Save Our Stages

Texas independent music venues fight for survival with new legislation

Remember the days of having fun at a live concert?

Struggling through months of shuttered doors and the serious threat of permanent closure, Texas' independent music venues are finding hope in an unlikely place: the United States Congress.

Two proposed bills, the Save Our Stages Act and RESTART Act, are designed to help music venues stay afloat until the pandemic subsides. Both acts, if passed, will be important steps to save many music spaces that are into five months with no shows, no revenues, and no sign of things getting better.

For many venues across the country, it's simply too late, with several closing down for good.

Economic impact
According to a 2019 study by the Texas Music Office, the Texas music industry provides 209,000 permanent jobs, $6.5 billion in earnings, $23.4 billion in annual economic activity, and generates $390 million in annual tax revenues annually. A recent study conducted by the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs concluded that 90 percent of music venues in Austin — the Live Music Capital of the World — will close permanently by Halloween without aid.

The average monthly overhead for a live music venue is $40,000 and many experts are predicting that large scale shows won't return until 2021, if not longer.

“I don’t think that would be unique to Austin," says San Antonio-based entertainment lawyer and former band manager, Blayne Tucker, about the UH study. "I think Austin will be hit particularly hard, but I think those en masse closures would extend throughout Texas and nationwide as well. The situation is dire and it’s literally a matter of extinction versus survival.”

COVID-19 is not only ravaging the population across the country, but it's slowly decimating many industries that rely on large gatherings of people, and especially those businesses that center on live music. The good news is there is hope for hundreds of Texas establishments, thanks to advocacy efforts in Washington, that are picking up steam.

Local grass-roots effort
Leading the charge is the National Independent Venue Association, a grassroots, DIY organization of 2,200 independent music venues that started soon after the pandemic forced temporary closures. Tucker, who owns San Antonio area venues such as Limelight, The Mix, Floore's Country Store, and 502 Bar, is co-captain of the Texas chapter of NIVA alongside Austen Bailey, talent buyer for famed Austin haunt Mohawk.

Other notable Texas members include Dallas' Trees, the Kessler Theater, and Prophet Bar; Fort Worth's Lola's Saloon, Magnolia Motor Lounge, and Ridglea Theater; Houston's Heights Theater, White Oak Music Hall, and Warehouse Live; Austin's Cedar Street Courtyard, The Parish, and Antone's Nightclub; and Sam's Burger Joint, Paper Tiger, and Cowboys Dance Hall in San Antonio.

"Many of these venues have been around for decades," Bailey says. "We made it through the depression of 2008-2009, but we are now faced with an unprecedented existential threat."

Donors allowed NIVA to gain a foothold in Washington, D.C. and the organization found a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill, especially when politicians discovered the potential for long-lasting economic damage, largely due to the connected nature of music venues across the U.S., which act as breeding grounds for local bands, stops for national touring acts, as well as serve as non-music event spaces. NIVA got behind the RESTART Act and Save Our Stages Act, both of which are winding their way through the legislative process.

The RESTART Act is non-industry specific, open to any small business that can show a 25 percent decrease in revenue between 2019 and 2020. Those that qualify are eligible for a forgivable loan up to 90 percent, equivalent to 45 percent of the gross receipts from 2019.

The Save Our Stages Act defines the criteria of what makes a music venue, such as having a sound engineer or talent booker on staff. The funds allocated to the qualified participants would be paid in the form of grants to cover 45 percent of a venue’s 2019 gross receipts with a budget of $10 billion. The relief package would exclude owners of venues in multiple states and publicly traded companies.

"We've been mandated by the government to be closed for the greater good of the public," says Edwin Cabaniss, owner of the Kessler Theater in Dallas and Heights Theater in Houston. "We're simply looking for just compensation. We have no means to draw any revenues to speak of if we want to maintain a safe environment until we either find some solution to [COVID-19] like a vaccine or we operate at a 25 to 30 percent capacity range. It's really difficult to make ends meet when you do that."

