INDEPENDENT VENUES NEED OUR HELP
By Carly Tagen-Dye
I still find myself flipping through memories of live music, desperate to relive them, to hold onto them with an adamant ferocity.
If I shut my eyes and listen close—after pressing play on a shaky iPhone video from December—I’m back at Webster Hall in New York City at the end of my fall semester. I’m seeing Chicago rock band Twin Peaks for the first time, and I’m trapped against a rickety barricade, feeling songs I’ve screamed along to for years on end ricocheting off my body. I click another video, and I’m whisked to early autumn nights on the Lower East Side, catching bands like the Weeks or Gymshorts at Mercury Lounge and Bowery Ballroom. Other times, I’m transported back to Brooklyn, under the disco balls at Elsewhere and Baby’s All Right, the tiny dive bars and hole-in-the-walls feeling more comfortable than claustrophobic. When I scroll through recordings from early June to late August, I’m trekking through my home turf in DC, spending the summer in a puddle of sweat in the basement of Songbyrd Record Cafe, or on the checkered floor at Black Cat, feeling as if I’d never left in the first place.
Live music—and all of the walls that house it—have been a staple of my free time, career aspirations in music journalism and wellbeing, no matter where I’ve lived. To say that COVID-19 has had a detrimental effect on those scenes would be the understatement of the century. The entire industry has been forced to shift gears, leaving artists and employees to scramble for income as best they can. We’ve all tuned in to Instagram live streams to watch our favorite bands bring some much-needed quarantine joy, but have also watched as these same artists have lost months worth of revenue from canceled shows, tours, and merch sales.
Most unfortunately, for concert venues, time is running out.
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) is a coalition that has been working tirelessly since the beginning of the pandemic to ensure protection for independent venues all around the country. A NIVA survey states that 90% of these buildings are at risk of closing if lockdown lasts for more than six months. We’re currently on the fourth.
Many music hotspots have been in the process of shutting their doors since March. Patrons of favorites like Austin’s Barracuda Club and Boston’s Great Scott, among others, have already had to say goodbye. Other legendary venues, like the Troubadour in Los Angeles and the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, are at risk of closing, too.
With these shutdowns already in place—as well as the likely situation where live events won’t happen until a coronavirus vaccine is discovered—NIVA is taking action. They’ve been calling on Congress to adjust the Paycheck Protection Program to cater more toward independent venues’ needs. This means, but is not limited to, providing loan forgiveness and tax credits for lost revenue, and offering coverage for salary/insurance benefits for venue employees. A group of 600 artists, ranging from Billie Eilish to Billy Joel, have signed a NIVA-approved letter to Congress, urging them to provide the necessary stimulus and aid that stages need to stay afloat. The coalition has also advocated for the bipartisan RESTART Act, which focuses on providing aid to businesses with low revenue due to the pandemic, and has gained support from major companies like Spotify and Universal Music Group.
Recently, after being hailed by NIVA, senators John Coryn and Amy Klobucher introduced the “Save Our Stages” Act, which would provide immediate relief for independent venues for up to six months. The act would ensure relief funds for “small independent venue operators, promoters, and talent reps,” as stated in an article by Rolling Stone, as well as include the possibility of supplemental grants that could pay for rent, mortgage, equipment and other administrative costs. As Klobucher states in the act’s press release, “This legislation would help ensure that small entertainment venues can continue to operate and serve our communities for generations to come.”
With these proposals in place, it’s now become our job, as music journalists, photographers and lovers, to urge our representatives to support these bills and proposals that might save the music houses we love. It’s become our job to advocate through email, letter-writing campaigns and social media. These closures are putting our people at risk—from our favorite bands and artists, to the people working behind the scenes to make their shows possible night after night.
If we don’t do what we can, independent venues will have to shut their doors permanently, even when arts and culture contributed $8.788 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product (as of March 2020). They’ll have to, even when the value of arts and culture to the U.S. economy is five times greater than the value of the agricultural sector. They’ll have to, even when the livelihood and history of so many cities will be at risk of disappearing; when creating more of our own concert-related memories might become a thing of the past.
Our independent music venues have always been there for us. Now, it’s our turn to be there for them.