Make Charlotte Weird: Are you the founder of Queen City Independent? If so, when did you found it and what was your motivation?

Brian McKinney: I co-founded Queen City Independent with Brice Griffin. I was starting to do some record reviews for Creative Loafing and wanted to put a letter up front because Charlotte's music scene really confused me. I didn't know where the cool kids hung out and I was trying to start a band. I basically said I thought Charlotte was really messed up and didn't see much of a scene happening. I grew up in New Hampshire and Connecticut and had always been involved in some kind of music scene. Brice read my letter and had a similar view, so she sent me a message through this archaic site called Friendster. We talked about some shtuff and decided to start booking some shows.

MCW: So why did you move to Charlotte in the first place?

Brian: Well, I spent four years in the Marine Corps over in Jacksonville and I'd really liked my visits to Chapel Hill, Greensboro and Charlotte, so when I started rekindling an old flame and she happened to be in Charlotte teaching, I changed my plans of moving back to New Haven, CT and here I am.

MCW: Ah, the love angle. That's cool. What does Queen City Independent bring to Charlotte's cultural scene?

Brian: Queen City Independent tries to bring a lot to the cultural scene. I've learned a lot about Charlotte in the past two years and I've got to say that it's got some serious ups and some serious downs. We try to bring artists and musicians to Charlotte that normally wouldn't come here, who'd instead go to Athens, Asheville or Chapel Hill. We book the bands at local clubs and promote the shows. We've been embarrassed a few times though. I don't think people in Charlotte have access to any tomb of amazingness - I mean, we had less than 50 people come see Smog, we had 50 people come see Fruit Bats with Rogue Wave and 50 for Elf Power. Probably the same 50 people. They need to tell their friends to tell their friends. Any other city in the country is tripling those attendance numbers, at least. I try to expose these fantastic artists as best as possible, but I usually only have a month or two to do so. If more people joined our mailing list and frequented our website and if more people started checking out venue calendars, then we might be going somewhere.

Queen City Independent is a grassroots organization that loves creative partnerships. We've gone through some changes over the year we've been active. We've taken on some support by the way of local music entheusiasts Ryan Miller and David Kiser. Also in the works are some expansions in the services that Queen City Independent offers. We're going to begin doing national tour booking for local and national bands and we're creating a loose alliance with an emerging PR company to provide full artist support. We plan on unrolling that service by April. We love music and we're interested in doing everything we can to support Charlotte and the arts in general. Money's the least of our motivations. If you saw our balance sheets you'd cry. RED RED RED! Ha ha. But we love people and if anyone has anything to offer or needs any help that we can offer, then we're all about it.

Brian McKinney, Founder
Queen City Independent
4630E Simsbury Rd
Charlotte, NC 28226
914.882.0268

2/27/06