When Keiron Marshall was 15, he found his way out of a desperate situation with the help of an unexpected source: Eric Clapton. The guitar great was host to the first performance that Marshall ever went on, and he was joined on stage by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, The Who’s Pete Townshend and Beatle Ringo Starr.
Since then, the London music scene has been a lifeboat for Marshall, a musician who now leads a group of small concert venues with his wife. He grew up in South London and had been plagued by racist slurs and regular beatings because of his Pakistani heritage. His uncle was killed in a racist attack; his mother was a heroin addict.
But the music scene they know and love may soon be unrecognizable due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has put the UK economy on record in the worst recession.
Live music halls are forced to close doors for nearly five months – and scores are at grave risk of permanent closure. According to the charity Music Venue Trust, which represents 670 grass courts, more than 400 across the country are in crisis.
One of these is Marshall and White’s venue group in London, The Sound Lounge.
The British government announced that indoor and socially-distant live music could resume on Saturday (August 15). But this does not mean that the country’s live music scene will be restored immediately.
“The truth is, in fact, 11% of the venues will be able to open in a financially viable way,” said Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of the Music Venue Trust.
Less than a third of the locations have the physical space to house safe, socially-distant performances. And the majority of those would lose too much money on these shows with reduced capacity to be economically feasible.
Clubs have already accumulated millions of pounds in debt since March, with more expected in the coming months.
“In total, these locations will be in excess of £ 60 million ($ 78.3 million) in debt,” at the end of September, Davyd said.
The government announced in late July that 2.25 million pounds ($ 266 million) would be truncated to 150 counters for grassroots routes that would otherwise be out of cash by the end of September. The fund was the first installment of a £ 1.57 billion ($ 1.86 billion) “culture recovery package” launched on 5 July.
Davyd welcomed the emergency fund, but warned that this was just a ‘short-term fix’, one that was only meant to ‘identify locations that were identified as in crisis.’
In total, £ 500 million of the recovery package has been allocated to cultural institutions that “can prove their international, national and local significance.” Grant applications for this scheme are open Monday and locations must submit by August 21st. For many football clubs that have never applied for subsidies before, the 11-day window will be another challenge.
Derek Nash, a veteran saxophonist and member of Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, worries about who the recipients of the bailout will eventually be.
“Let’s not give it all to opera,” Nash said, adding that he wants the funds to go to locations such as the 606 Jazz Club, a small but popular venue that performs seven nights a week.
Currently, 606 Club is surviving a government loan that qualified it through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme. But that has put the club heavily in debt.
“The smaller locations that you go through, where you learn your trade – those are incredibly important,” said club owner Steve Rubie. ‘If those locations are not there, these musicians will not get a chance to practice and learn their trade. That it’s a really serious problem. ”
Meanwhile, the Sound Lounge has stayed afloat with the help of friends and crowdfunding. The owners applied last week for the government’s emergency regulation.
“If we can survive it, I think culture, and especially music, will play a massive role in our recovery,” White said.
‘People need experiences,’ she added. ‘We all felt that in lockdown. It’s not really the game like the shopkeepers we miss, it’s human contact. That there is a massive potential, but we must be able to survive. ”
