With Congress in recess, a key piece of legislation aiming to aid the survival of independent music venues during the pandemic remain unsigned.
The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) found that 90% of independent venues will be forced to close their doors without additional federal funding. The bipartisan Save Our Stages Act was introduced by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in the Senate and is a proposed $10 billion Small Business Administration grant program designed to provide six months of financial support to independent venues.
On Tuesday in Brooklyn, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy spoke outside the venue Baby’s All Right to lobby Congress and garner support for helping get the Save Our Stages Act passed.
“Our live venues are the pulse, the heart, and the soul of New York,” Senator Schumer said. “These places have to survive. Saying, ‘Well, we can do without these’ is like saying you can do without your liver, or your right arm.”
Murphy then gave a passionate speech about how independent music venues serve as economies in their own right, create their own communities, and play a powerful role in shaping a diverse music scene.
“The bigger companies that serve a need as well, don’t serve that need of sticking with artists in the beginning, of serving one, small community, of one, small scene,” he said.
“And those scenes are the things that we now know as the primary music scenes that make America amazing, that make our music scene amazing. Punk rock in the city is what I grew up with. It made me want to move here and make music as my life… [The Save Our Stages Act] is the least we can do as a group of people who take care of our own. And I don’t mean our own as musicians, I mean our own as citizens. This is as important as roads, as important as cellphone towers. This is how we communicate with each other,” he added.
The direness Schumer and Murphy portrayed echoes comments made by NIVA Communications Director Audrey Fix Schaefer in an interview with RADIO.COM last month.
“We can’t have Congress go on recess without something passing or we will collapse,” she said.
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Schaefer pointed to the vast expenses including rent or mortgage, utilities, taxes, and insurance independent venues are encountering all while bringing in little to no revenue.
If you would like to find out more on how you can support the Save Our Stages Act, click here to access their website.
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