Joe Shanahan, owner, Metro

“The mission [at Metro] hasn’t changed since 1982: It’s about new, emerging artists. But the idea is, how do we continue to bring young, emerging, exciting artists to Chicago and have them play here? [In regard to] the foraging of the musical landscape, technology is certainly part of the future. MySpace has become a veritable A&R [Artist & Repertoire] resource for undiscovered artists, maybe even taking the place of the small independent label. With online radio…we’ve had shows at Metro [presented] by KCRW in Santa Monica [which streams its shows at kcrw.com]. Here we are in Chicago, and none of the traditional radio stations were playing this band, and we found out KCRW was interested [in presenting the show] because the band was on their playlist at the time. That phenomenon is only going to get larger. And we’ve gone into business with a company from England that’s streaming the Smart Bar DJ sets on a weekly basis. We talk about local and regional and national [talent], but it’s really becoming a global community.”