Op-Ed: Where Have All The Small Music Venues Gone?
Myrtle in East Providence first opened as a bar, music space, part art gallery and vintage shop, but quickly found itself morphing into an everyday live music venue.
A skeleton awaits at Myrtle.
My thoughts always wake me before the alarm clock ever can.
“Did we pay that bill?”
“Did we get back to that band?”
“Did we place that order?”
“Do I have the shift covered for next Saturday?”
“Was I too short with that person telling me about their band last night?”
And on, and on, and on……
When we opened Myrtle in our small corner of East Providence, Rhode Island, a year ago, we intentionally positioned ourselves as a bar, a music space, part art gallery and vintage shop. Because of the lack of performance space, we quickly grew into an everyday live music venue.
After spending the last two decades working in venues and art spaces, we decided to take the huge risk of opening our own. After years of touring, coming back to work in service, and learning all sides of this industry, we felt it was time to give back to the music scene that had given us so much.
Since opening, we’ve seen the closures of over a dozen New England music venues we know, and countless others we don’t. The comments on the heartbreaking closing social media accounts from beloved patrons of these venues are always, “Why??” “Oh no, I loved that place,” “What a tremendous loss!”
The stage at Myrtle. Photo courtesy of Myrtle.
When cultural institutions close, it’s not only the end of an era, but a loss of sense of place, much like when your parents sell your childhood home, your favorite tree gets cut down, or your best friend gets married and never calls anymore.
Is this time marching on to make room for new things, or a systematic failure of respect and support for the places and artists who make our lives tolerable?
As people so new to owning a place, we can’t compare ourselves to these beloved and historic spots. We hear stories every night of the time Fugazi was here, or Nirvana played this night, or (insert the coolest band you know) played (insert favorite shuttered venue) to only twenty people and they were there!
When your goal is to cultivate a spot for these continued experiences, you’re often left wondering if it’s even possible anymore.
Any creative person knows I’m preaching to the choir when touting the necessity of an artistic presence in our daily lives. From the music playing overhead, to the labels on your favorite beer, the clothes that catch your eye, and down to color of your nails, art plays a subconscious part in every little joy you find.
Those who have spent the better parts of their lives attending shows, playing their own shows, or working in venues, know these are the places to meet people who are like-minded, serving as the backdrop for memories and stories we tell our new friends and even our children to find a common connection.
The relatable thread of our youth is almost always music. And for this reason, our nostalgia for music is the easiest thing to prey upon.
People expect music. We need music streaming in every space we occupy, because, let’s be honest, life is boring without music.
I always joke, our job is throwing a party every night. For those who have planned your own wedding, or even a barbecue, you know it’s no small task.
For a successful party, you need to first let everyone know it’s happening. Next is staffing a reliable and trustworthy team, while designing an inviting, but totally unique atmosphere. Entertainment should be thoughtful, but not offensive, with a pleasing playlist in between, while security is on full alert, the lighting is always moody, and everything stocked so nothing runs out because you have an accurate count of people attending. You’re within budget, you have plenty of ice, someone to do all the dishes, and most importantly, a gracious, kind and attentive host.
Of course, this is rarely how our “parties” go on the best of nights, yet we keep coming back for more, 6six to seven times a week.
With no corporate support or a trust fund involved, most of us lucky enough to have live music spots are running things completely depleted, fueled by fumes of blind passion and a small, highly trusted and overworked staff. We have little to no idea of what our future holds, and not much understanding from our cities, towns and states of what we’re contributing to the cultural landscape.
When we set out on our dream adventure of having one of these magical spots of our own, our priorities were creating a safe and supportive atmosphere for original artists and our staff, fairly compensating them, and exposing as many new people to original and live music.
The foundation of these priorities is to work respectfully and thoughtfully within our town and already established communities, an ongoing task just as important as the vision.
Building these visions on top of these ever-shifting foundations is a tall order for people already vulnerable and sympathetic to the plight of musicians. Almost always, these demands distract our focus from making the business viable.
