Dear reader,
How are you?
This time last year, Austin, Texas Mayor Steve Adler declared the city a local disaster due to concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus. He also canceled the upcoming South by Southwest festival, making it one of the first events last year to be shut down in the U.S.
Tonight’s story is from Dave, a musician from Austin who derived a lot of his yearly income from the festival. He shared with me the impact of that cancellation during our conversation in late May. By then, the multi-instrumentalist had found a new way to play live music.
I hope you enjoy hearing his story tonight. His is a great example of how nimbleness and preparedness can make us feel confident in uncertain times. Read below and find a link to his work at the end of the story.
Thank you, Dave, for sharing your story. And thank you, readers, for being here.
Take care of yourself, and others if you can,
Hope
Post #7: Dave, from Austin
I’m from Austin, Texas, the self-proclaimed live music capital of the world.
I’m something of a rare bird as far as musicians go. I’m impossibly well-rounded… I play guitar, the bass, piano, drums, and I sing.
I kind of divide my income up into three major pieces: one-third from live performances, small private events, big stadium shows and anything in between; one-third from producing other musicians in recording studios; and one-third from arranging, notation, and orchestration.
When I mentor younger musicians, one of the things I urge them to do is to find some way to diversify their income portfolio — and to do so much as possible. We are like the original gig economy.
It’s common for people to have two to five streams of income. But you really want to have more like nine streams of income because four, five, or six of them are always drying up.
It’s just the normal way of things even in non-recession times.
For musicians who say they are purists, who say “I write songs on my acoustic guitar and I won’t do anything else,” they’re not insulated to big shocks.
What was your initial reaction to the lockdowns?
Shock and awe, the slowly dawning realization that all music was going to stop completely — that’s never happened before.
That’s just never happened before.
Did you know what to do immediately?
No.
Nobody was prepared for this. Even the people whose job it is to be prepared were not prepared.
Did you apply for unemployment?
No. I did apply for a MusiCares grant and received around $1,000. I did want to apply for one of the PPP loans as well, but by the time I’d gotten there, they’d run out.
Tell me about the Isolation Congregation.
The Isolation Congregation is unaffiliated with any actual church.
The first live stream was Sunday, March 15. By that Friday the whole world stopped turning and my Sunday morning church job had been canceled.
So, kind of on a whim on that Sunday morning, I decided to live stream this very informal hour, sitting at the piano, playing old Southern gospel songs.
For that first stream I did have the foresight to have a packet of lyrics and I posted that online ahead of time so that other people could tune in and sing from the lyric sheet.
Then, as it was becoming increasingly clear day after day that this coronavirus thing was not going away, I began to improve the quality of the Isolation Congregation.
I purchased special live-streaming software. I improved the sound quality, then I started adding children’s entertainment.
How can this be a service, I then asked myself. Parents were going insane.
It’s evolved now to 50 minutes with special guest performances. We’ve had Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Austin City Councilmember Kathie Tovo, Dr. Anna Vu-Wallace participate. On Memorial Day, we had Chaplin Brigadier General Bobby Page (who served under President Obama) participate. We’ve even had some guest pastors, like Simone Talma Flowers, give guest sermons.
The way it works is essentially that I gather everybody’s pre-recorded content and then I’m kind of inserting that into our actual livestream. All the music I’m playing is live.
It’s been hugely helpful to get donations for this. I’ve been taking donations through Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, Cash App.
How helpful?
I would say we’ve crossed gross revenue of $10,000 from maybe about 100 individuals. But a lot of people are giving multiple times — $5, $10, $15, and a couple $50s. Generally it’s $10 or $20 bucks at a time.
How does that compare to what you normally bring in?
It pales in comparison to my income generally over this period of the year when South by Southwest starts, one of the busiest and most profitable times for musicians.
I end up performing a lot in the official events and other tangential events that glom on to this huge festival.
Along with that you have this massive influx of corporate events with a healthy budget to hire entertainment.
There’s also the spring wedding season — March, April, May. All of that was canceled.
Then there were the faith-based events, churches that set aside a big budget for Easter, that were canceled.
And those are just the live music events.
So a similar number a year ago… that initial week of SXSW and the next couple of weeks of gigs could bring in $10,000 within a day or two.
How does this compare with the rest of the year?
My income fluctuates depending on the season.
Because our work comes in waves — for example, the week leading up to Christmas means there is a lot of work, parties and church stuff; then part of the rhythm of our year is January 1, when everyone wakes up, they want to join the gym, they kind of forget about us until mid-March, spring break — there are these dark times for us, these two and a half months, that you have to plan for, to have some savings put away.
Musicians like myself already know how to hunker down, not do anything, not spend money. So when I’m asked what I’m going to do if I’m not going out… well that’s called January.
But if your life is the same 52 weeks every year, I can imagine how weird that must be.
What are your expenses like?
I’m a huge believer in not having debt. I need to live under my means — that’s my philosophy. It’s also important to have savings, to play it safe.
My wife Sarah and I saved up for years and years. I bought two acres of land in Austin, kind of on the outskirts, and I paid for it in cash and then I built a tiny home and my wife and I live in a tiny home.
Tiny home!
We live in a tiny home that’s 200 square feet and we’re building a larger home while we’re living in this home. We’re kind of halfway through construction. We’re basically paying for that as we go.
What’s it been like to live in a tiny home during lockdown?
It has its moments where it’s not that easy, a bit of a pressure cooker, or more stressful than usual.
Our schedules were generally different in the past. She was usually out during the day and then maybe I have a gig that night.
But I think that it is a tiny amount of suffering compared to the upside because our expenses are essentially almost zero.
We don’t have kids yet. We just got married about a year ago. All those things put together plus a fusion of savings and a diversified income portfolio — it’s something I learned from the 2008 crisis: If you’re going to be a musician, you’re going to have to be nimble.
How do you feel right now a few months in?
Of course I want to go back to work. I want to play gigs — some of my peers are beginning to tip toe out, but I’m not yet.
On a selfish level, it’s not that difficult for me to be on stage, to wear a mask, and stay socially distant from a crowd. But even though I’m kind of safe, if I’m not comfortable with 150 people being together, then why am I on a stage being the draw for these people?
How are you staying positive?
I exercise all the time — I’m a runner. We bike. It can’t be overstated how important that is — exercise.
Also, I feel fine about the music industry. There are parts of this industry that should have changed a long time ago.
The whole thing that we think of when we think of the modern music experience — young sexy person gets a deal, comes up with 11 songs that get grouped together, disseminated to the public, the public learns it, young sexy person goes on tour, faces one direction, then everybody goes home — that whole animal has not been in existence for that long.
It’s been other things before and it’s going to be other things after this.
I don’t think things all need to go back to the way they were.
— Dave, 37, Austin, on May 27, 2020 4:00 pm.
Since our conversation, Dave has continued to entertain people in isolation. Check out his music here. The Statesman also featured his work entertaining a hotel full of people during the Texas winter storm. The hotel liked Dave’s work so much, they offered him a weekly gig.
Such courage in sharing real life money bits which are too often paved over, yet they make a real difference in real lives. Also wonderful to hear about Isolation Congregation which sounds like (pun unintended) a true spiritual experience.
His TEDxNapaValley talk is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDuvxDO0Uc.