Local Music on Life Support… Still

“Across the pond,” Insure4Music recently reported that, over the past two years, on average one small music venue has closed each month in the United Kingdom. Further, it is believed that in the last 15 years, 20 percent of the UK’s small music venues have closed.

This trend is by no means limited to foreign shores. In mid-September of this year, the Wisconsin State Journal published a photo essay of 11 beloved – and now shuttered – venues in Madison, Wisconsin. The beginning of this current calendar year spelled the end for Seattle’s beloved Highway 99 Blues Club. It was revealed that the venue’s owners were simply unable to keep afloat after their landlord unexpectedly attempted to raise the rent by $10,000(!) a month. In a January, 2018 post on the DNA Lounge blog, author Jaimie Zawisnski noted with dismay the growing number of music rooms in San Francisco now controlled by entertainment behemoths such as Live Nation and Goldenvoice and encouraged local music fans to patronize the independently owned and operated clubs in the city – at the time his tally of such spots included 18. Less than a year later three of those 18 were no more.

Why this trend is of concern to MMR readers – MI retailers and suppliers – is fairly obvious. If there are no places for smaller acts to perform, there will be less actively gigging musicians in a given area and therefore fewer customers looking to purchase or repair gear. By extension, if there are fewer spots for younger folks to witness under-the-radar acts and to experience that, “Hey – if they, can do it, so can I!” epiphany, there will be fewer future music-makers and potential MI consumers.

Almost 10 years ago to the day, I wrote an editorial on this exact topic. At the time, I concluded on a hopeful note by referencing developments at a favorite local Boston area club, The Abbey Lounge. To prevent what had seemed a sure-thing closure due to raising rents, those of us who played at and frequented The Abbey organized benefit shows, generated fundraisers, lobbied the landlord and local government figures – and we won! The Abbey was granted a stay of execution (I’ve come to despise that phrase as it pertains to music venues…) and all was well with the world. Until The Abbey closed for good five weeks later.

The same culprits that killed the Abbey a decade ago and closed Highway 99 on New Year’s Eve 2018 are still at play: ever-increasing rents, gentrification, lack of regular clientele. I am drawing a blank as to how to, in an era defined culturally by online distraction and video games and streaming services, inspire people to get off the couch and experience live music. I don’t know how to effectively encourage/force redevelopment plans in thriving urban centers to somehow also accommodate for the continued health of local cultural outposts that in no small part make these cities desirable destinations in the first place. But I know it’s a problem. And if it hasn’t already negatively impacted your hometown – and your business – odds are it will.