The Portland Music Scene is stronger than it has been since the 70's when every club seemed to be filled with live music and fans everynight of the week. Portland has a diversified music community that is is stong in many genres:Rock, blues, hip-hop and jazz especially. A major element missing in this equation today is enough support from music fans in our community for our local artists. There are a core of people that consistantly support the local music scene but it's not enough to support all the great talent. There is a big disparity between the support and CD sales of Pink Martini in the community to anyones call on what the #2 artist would have. A couple Oregon artist a week may hit any of the local stores top 50 selling albums versus up to half the chart of say Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas can be Texas artists or former Texas artists. The help of the City (and the state) to help in elevating the presense of the music arts of Portland (and the state of Oregon) could go a long way to helping the success (and making a living) of the artist here. It could also help those involved in other areas in the field of music such as managers, bookers, sound people, etc. As Dave Allen mentions, it is an international landscape and artists do have opportunities to sell elsewhere with modern technologies...however, if we can help the artist on their homebase, it will give them a better opportunity to take their arts to the world.