“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”- Tom Waits
The lights dim, the crowd waits in bated anticipation, then your music begins to flow. For this short while, in this little corner of the universe, you get the payoff. All the time spent. All the events missed. All the money invested, then gained, then lost again. Opportunities leveraged or squandered. Relationships bruised, battered or ruined beyond repair. All of the wires and amps and chords and strings and skins and sticks and hearts broken. All the slings and arrows, triumphs and failures suffered. In this moment, all are forgotten. In this moment, you are right with the world, and right where you have always wanted and needed to be. The purpose is now the performance.
This is the life of a musician. Hardly seems incidental at all.
Recently I had the opportunity to speak with two individuals that have firsthand knowledge and a deep connection with being a performing musician. They have traversed all of the trials and tribulations, the successes and ascendancies. All intertwined with the time, money and personal equity of putting your music and yourself in front of a live audience without a parachute. The current situation, to say the least, has been challenging.
Joe Altier began playing piano at the age of five. Since his teen years, he has been playing music in one form or the other. With his soaring vocals and musical abilities, he has gone from being the voice of nationally recognized Brand New Sin and Elephant Mountain, to his current status as a solo artist under the moniker Just Joe. “As of last year, I was playing out 300+ shows a year,” said Altier, “things were crazy, but good.”
Jess Novak took a somewhat more circuitous route in her career. While starting in the music business, she was also a freelance reporter, a DJ on Rebel Radio and a bartender. “Of all of these jobs”’ she said, “if I could take what I wanted to do, I would want to play music.” Turning out her first album in 2013, she made the leap. “I started putting more and more energy into music, and it worked. It really wasn’t a choice anymore, because this was working.” She has been a successful full-time musician since 2016.
Then, in February of 2020, the drum beat of the pandemic could be heard on the horizon. Paying attention to what was going on, both musicians prepared as best they could for what they both saw as inevitable. Rules and sanctions against music and venues were on the way.
“That second week in March, I kinda saw the writing on the wall,” said Altier. “Then they said the music was going away.”
Novak was equally prepared.
“I wasn’t surprised at all. The point of live music is to gather people. That’s why bars hire you, so it wasn’t unexpected.”
Both artists already had established a presence on social media platforms. This helped to initially lessen the psychological blow of not playing out, if not the financial.
“In the back of my mind, I was always thinking, ‘What if all of the gigs disappeared?”, said Altier. “And that was a hypothetical, not even considering anything like a pandemic. I was only thinking, ‘What if people just stopped going out?’ So for years, I had been looking for alternative avenues for revenue.”
Novak had also been forward-thinking, making a move to online streaming, promotion and sales. “I was grateful we had other platforms in place. We already had a presence on Twitch and YouTube and Facebook.”
Others in the industry found it difficult, or were unwilling or unable, to make that move. Altier spoke to friends who were of the mindset, ”Eh, I’m gonna be fine. It’s just gonna be a couple of weeks. We’ll be back at it by summer”. Weeks then turned into months. Summer came and went. Then the horizon kept slipping further and further away.
There was the point in June, when Central New York had achieved Phase 4 status. This allowed bars and restaurants to reopen under the strict guidelines and enforcement of the New York State Liquor Authority. Venue owners scrambled feverishly to comply with all of the new (and constantly changing) regulations. They poured money into “improvements” they did not have, and expended energy that was at a desperately low ebb. Eventually, live music was brought back in under further restrictions sanctioned by the NYSLA. Those lucky enough to have outdoor seating could bring music back.
“I was surprised they brought it (live music) back so early,” said Novak. “that was the biggest shock I had. Entertainment should have been the last thing. I’d rather see people safe than go play at a bar. I thought that was irresponsible.”
Altier says of his initial return to playing live, “At first it was awkward, because no one really knew what they were supposed to do. How do you change behaviors overnight?” He continued, “I’ve played a few events where there was just no control of what was going on, and it makes you very uncomfortable. For the most part, when I play, people have been pretty respectful.”
This seems to be the issue artists encounter most. There are owners and operators out there who are complying with the rules to the best of their abilities. They not only do this for the survival of their business, but primarily to keep their patrons, staff and even the musicians safe from Covid-19 and its devastating effects. Then there are those owners who, for whatever their reasoning, play fast and loose with others health and safety, or flout the rules altogether.
