With The Bay Bridged heading down to South by Southwest this week, we thought we’d bring you a special episode of our weekly podcast. If SXSW is at least ostensibly about discovering the “next big thing” in independent music, there’s much more to music’s future than just finding new bands. Indeed, a healthy indie music scene requires an artist-friendly environment, meaning that music’s future is intertwined with the future of housing, the economy, health care, and other areas of life in the City of San Francisco. With that in mind, this week’s podcast features an interview with Jocelyn Kane, Deputy Director of the San Francisco Entertainment Commission.

The Commission is the City agency charged with tackling music as a public policy issue. In addition to the many other hats she wears and has worn in the Bay Area music community, as Deputy Director Jocelyn is in a unique position to discuss the issues that musicians have faced living and performing in San Francisco, the issues that they are likely to face in the future, and the City’s role in sustaining San Francisco independent music.

We spoke to Jocelyn last year in our studio about the Entertainment Commission’s role in City policy and the future of music in San Francisco. We are pleased to now air excerpts of that conversation, along with selections from our The Bay Bridged, Volume 1 and Volume 2 compilations. If you like the music, please consider picking up a copy of one of the compilations in our online store. Every purchase helps support the site.

If you’re heading to Texas, we hope to see you at the 2009 Bay Area Takeover party on Thursday, March 19th. If not, we’ll be blogging our Austin experiences all week here at TheBayBridged.com.

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