{"id":19716,"date":"2020-11-11T05:30:37","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T10:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19716"},"modified":"2020-11-12T09:00:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T14:00:53","slug":"facing-the-music-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/11\/facing-the-music-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing the Music, Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

Live Music in WNC Before, During, and After COVID-19<\/h3>\n

This feature appeared previously in<\/em> Capital at Play Magazine<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

WNC Music Community Faces the New Challenges in a Variety of Ways <\/b>
\nThere\u2019s no escaping the fact that musicians have been hit hard by the global pandemic. While many musicians turn to songwriting and recording as creative outlets, it\u2019s often live performance that forms the foundation of their livelihood. But with creativity and inspiration often comes innovation. While everyone in the music industry waits out the shutdowns, musicians have found different ways to express themselves, connect with audiences, and make ends meet.<\/p>\n

Bluesy Americana singer-songwriter and recording artist Ashley Heath\u2019s strengths as a musician are matched by her work ethic. \u201cBefore the pandemic, I was able to completely support my lifestyle with my music,\u201d she says. She averaged more than a dozen live shows per month, and says that with her band the Heathens, she entered 2020 with a full live tour schedule. That all ended abruptly in March. \u201cI\u2019ve definitely lost thousands of dollars due to COVID-19,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Heath took advantage of unemployment compensation newly offered to self-employed persons, as well as North Carolina\u2019s PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance). Those relieved some of the financial pressures, but she still sought ways to keep the music going. One of her chosen approaches has been livestream performances on Facebook and Instagram. \u201cWe’ve played livestream shows at Archetype Brewing, the Orange Peel, and The Grey Eagle,\u201d she says, and she found the venues\u2019 health and safety measures impressive. \u201cI felt very safe in those environments,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Heath says that while the livestreams brought in some money during Phase One of the state\u2019s lockdown, \u201cas soon as Phase Two started, the revenue went down.\u201d But by that point\u2014May 22\u2014she had already launched a new initiative. Dubbed \u201cSinging Grams,\u201d the concept for the donation-based program is simple: as she wrote on Facebook, \u201cDedicate a song to someone you love, and I will call them and sing it to them!\u201d Heath found herself consumed in a flurry of Singing Gram activity around Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

For now, the Singing Grams and livestreaming represent Heath\u2019s only performances. Speaking for herself and the Heathens, she says, \u201cWe miss and love playing live music, [but] we’re probably going to wait this out until the end of the year and reassess how things are then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based in Hendersonville, Blake Ellege is known for his extraordinarily busy music calendar. In addition to solo performances, the singer leads at least seven bands, each focusing on a specific musical genre. (In November and December, he also makes appearances as Santa Claus.) \u201cThe more that I\u2019m involved in music, the happier I am,\u201d he says. Ellege has been full-time in the music business for more than 25 years. He says that pre-pandemic, he \u201cheld a day job working 40 hours a week running a personal business and still averaged five to six paid performances a week.\u201d COVID-19-related shutdowns have caused him to lose about one-third of his income.<\/p>\n

Shortly after shutdowns began, Ellege organized the Quarantine Concert Series, hosted by Asheville\u2019s Orange Peel. As the pandemic worsened, he suspended that series but hopes to revive it again when conditions improve. Ellege predicts that for bands like the ones he leads, regular concert schedules won\u2019t return until \u201cat least the end of 2021.\u201d Meanwhile, he\u2019s cautiously booking select shows at venues that practice and enforce social distancing protocols.<\/p>\n

Christopher Everett is fully immersed in making music as well. A full-time musician since 2006, today he plays guitar in Hustle Souls, a popular Asheville band that plays locally and tours nationally. Noting that live music tends to be seasonal, dropping off during the winter months, he says that prior to widespread shutdowns, he was playing \u201can average of 20 to 25 shows a month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everett notes that four of those monthly \u201cshows\u201d were\u2014and continue to be\u2014in his role as band director at a local church, and that underscores an important point about professional musicians: the ones most likely to achieve a level of financial security tend to diversify. In and around Western North Carolina, it\u2019s quite common for performing musicians to play in multiple groups, take on last-minute \u201cpick-up gigs,\u201d lend their talents to recording sessions, and even offer private instruction to students.<\/p>\n

All of those endeavors figured into Everett\u2019s work mix prior to the pandemic. He says that teaching represented about half of his income, but since COVID-19 hit, he\u2019s lost about half of his students. As a solo artist and with Hustle Souls, Everett has played a number of streaming shows, but like Heath, he notes that the novelty seems to have worn off a bit for audiences. Part of that is due to the nature of a not-in-person performance. \u201cIt’s easy to play a similar show to a different audience every night,\u201d he explains, \u201cbut when the audience is the same, it gets a little tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Everett\u2014who has long made a point of remaining debt-free, a good position to be in when a global disaster comes around\u2014stays afloat by focusing on his band director work and teaching. Thanks to technology, he\u2019s able to transition more of his intermediate and advanced guitar students to online instruction. \u201cIf anything, long term I think I’ll be in a better [financial] spot when all this is said and done,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I worry about all the people in town who are relying 100% on live performing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a> \u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two \u2026 Live Music in WNC Before, During, and After COVID-19 This feature appeared previously in Capital at Play Magazine. WNC Music Community Faces the New Challenges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3668],"tags":[191,237,3190,4012,675,3894,2173],"class_list":["post-19716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-business","tag-andre-cholmondeley","tag-asheville","tag-ashley-heath","tag-blake-ellege","tag-diana-wortham-theatre","tag-the-grey-eagle","tag-the-orange-peel","cat-3668-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19716"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20125,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19716\/revisions\/20125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}