Final Magazine Article

Music in San Jose? Yes, really!

(Point 3's Mark Heaps)

San Jose, California is known for a number of things: wealth, technology, and weather. One thing that it isn’t particularly known for? Music. The Silicon Valley, for all of its amenities and perks, loses out to more glitzy, glamorous San Francisco in that department. Not that there aren’t plenty of bands in San Jose. It's just that it isn't easy to really make it here.

May, 2009’s “Left Coast Live” brought the music: over 80 local and regional bands played throughout the San Jose downtown area in dozens of venues, turning what is often a subdued night scene into a lively bash of creativity, expression and noise.

The festival was organized by a real cross-section of musicians and music lovers frustrated at the lack of a cohesive movement in the San Jose area. They held a series of meetings over the last few years, coming together to motivate and mobilize local musicians and connect them with venues, both extant and new. The result was this year's Left Coast Live, a step in the right direction.

One of the bands featured was Point 3, a local rock act fronted by Mark Heaps, who had labored long and hard to chase his dream in San Jose. He knows the musical climate here, and the uphill climb to rise to prominence. He says, “It's actually a really amazing scene that is unfortunately surrounded by a social type that finds music fairly disposable.” Heaps characterizes the area as being distracted by its technology, saying that, “people are less interested in the act of seeking out new music by going to live shows, when they can just download music.”

Even so, the music scene in San Jose is one that is close-knit, and can be quite competitive, perhaps because of the dynamics involved. Heaps recalls networking extensively with people, attending many shows and putting his name out there with people already playing. He says that reputation is “everything in a small scene” but that success can be found “if you've got something to offer and you do something that is positively remembered.”

Left Coast Live is not the final destination for San Jose’s music scene. What it represents is a new take, hopefully an invigorating shot in the arm that will convince restaurant and bar owners that live music can bring in people. It hopes also to send a message to bands that there are places to play. Heaps says that “it's going to take a few years for it to reach its true potential. But considering we've done nothing like this in 5 or more years, I'll take whatever we can get.”

Maybe there will be somebody else there with a new band, trying to get his attention.