Political power
Fortunately, the bills have rare bipartisan support with a vote on both expected in the coming days or weeks. Congress is due to go on summer recess this weekend but odds are legislators will stay in Washington until they negotiate an agreement on COVID relief measures. One unlikely ally for the cause is Republican Texas senator John Cornyn, who is co-sponsoring the Save Our Stages Act with Democrat Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar under the auspices of helping small business. Senator Cornyn's voting record points to being an ally of musicians, lending his support to artists in the realm of digital rights.

“Texas is home to a number of historic and world-class small entertainment venues, many of which remain shuttered after being the first businesses to close,” said Sen. Cornyn in a statement provided to CultureMap. “The culture around Texas dance halls and live music has shaped generations, and this legislation would give them the resources to reopen their doors and continue educating and inspiring Texans beyond the coronavirus pandemic.”

Those tired of watching their favorite artists perform via live stream or those who simply want to support their favorite local venue can lend their support to the Save Our Stages Act by reaching out to representatives via user-friendly system at the NIVA website. After completing the digital letter, the site provides phone numbers to the offices of local representatives should constituents wish to voice their concern for the future of music in Texas.

"The best thing anyone can do is letting your representative at every level of government — local, state, and federal — know that you support the independent music industry and want to see it survive past this pandemic," Tucker said.

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Movie Review

New film I Want Your Sex somehow makes kinky activity boring

Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in I Want Your Sex.

Writer/director Gregg Araki has been making provocative movies for nearly 40 years, releasing his debut - Three Bewildered People in the Night - in 1987. Most of them have had plotlines that revolved around sex in one way or another, and for his latest - his first film in 12 years - he’s putting it right there in the title, I Want Your Sex.

Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) is an aimless twenty-something who can’t even afford the rent for his apartment with best friend, Apple (Chase Sui Wonders). Thankfully, he finds a job at the gallery of artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), who is open with her sexuality both in her artwork and in her day-to-day life. That soon includes Elliot, whom she convinces to enter into a dominant-submissive relationship with her, with sessions taking place both at work and her home.

Elliot, who’s in a going-nowhere coupling with Minerva (Charli XCX), is more than willing to participate, both because it lets him feel something he doesn’t get normally and because Erika offers a perspective on sex that’s much different from people of his generation. But as he gets in deeper with her, he starts to lose a sense of himself, going down a path in which he finds himself talking to police detectives Zem (Johnny Knoxville) and Zola (Margaret Cho).

Araki does his level best to make I Want Your Sex into a broad comedy, and early on it seems as if he might succeed. The deadpan way that sexual objects appear in the film (a penis-shaped rug in Elliot and Apple’s apartment, a vagina artwork with chewed gum as the medium) make for amusing sight gags. He also makes Elliot the bewildered other in multiple twosomes, with Minerva being the funniest, as she’s way more interested in studying than his ham-fisted attempts at sex.

It’s clear that Araki wants the film to be a commentary on the generational differences about sex, but he fumbles his own idea. It starts with an on-the-nose conversation between Erika and Elliot, and continues with the various dalliances, which seem to be more about making Elliot look and feel ridiculous than giving true insight. Their encounters certainly open his mind about what sex can be, but their one-note nature makes them repetitive and frankly boring, odd considering the acts in which the two engage.

The uninspired storytelling makes the 90-minute film drag way more than it should. Araki includes a few other characters to try to vary the tone of the film, including gallery workers Zap (Mason Gooding) and Vikktor (Daveed Diggs), but their early promise yields little results. The framing device of Elliot’s interview with the detectives never works, especially because Araki completely neuters the personalities of Cho and Knoxville for seemingly no good reason.

The cast as a whole goes to waste. Hoffman is showing the promise of his late father (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and even though he’s appealing here, the material pulls him down. Wilde just made her own provocative movie about sex (The Invite), and this one pales in comparison despite her heightened performance. Wonders, Charli XCX, and Gooding are all young stars who deserve to be showcased much better than they are in this film.

A film called I Want Your Sex is announcing itself as daring and alluring, but this film contains almost none of those qualities. Instead, it’s a slog that only occasionally has something interesting to show or say, mostly relying on the power of its actors to hold viewers’ attention - and failing at even that.

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I Want Your Sex is now playing in select theaters.