To gig or not to gig?

Local venues and musicians struggle with decisions on live music

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In a normal summer, Wisconsin Brewing Company, outside Verona, would be hosting large outdoor music events that draw 2,000-3,000 people to its picturesque beer garden: popular bands, ’80s dance parties, dueling pianos, nonprofit fundraisers, and special events like a “pumpkin chuck” that involves tossing pumpkins into a pond on the brewery’s land.

“We are missing all of that this summer,” says Kathy Hiteman, the brewery’s event coordinator and retail manager. “It’s devastating for us, for our retail business, for our customers who are used to coming out here and enjoying a beer and the amazing live music and events that we always have going on. It’s devastating for all of our musicians who have had to cancel and are facing an uncertain future. It’s devastating for all of our fundraisers. We are unable to host any of those because any advertised event now, under the current COVID restrictions, means that I would have to restrict to 25 people.”

The brewery had a band, The String Benders, play on May 29, which drew 300-400 people. “Here, it’s a drop in the bucket; it looked empty, it was empty,” says Hiteman. But somebody complained to Public Health Madison & Dane County. After a series of calls to the public health department and the city of Verona, she was told that music could happen if it was “incidental, in the background, and you’re not advertising it.”

“I messaged out to the bands and got a really interesting response,” says Hiteman, paraphrasing one musician: “‘We’re not incidental, and we’re not in the background, and we don’t feel comfortable playing, knowing that that’s the definition and knowing that we might be contributing to the spread of COVID so we are going to very respectfully decline.’ That threw me for a loop because I hadn’t thought of it like that.” The brewery has canceled all live shows at least for July, and business has slowed to a trickle. Hiteman says 25-30 bartenders once worked those busy events; now they are lucky to have enough work for three. 

“It is just awful,” she says. “That being said, people still come here because we have a large outdoor space. It’s very beautiful. We have a pond, it’s a perfect place to socially distance. All of our tables are six feet apart. But it’s not the same. I get phone calls, messages and emails every single day: ‘Are you going to have live music this week?’ People are so hopeful that by some miracle something has changed. And I have to say, ‘No, we’re not.’”

Hiteman says she is “crossing her fingers” that the virus’ spread will be controlled and events can resume. One small silver lining: The brewery is back to being dog friendly all the time; they used to ban dogs during the live shows. 

As COVID-19 continues to spread like wildfire across the country, state and county, beloved festivals have been canceled, touring bands are on pause, and venues are struggling to survive the calamity. Live music is all but dead. A few solo artists and small ensembles are playing outdoors, carefully paying attention to social distancing for bandmates and patrons. 

People are still going out, though, and that’s part of the problem. Seeing that and knowing that the virus numbers are likely increasing because of increased socializing is causing no small amount of frustration and anger for musicians and venues.

“It’s not getting better because we just have too many people that don’t want to mask up, and really, to be honest, don’t care,” says Joey B. Banks, a drummer and music teacher who has had to cancel at least 40 gigs with five different bands due to the pandemic. “It’s changed my whole perspective on humanity. Those people don’t give a shit about me, they really don’t. I wear my mask to protect them, but you can tell there’s just a large group of Americans who don’t care about a whole swath of Americans. It’s very disheartening.”

Banks, an African American male in his 50s with some health issues, says he is in a risky demographic that makes him more vulnerable if he were to contract the virus. One of Banks’ bands, Steely Dane, is a huge ensemble, involving 13-14 people onstage. “We had a meeting and we felt we have a moral responsibility to not do shows,” says Banks. “Basically by agreeing to do a show you’re promoting the idea to bring thousands of people together — put all those people at risk, put ourselves at risk. You can’t have 13-14 people on stage, singing, blowing horns, all the activity of microbes that would be in the air. It’s just dangerous. So we made a band decision to not do any shows where there are thousands of people involved — which is our whole summer.”

One performer who has returned to the stage in a limited fashion is guitarist/singer David Hecht, a solo artist who also leads the bands Primitive Culture and The Who Dat. Normally, he plays several nights a week and has regular bookings in South Padre Island in Texas, a COVID-19 hotspot. “I’m only playing solo gigs at outdoor venues where I feel like it’s safe,” says Hecht. He has been playing at Buck & Honey’s in Sun Prairie and in Monona. “They do a really good job. Every employee is all masked up, they’re sanitizing the tables and chairs as soon as a party gets up to leave. They are probably my favorite. Both have nice outdoor patios where I feel pretty safe.” He also plays at the Anchor Inn near Janesville, which has a floating barge stage on the Rock River. “You’re separated by about 30 feet from any people.” 