Novak, “Places that aren’t following the rules need to start. It doesn’t matter. Anything else doesn’t matter. To punish those venues that blatantly disregard those rules, I’m fine with that” She recognizes, however, it’s not as easy as it sounds. “I’ve played at places where one time it’s fine, and the next time it’s crazy. Mostly it comes down to people’s choices.” From her vantage point on stage, she makes this observation, “Venues only have so much control. You can’t forcibly make people do things, because they will literally fight you. I’ve seen that.”
Altier, “I’m not a paranoid germaphobe, but I know what I need to stay safe. Man, I know you’re trying to save your business, but at what cost? You let your guard down, then 20 people walk out with Covid and bring it home?”, the results of which can be spread to those around you with a potentially grim outcome. Altier asks of these owners, “What if that’s your mom who gets Covid. What if that’s your parent that just died?”
It is generally universally agreed upon in the entertainment industry that the shutdown was an urgent necessity. The curve needed to be flattened, and lives needed to be saved. The major issue now is the apparent lack of understanding or transparency by those who are setting forth the guidelines and rules designed to keep us safe and to keep businesses solvent.
“I think at first, New York State did good”, said Altier. “This is something completely different than anything we’ve seen before. They had to shut it down. Now I’m at the point where I don’t agree. 500 people wandering around in Wegmans, but 35 seated, socially distant people at the 443 (Social Club) can’t happen? That’s where I don’t agree.”
When speaking of those in leadership and their communicating with stakeholders in their decision-making process, Novak says, “It’s disappointing and obvious they haven’t talked to anybody. I wish they had reached out to musicians and venues so we could help, but it’s obvious they didn’t.”
Case in point, the “incidental music” rule. It was arbitrarily announced in a four paragraph reply in a Q&A formatted question about music in venues on the NYSLA website. It stated, “Only incidental music is permissible at this time. This means advertised and/ or ticketed shows are not permissible. Music should be incidental to the dining experience and not the draw itself”, meaning that you can have music, it just can’t be announced, paid for, or be the reason a patron is at a venue.
“Incidental Music is just stupid to me,” said Novak. “Either don’t have music or have it. You would think ticketing would be a simple concept to understand. It’s just a natural way of limiting people.”
Altier echoed this sentiment. “You use ticketed events as a way to control the amount of people that come in. It also allows you to prepare a week ahead for food, liquor and staffing. It’s the smartest thing to do.”
Now it’s Fall, and for most, the summer of 2020 never really happened. The country becomes more contentious and volatile, as the goalposts are constantly being shifted, if not completely removed. With all that is going on, what do these two veterans of the CNY Music scene see for the future?
Novak, “I think everyone has their hands full right now. For me, The reason I was upset that they brought back music as early as they did was I’m more concerned with people being safe than me playing at a bar. I’m hopeful it will get back to normal, but I’m not holding my breath. I don’t see an easy way out of this. People have to continue to be creative. I’m hoping it might push people to write more, to become better at what they do. I hope this also helps the public realize the importance of live music now that it’s not there, and not take it for granted.”
Altier, “I hope my musician friends are looking forward and not back. Hopefully we will get back to normal, but people have to stop looking at the past, because it may not get back to that. We’re musicians, we’re artists. You know what we do? We evolve, we create. We have an artistic brain and imagination to look at the future. The future can be a hybrid of how things used to be done and what we have learned.”
“Without music, life would be a mistake,” said philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. That being said, no, music is not incidental.
We in the music industry stand united in our want to do our part in this life and death struggle. This scourge must be and will be defeated. We just want to remind the powers that be, that if we lose our humanity in this, the struggle is for naught.
Music for the people has moved generations and propelled man forward. It has brought comfort to pain, glory to triumph and succor to the downtrodden. It will always be a human necessity. It will always address and memorialize the events in our lives and will spread light in the shadows like blinding truth. To trivialize music’s importance will be at our own peril.
I would like to thank the following for their contribution to this article:
Jess Novak
Facebook- JessNovakBand
jessrocknroad@gmail.com
@JESSROCK87
http://www.jessrocknovak.com/
Joe Altier
Facebook- joe.altier
Twitter- justjoesyracuse
Instagram- justjoe55
justjoe@justjoe.com
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