Musician Robert Ellis and a friend at Secret Stages. Photo by Rian Castillo.

I am pleased to announce that, in addition to my duties as editor of Weld Local (my favorite job ever), I am now contributing to You Hear This? — a new music blog in Birmingham created by Sam George, a Weld for Birmingham contributing writer and former Birmingham Weekly managing editor. I thought it appropriate to post a link to my piece about Secret Stages in this space. After all, the piece doesn’t really talk about music that much. It is more about the impact of such events on downtown, which certainly falls within one of our usual areas of concern at Weld Local. Congratulations to Sam on his new venture!