Hecht says he limits contact with audience members to keep everyone safe. “Before the pandemic, I would go and socialize with people in the audience, but now when I take a break I’ll kind of just stay to myself, maybe go to my car and check my email,” says Hecht. “I’m not really socializing unless I have personal friends where I can maintain that distance.” 

Music is Hecht’s primary source of income, and he did receive a Dane Arts Need Grant (DANG!) and a Dane County Small Business Pandemic Support Grant through Dane Buy Local. “I’ve been pretty good at saving money so I don’t think I'm in dire straits and doing gigs to survive. I play gigs because it’s what I do. I would be safer staying at home, but we all have to take risks every day, and I feel like I’m being as safe as I possibly can, and meanwhile maintaining some semblance of my former life. I really appreciate the few venues that are operating safely. There are some places where I wouldn’t play.”

Yid Vicious, a popular Klezmer ensemble, has played a couple of socially distanced shows outdoors this summer, and received Dane Arts funds to perform a series of outdoor pop-up shows. “We would like to help support local businesses, there was a big community call to get takeout from your favorite restaurants that do curbside pickup,” says Kia Karlen, a French horn player. “I thought by performing music we could help support some small, local businesses by trying to drive attention or drive business to their curbside pickup-type event.” All but one Yid Vicious member has participated. That musician is opting out of live gigs until there’s a vaccine.

Karlen says the grant covers the band members’ expenses so they don’t have to ask the businesses for a guarantee, and they carefully scoped out where they could play. They ended up playing at the Garver Feed Mill patio and at a Karben4 drive-through market. “Both of those events, I felt, were run in a very responsible manner and paid attention to safety of staff and customers alike, which was important to us. Because we wanted to make sure that we weren’t out there playing music in a way that might be risky for other people that might want to enjoy the music,” says Karlen.

The band’s fiddle player, Daithi Wolfe, is one of the city’s busiest Irish musicians. He also closely watches Wisconsin’s COVID-19 numbers and posts DHS statistics on Facebook each morning. When Safer at Home orders went into effect in late March, Wolfe embarked on a 50-day string of livestream performances. “That kept me going and it was also really great for me, a personal journey of going back to when I first discovered Irish music,” says Wolfe. Another group he plays with, Hoot 'n Annie, has begun playing in a backyard. “Some people wear masks and some don’t, and we keep it distanced and totally outside,” says Wolfe.

“For a while there we had flattened the curve,” says Wolfe. “Dane County had met the goals by the end of April and it looked like we were on the right track. And then basically because of the GOP and the Legislature and the [state] Supreme Court and business interests conflicting with science — and in Madison we are a college town and there’s a lot of irresponsible kids — I think we just totally lost control and it happened fast.”

Now Wolfe is looking ahead to when even outdoor music will not be possible. “What’s going to happen in October when everything has to be indoors and people are stir crazy again and they can’t go outside? I think it’s going to be even worse.”

Both Yid Vicious shows went well, says Wolfe, but watching the virus numbers climb, he’s not eager to dive into much more gigging. 

Karlen agrees. “Yid works well for this sort of thing. We’re light on our feet and we can play for an hour and not need a lot of gear or carpooling. And we’re all fortunate enough to live in low-risk households and have low-risk day jobs.” 

Having an income stream outside of playing live is key to survival right now. Banks, for instance, has a robust teaching schedule, all of which is occurring online. He is a professional teaching artist for the Madison schools, and currently has 28 students. “You have to adapt and be creative and find ways to supplement your income if you’re an artist, and I think a lot of people are doing that. It’s a universal issue, it’s not just a musician issue.”

Between teaching and being married to someone with a full-time job, Banks says he’s getting by just fine and hasn’t applied for any assistance during the pandemic. “I’m doing better than a lot of musicians are doing right now. But I see some people that are out there doing shows, and I’m not really happy that they’re out there bringing people together in small spaces and trying to do this right now, because every time they bring people out into the public, they are putting people at risk. It doesn’t matter how big or how small the venue is, you are bringing people out. You are risking their health. I wish people cared more about that. There are people that are gigging that don’t need to be out there gigging right now. But they are, and hopefully, it doesn’t have any negative effects.”

