A venue is a room that charges admission. That is all it is. Four walls and a door with a price on it. The music happens inside the walls and the people outside the walls cannot hear it unless they pay. That is the deal. The venue provides the room. The performer provides the sound. The audience provides the money. And at the end of the night the venue takes its cut and the performer takes what is left and the audience takes the memory.

I played every venue in New York City and I played no venue in New York City. I played CBGB before it was famous. I played Max's Kansas City before it was a legend. I played the Fillmore East on the same stage as Hendrix. But the venue I played the most was the corner of MacDougal and West Third and that venue has no door and no cover charge and no bouncer and no two-drink minimum. The best venue in the world is the one with no walls.

Here is the problem with venues. Venues close. CBGB closed. Max's closed. The Fillmore closed. The Bottom Line closed. Every room I ever played that had a landlord eventually lost to the landlord. The rent goes up and the music goes out and the room becomes a pharmacy or a bank or a smoothie shop. But the corner of MacDougal and West Third is still there. You cannot close a street corner. You cannot raise the rent on a sidewalk. The city has tried. The cops have tried. The landlords have tried. The corner does not close.

Every musician in the world is looking for a venue. They are looking for a room with a stage and a PA and a sound guy and an audience. I spent fifty years trying to tell them the venue is already under their feet. The sidewalk is the stage. The traffic is the PA. The strangers are the audience. The hat is the box office. You do not need a venue. You need a corner and something to say.

The internet is the biggest venue ever built and it has the same problem as every other venue. Somebody owns the room. Somebody charges admission. Somebody takes a cut. The only difference is the landlord is an algorithm and the rent is your data and the bouncer is a content policy. But the corner is still free. The corner has always been free. I played the cheapest venue in the world for fifty years and I never paid a cent of rent.

See also: The Landlord — when the rent goes up the art goes out. CBGB Is a Clothing Store — the room that became a t-shirt. The Back Room at Max's — everybody was there and nobody could afford to be. The Demo — you cannot mail a street corner to a record label. The Accident — every great room in music history was an accident. The Curtain Call — the encore is for buildings. The street is forever. The Flyer — the flyer economy was an economy of nerve. Dance Floor — the only room where everybody agrees without saying a word. Doorman — the person who decides whether you get past the door. Marquee — the name on the front of the building.