm is churning bands out as fast as mini-pepperoni pizzas. I hear good and bad about Jerry’s, with the good being a reputation as a historic venue. The bad is all hearsay in treatment of bands and how the police never seem to muddle in their affairs. I haven’t been to a show there in a while but I know the crowds do show up… Jerry’s, in effect, stays open as an all-ages venue for live music.

Is that a big deal?

It is a big deal to stay open if you stop to think someone or some group might be bent on shutting many of the doors to the Bakersfield music scene. Recently, 50 people may have lost jobs at the Barbecue Factory because of a recent shut down of Club Vertigo in its banquet room. What about Street Klothes next to Jerry’s Pizza? They were told to halt any music and art shows in their venue because they had folks in their basement area. Ouch. Did they have a license? Was such deemed a fire hazard, or a safety hazard? And, have local cops been out to kick any so-called riff raff from the front of Street Klothes during daylight hours? You got it. That’s what I was told by the owner when I walked in one sunny summer afternoon. Why? I won’t even suggest that Jerry’s Pizza gets special treatment… maybe they just have all the required licenses. Or maybe they feed the city council with extra cheesy pizza…

Did you get your new city slogan collectible coffee mug?

Is keeping the downtown Bakersfield music scene vibrant simply about safety issues, health issues, or about cabaret licenses? Or, is the current shutting of doors to a vibrant Bakersfield music scene an orchestrated attack by the city council upon potentially violent clubs, Bakersfield music itself, or both? Or neither? Certainly Azuls and Kosmos have had no live bands perform because of a so-called lack of a cabaret license.

Why is it that some venues get policed while others seem to get away with… murder? Are we just talking speeding tickets here? Just catch a few, the rest will learn. Maybe the shutting down of the Bakersfield music scene is a war between cops and gangs with hard-working local musicians and businesses caught in the crossfire.

I remember sitting with Jimmy the Greek from Kosmos several months back. He was angry. I was sitting in a booth chowing down on an Ortega Burger when he made himself at home across from me... (Read the full article)

(Get more on nlbelardes.com)

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