Tony Castañeda, percussionist and bandleader for Tony Castañeda Latin Jazz Band, isn’t eager to return to live shows, even though not playing out has been hard emotionally on him and his bandmates. “Musicians are feeling anger and frustration,” says Castañeda, who estimates that his band has seen at least a dozen dates canceled so far. 

“I am pleased and happy that all seven members of my band are being intelligent and on the same page in terms of when we start playing,” says Castañeda. “There’s no pressure, with someone saying ‘Oh, we gotta take this gig.’"

But music is a big part of Castañeda’s life, and its absence looms large. “I have gotten together to make music in small bubbles of people, in a socially distanced manner. But not everybody’s been able to do that. We also kind of realize that in a way we are putting ourselves at risk, but it’s one way that we are able to keep our spirits going.”

Most band members have another income source, which helps take the sting out, says Castañeda, but the reduced income and missed opportunities to connect with fans have taken their toll. “When you’re a big band, six or seven people, you’re concerned about taking care of everybody,” says Castañeda. “Some of the guys give lessons and are able to do that virtually. But there are a couple of other people that are full-time musicians. And I think the toughest thing is to try to gauge how long this is going to last. The longer it lasts, the more you see the thing spiking and not going away, the more worry and the more anxiety musicians are feeling.”

Castañeda also thinks the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that overturned Gov. Tony Evers' Safer at Home order was a setback for public health and for the music scene. “I feel anger, too, because I think if everybody would have just buckled down and quarantined for three months straight we may have been able to open things up.”

He says he’s had offers to play shows outside of Dane County where restrictions are looser, but he has declined. “I also think just as a matter of principle, that people should remain safe and try not to encourage people to be in bars. The musicians may be able to isolate themselves, and if it’s a solo or a duo you might do it, but the bar has still got 30-40 people spreading the disease. And all it takes is one. It just prolongs it.”

Venues have done their part to try to adapt to an impossible situation. Elizabeth Brink, co-owner of the Brink Lounge, says the club reopened on May 26, and hosted a couple of live bands before Dane County’s July 1 Emergency Order #7 limited indoor gatherings to 10 people and outdoor events to 25. “I pretty much left it up to musicians for what they wanted to do,” says Brink. “We have taken all the safety measures we can take, but we are indoors. We follow all the safety measures, but people have to feel comfortable coming out again. We are all looking forward to having live music again. We miss it.”

Toffer Christensen, a local booker-promoter who owns T Presents and represents The Bur Oak (formerly The Venue on Winnebago), says the venue recently safely hosted several shows. “We were given the opportunity to open in June, and we took a lot of time to do it safely,” says Christensen. “We figured out how to do shows seated, with people distanced, and with mobile ordering apps so there were no lines at the bar and figured out how to clean the venue during the show. We put on four or five events and operationally, it went really well. We were confident with doing shows and doing them well and being safe. And then, unfortunately, the case rates went up and we got shut down again. We're back to being closed. It was a lot of work to get everything ready to go and it was obviously pretty disappointing to be closed down after we figured out how to do things safely.”

He says The Bur Oak will continue to keep shows on the books and cancel as needed. “Things are definitely moving in the wrong direction,” says Christensen, and he believes without assistance from the government, venues are not going to pull through. He is active in the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), a group that formed to lobby on behalf of music venues and promoters. “I think while we sit here and wait for a few weeks and see what the government decides to do there’s still hope. If nothing comes through in that next round of funding, I think you’re going to see a lot of independent venues and promoters in the next two-three months will just not be around anymore. I think without assistance it’s just impossible.”

Christensen says he, too, feels frustrated as the pandemic grinds on and people behave irresponsibly. And the lack of national leadership has harmed businesses and artists, says Christensen. “The country did not have a plan across the board to help people. Look at what other countries are doing, whether it’s Canada or New Zealand. There was a real national plan in place. It was like, ‘All right, hunker down for a few months. We’re going to give you a portion of your salary and you don't have to pay rent.’ If we did something like that we’d be fine. But politicians can’t get their act together, so here we are.”