Independent Venue Week Launches Podcast Series 'Independent Venue Speak'

The team behind Independent Venue Week is proud to announce and release the first episode of its new podcast series, Independent Venue Speak. Like its namesake, Independent Venue Speak will celebrate the spirit of independence, through the vehicle of deep-diving conversations. The series will be hosted by a different guest artist each episode and focus on how a specific independent venue has shaped the narrative in their music community.

For its inaugural episode, Independent Venue Speak invited the Grammy-nominated, Brooklyn-based artist and songwriter J. Hoard to tell the tale of the iconic Lower East Side room Arlene's Grocery and its ties to The Lesson, a world-renowned hip-hop jam ensemble that forged an entire music culture. "To truly make Independent Venue Speak as incredible in execution as it was in concept, we enlisted the artists and venue operators to tell these stories themselves," says Cecilie Nielsen, Director of Special Projects at Marauder that, along with Independent Venue Speak, produces the annual Independent Venue Week event. "These stories are about extraordinary people who helped inspire prolific music movements and about the venues that offered these movements not just a stage, but a home."

There might be no better example of the symbiosis between independent venues and the musical communities they support than the story of The Lesson and Arlene's Grocery. "What's dope about The Lesson is that a lot of us were the people that nobody wanted to give a chance," explains J. Hoard. "So, we all took a chance on each other. Arlene's took a chance on us...Arlene's gave all of us the nutrients and the platform to do amazing things. What The Lesson did was literally ahead of its time."

The podcast launch comes just over one month shy of this year's Independent Venue Week celebration. Scheduled to occur from July 12 - July 18, this year's celebration of the spirit of independence is poised to be the largest yet, with over 200 venues from across 41 states and territories already confirmed to participate.