Well, it truly feels like a million years since I last sat down to write anything even though it was only a week ago. I feels much more like an exhausted germophobe Odysseus now than when last we met in this column-space.
The coronavirus ravaging the world is deadly serious and it has been really crazy going from being a workaholic to wondering if it really is overkill to watch Into the Spider-Verse for the 11th time. It’s been maddening to see some people carelessly acting like nothing has changed, lollygagging in groups on the street or walking around ignoring distancing warnings, bringing kids to Target and not using gloves or masks or really any safety measures in public. My girlfriend Elizabeth, the psych folk musician Globelamp, has a fan in Italy who wrote us that photos of crowded American beaches and basketball courts we sent him made him literally throw up with dread for the people.
Obviously nearly everyone has hit hard by this. I’m pretty damn curious why there has been no rent relief but mortgage help for landlords in the works and more bank bailouts. Then again, there’s always been a disposable peasant class in this country who believe they are not in fact just so much cattle to the blithering idiot celebs singing “Imagine” out of key online from the comfort of their mansions after cutting in line for tests. I see very little difference between authoritarian Xi Jinping and incompetent Donald Trump in this dire moment. I would expand upon this point, but I’m too busy hoping some city idiots aren’t mass-vectoring area parks following their toxic exodus. We need a lot more Rashida Tlaib types and a lot less Rand Paul types, y’all.
Musicians and venues around the area have been for the most part decimated for the foreseeable future. While that is clearly better than the dipshittery of a band like The Stereophonics basically murdering people by holding huge concerts in the shamefully eugenics-lite approach of Boris Johnson’s U.K., it doesn’t mean artists and venues aren’t hurting right now. On top of everything else Kenny Rogers died and I had to see Dolly Parton really sad on Twitter. But on the good side, Neil Diamond’s acoustic livestream of “Sweet Caroline” was both funny and sweet.
Here in New York’s historic and sometimes hysteric first capital, the abrupt and complete cancelation of nightlife has made things catastrophically hard for working musicians.
“Basically overnight I went from fielding emails and texts about setting up shows for my bands Elk and Plutonian Nyborg to crickets,” says local hard rock guitarist Jesse Cunningham. “Everybody is in the same holding pattern. It’s just what we have to do. Definitely hit up your favorite band’s bandcamp and help them out, especially if they had to cancel a tour. That’s a huge financial hit.”
“This affects all of us. Whether you think this virus is real or a hoax, whether it’s now a political chess move for the red or blue, it affects us all the same,” says BSP doorman Andrew MacGregor. “To quote the prolific filmmakers behind ‘Alien vs. Predator,’ ‘No matter who wins, we lose.’ I’m hopeful that all venues will be an oasis for the world when this is over. Once that cabin fever sets in. I have a feeling venues will be the first place a lot of people will eventually seek refuge from the isolation when allowed again.”
“I’m lucky because I just took a job overseeing booking and promotion at Bearsville Theater, ahead of their spring re-opening … but if I had not had that opportunity, I would have really been screwed,” says premiere area indie booker Mike Amari. “I was independently presenting four shows this spring — some with multiple nights — and all four are canceled or postponing. This means I’m out whatever cash I already spent to promote it, and more importantly don’t get the income I was expecting — most of the shows were already sold out). I have deposits out — thousands of dollars — to these artists, which I now have to float ’till their rescheduled dates, which may be six months or more away. Again, I am more bummed about the lack of awesome shows than stressed about the financials, but that’s a privileged position to be in,” Amari said. “I feel for those who don’t have or are losing their safety nets. We all need to support those people right now. Donate food to shelters, check in on your friends — especially those with kids and elderly family in the area — and if you put money into the small local businesses that are losing weeks of income, please do it. I am afraid of the things we could lose in this flash depression.”
“I toured for many years so I feel terrible for all involved,” offers Cory Plump of Tubby’s. “I know how much time goes in to booking, how much money was spent paying for merch and just the general let down of canceling a tour.”
“I was in the process of launching an effort to promote an upcoming album, playing shows and made a video,” folk singer Shamsi Ruhe tells me. “I can’t finish b-roll for the video because of quarantine and the kids home from school. Album release party cancelled. Unable to work on songwriting project with Dean Jones, local Grammy winner. No timeline for when things will go back to normal, if that time ever comes.”
Join the family! 
