Save Our Stages and the Facts You Need to Know
What's up everybody? Save Our stages has finally hit Congress and they're taking it seriously. What's next? And what's it all about?
So before we dive into it, I always give an artist to the day, so let's talk about that. The artist of the day today is Cicada Rhythm, this awesome trio comes from Athens, Georgia, and their folk rock Americana sort of vibe really cuts through a lot of the noise in that world to me, these days. Andrea is an accomplished upright bass player graduating from Juilliard, as I understand, and David is an awesome blues rock guitar player, and their songwriting abilities together as a tandem really makes for a unique sound. My buddy Collin Agnew also plays drums and percussion in the band and also sings, so between the three of them, there's a lot going on and a lot of really rich threepart harmonies. One of my personal favorite songs that they've done over the years is called Dirty Hounds, that little clip in the beginning, it's like the little intro guitar riff that Dave plays before the song kicks in that particular music video of that song is really cool too, because they have some really nice aerial shots of their dog chasing them around through a big field... It's pretty cool.
The National Independent Venue Association are the ones responsible behind this whole movement.
Now, this particular organization makes up about 2000 different independent music venues, so these are not massive clubs, we're talking about... These are smaller venues. If you go to their website you'll find that their roster list of supporting artists is pretty ridiculous, basically every artist from the last 20 years or so, or even longer than that, longer than I've been alive. Everybody's on this list is basically what I'm trying to get at, we all know how important small music venues are. Some of my most favorite memories have been in a small room listening to a band just before they become something bigger, one of my favorite memories of this is a band called Snarky Puppy who came through a venue that I used to play regularly on Tuesdays with a bunch of friends in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was her first time there, and they had a offday on their tour and they wanted to just sit in at the jam session. I'll never forget the looks around the bar, as soon as they started playing their first note, realizing that this was a serious band that just happened to have a night off and wanted to play, they completely blew the doors off of the club and immediately became a sensation in Atlanta, by the time they had finished playing two or three more shows in Atlanta, they were selling out a 1200-seat Room once or twice every time they came to town, so obviously small rooms are important for growth for musicians. I just think it's really cool that artists are coming back and supporting these small venues and not necessarily forgetting about them, even though they're having really great careers and making lots of money.
Now with the effects of Covid 19 limiting attendees in a particular music venue, and then sometimes limited to them by less than half or more, it's really hard for anybody to make a living right now playing music, so it's very important that the US get on board with this and see the importance of art and music in our culture and figure out some sort of way to benefit these venues so that they're open... When all this is over, so far, saveourstages.com has sent over a million emails to 538 congressman, which equals 538 million emails requesting them to act now, the quote that seems to get thrown around a whole lot as if this continues another six months or even just a few more months, probably 90% of these businesses are not going to be able to afford to stay open and they're going to have to close, that would be detrimental to the process of musicians having a chance to craft their art.
This movement is asking for 10 billion.
So let's talk about where that 10 billion might go. The idea is that this would go to people like live venue operators, promoters, producers and talent representatives, it directs the SBA to basically give up to 45% of one's Gross from 2019 as a grant. It also gives the SBA to further give grants in the future to make sure that we don't have to keep coming back and asking for more money, and there are regulations as to how this money is to be spent, people who receive this money have to use it on things that has happened to their business based on covid-related deficiencies, so they could use the grants for things like rent, utilities, mortgage obligations, procurement payments to contractors, regular maintenance, administrative costs, taxes, operating leases, that's important, and capital expenditures that go with the local guidelines. The great thing about all of this is that it's not actually going to people like Live Nation and some of these other larger conglomerate is actually going to small business music venues, which is really cool. The reason why this bill is important is 'cause right now, PPP Loans, I don't think have been extended yet, and the money is running low, the longer that we sit in this Covid situation, the harder it's gonna be on our small music venues, and we gotta do something about it, this has just hit congresses floor, so be on the look out, follow the hashtag, Save Our stages, and make sure you stay in the note or just subscribe right here and like the video, I'll continue to give updates as it comes out, because this is probably one of the biggest pieces of legislation for the small musician or the small stage that has been in Congress, his hands and some time.