Derek Sitter

That's not a reasonable answer. How do you slow the "pace"? Limiting tourism funding won't stop people from moving here. People are escaping the big cities to their quaint mountain town that is quickly becoming a congested mess by overpriced homes and developers building at a record rate. Why not stop the building and developing? Building expensive new homes and hotels is only increasing the population with the wealthy. This will take a great deal of vision. Someone with experience with adapting an archaic infrastructure into something that is livable for a town this size. We're stacking homes and businesses on every plot of land they can find. Home developers are buying up all the land and stacking homes, condos, and apartments on as many tiny lots as they can. How are you going to stop that?

Some Bend neighbors want to use the music capital of the world as a model to follow for noise. However, the below article reveals complaints have risen 470%. Is that really the direction we want to go?

http://kut.org/post/map-austin-noise-compl…

"This is the "Citizen Kane" of giant monster movies. What a time to be alive." "...I realized I was watching one of the best movies of the year."??? This film is kind of fun and certainly an original vision from the very gifted director Vigalando, but underneath all that surface satire and pretentious social commentary, this film is just another entertaining popcorn movie. Even mentioning "Citizen Kane" and "best film" in this review leads me to believe you need to lay off the MSG and THC and go back and watch "Jaws", "The Host", "Alien", "King Kong", "Troll Hunter". "The Thing", "Pan's Labyrinth", Hellboy", and dozens of other monster movies as well as looking at this year's "I Am Not Your Negro", "Logan", "Get Out", "The Lure," "I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore" and about ten other film's better than this quirky convoluted concoction. "Colossal" is good and fun, but seriously....please go refresh your memory on some of the best films ever made and educate yourself on cinema, before you write any more silly and insulting opinions on one of the most difficult crafts known to man. "Perfect" and "Hathaway" in the same sentence lost all the credibility at the beginning of the review anyway. You can do better than this.

I appreciate The Source and Emily Woodworth for publishing a letter regarding a "featured article" that certainly needed to be addressed. The community is better served when everyone is fairly covered without bias. Kudos to The Source Weekly and Emily for noting the rather large exclusions in the story. Excluding The Tower and VTP from the live theatre scene is much like excluding Deschutes and Boneyard from the brewery scene.

So, I have a little time here this morning and want to break this letter down from "Anonymous." Let's start at the beginning. For purposes of this response, let's just call the writer "A". "A" states he wants to "brace "A"self" for summer music events and "it's not easy." "A" begins negatively from the get-go. Then "A" continues with a list of local bands that are all very similar. "A" establishes a pretty specific taste in music with the list he provided. Although I have respect for those bands, he failed to mention the tremendous diversity of great bands in Bend that can SELL OUT many shows and have great followings. Wilderness, MOsley WOtta, Broken Down Guitars, Voodoo Highway, Elektrapod, All You All, Woebegone, Harley Bourbon, Billy Mickelson, The Cutmen, The Sweatband, The Kronk Men, 2nd Hand Soldiers, Strive Roots, Blackflowers Blacksun, Isles and new bands like Bravey Don, Corner Gospel Explosion, and Patrimony (excluding many for brevity). These local acts cover a great deal of musical real estate. Indie rock, hip-hop, jazz, metal, experimental, cello, reggae, funk, and straight up rock-n-roll. Eliminating these bands doesnt make "A" a "music lover", it actually makes him a "music hater" when he is so limited in his taste and environment. Then "A" goes off on some uninformed and unintelligible diatribe about having "sympathy" for local musicians because they are met with unappreciative and disrespectful audiences. "A"" calls audiences drunks, unconscious, ambivalent, oblivious, hyperactive kids, and labels parents as "new-age parenting" (whatever the fuck that means) that allow their children to actually play at events. God forbid a child has a good time when parents attend an event to have some fun and catch up with some friends. I can't speak for the other places that host live music (I hope they chime in), but I can tell you as the owner of Volcanic Theatre Pub, that I've never seen more respectful audiences at any venue than VTP. They come for the event. Period. Regardless of genre. They sit quietly for acts like Alejandro Escovedo, Wayne Hancock, Esmé Patterson, Joseph, The Sweet Lillies, Sweetwater String Band, North Country Bluegrass Band, and Crystal Bowersox (and many many more including the bands he mentioned) or rock out and dance to bands like LARRY AND HIS FLASK, Jelly Bread, Jerry Joseph, Black Flag, Turkuaz, Smokey Brights, Hillstomp, Rose's Pawn Shop, Orquesta Monte Calvo, and countless others. "A" end his first paragraph with "...they are as oblivious to the musicians as you are." Who the fuck is "you?" "A" continues with with listing venues that seem to feature pop/punk bands. Now, what the fuck is pop/punk? Does "A" mean pop AND punk? Is pop/punk a genre. If venues have limited themselves to this pop/punk genre, then no one stands a chance to grow a music scene in Bend at all. "A" moves on and states "...it's clear that Bend's entitled millennial class" brings their noise and noisy kids to the Westside to listen to music no matter who's appearing and hijack the event. Well, "A" seems to not get out much. VTP provides a very welcoming theatre with tremendous respect for the artists regardless of genre and home base. Local, regional, nat'l, and international acts have all performed at VTP with the utmost respect and has developed quite the reputation from major talent agencies and talent that also gives gifted local acts to be seen in front of hundreds of people to cultivate an audience here locally. Every musician understands the hard work involved in touring, writing music, and sometimes playing for small houses for little or no money. If you think that's wrong, just ask the hundreds of bands that take to the road for just the exposure to grow an audience in an area or city. I meet them every week and they are always humble, grateful, and respectful of the opportunity to play their music. "A' concludes his anonymous letter by stating that Central Oregon's growing population is an issue and there will be a need to satisfy a more 'mature" approach to entertainment. "A" signs "And all we can do is wish, Anonymous. Again, many places in town noticed the need for top-notch entertainment for the transpalnts starving for culture. VTP is one of them. The Tower, Les Schwab, and other venues have adapted to the growing population by booking more relevant progressive bands to meet Bend's changing demographic. VTP built a theatre for all things ART. This includes film screenings, professional theatre, burlesque, comedy, poetry, fundraisers, and of course music of all genres. "A", the sun does not rise and set in the crack of your ass. Your perfect world does not exist except in the confines of your home watching recorded episodes of Austin City Limits. There are almost 200K people in the Central Oregon metro area. All of these folks have different tastes in entertainment. Some indeed want to 'blow-off steam", dance, take their kids out, and visit with friends they have not seen in awhile during a music event...regardless of genre...even this thing you call pop/punk. Signed, You're a CHICKENSHIT PRETENTIOUS CURMUDGEON.