And how do you stay viable with impossibly high rents, insurance rates and utilities, topped with soaring sales taxes and alcohol costs, and daily unexpected expenses?
The bar at Myrtle.
We’re also faced with the stress of dealing with the parasitic music industry. With Spotify and other streaming services committing highway robbery and other atrocities to the musicians we know and love, there are also large labels, bookers and agencies always looking to make money off talent.
As musicians ourselves, we’ve been caught in the rung of people looking to make a buck off of the hard work and skills that are not their own.
There are plenty of people who are in positions of power because of the potential clout, with no regard for musicians and their employees who work to make their place a destination.
Because of a deep history of predatory behavior amongst people higher up in the music industry and some musicians themselves, there’s a ton of extra work that goes into vetting the people we hire and book, and we look to our community of consumers of (mostly free) music, to help with this assignment.
Bigger corporate venues with promises of boosting the local economy also lure politicians’ attention and affection away from places like ours, while red tape, concerns of parking availability, road closures, proverbial and actual bridges falling, and lack of small business resources threaten to close our doors every day.
Even some of our patrons come to expect more and more and more for less. One Sunday, after a six band line-up (all free shows as always at Myrtle) someone walked in and asked when live music started again. Unhappy with the answer of two hours from now, they made a comment about this supposedly being a live music venue, left in a huff, and were never to be seen from again.
We’ve come to expect these reactions, and we admit our role in setting impossible expectations by offering no cover entertainment on an almost daily basis.
I don’t know how to break the cycle. I know support is needed from a local, state, and national level. When we’re consuming music at almost the same rate as air, why are we letting the places that grow our favorite things die over and over again?
Calling for this starts an even trickier cycle of creating more invisible labor of telling our stories and advocating for ourselves.
Occasionally when you do the advocacy work, you find unwavering support from the patrons who understand your place. Other times, you’re flooded with internet message boards comments saying you complain too much, you don’t have their preferred drink in stock, your place isn’t worth the hype, or that you’re ungrateful for what you have.
It’s encouraging, discouraging, rewarding, upsetting and confusing all at the same time.
A bigger part of our work is to normalize paying musicians for their work. As a meager effort to achieve this, we pay 20% or more of bar sales to everyone who plays. This means your drink at a free show is over 20% off anytime you attend a live music event at Myrtle.
Time will tell if this system is feasible for running a business. It feels like the most we can do is ask our patrons to tip their musicians and bartenders kindly and graciously for their experience.
All the while, as a small business, we must ask musicians to be understanding of our ability to pay what we can to them, and to be patient as we try to find a show that works for them and us and our patrons.
And there is no shortage of musicians looking for a place to play.
Musicians who take the time to promote their shows and bring a crowd are compensated with higher pay from us and tips from attendees, and we do all that we can to give them an attentive audience.
At music venues prioritizing original music, it is essential cover bands understand the majority of our budget is spent making up compensation to original artists who often never see anything from the streaming and use of their work, and have a much harder time booking gigs. Last year we paid thousands of dollars in ASCAP and BMI fees to allow the occasional cover song, yet our highest guarantee asks are always from cover bands.
It’s a delicate dance we spin around in every day.
What we need to thrive is support, forgiveness for small mistakes, and acceptance for our burn out, while also being held accountable to our community and employees and kept in check for the reasons we started a spot in the first place.
The next time you’re sitting at your favorite venue, enjoying a free or paid show, consider what you can do to keep that place open, instead of waiting to mourn it once it shuts down. Be patient with all your local venues while keeping an eye out that they’re taking care of their employees and performers.
It’s your job as a patron to support the business’ existence with every friend, family member, and politician you talk to. These places and the essential role they play in the creation, sustainability, and experience of art are necessary to a setting of our life stories.
134 Waterman Ave., East Providence, instagram.com/myrtle.rhodeisland
