Keep Live Music Alive
Photo: Weird Lines of Sackville, New Brunswick at Durty Nelly’s (now Revival Music Room) taken by Paula Bogdan.
As the entertainment district in the city, we’ve certainly been feeling the loss of live music. Many of my fondest music-related memories all happened in various brick buildings within a few blocks from each other between Broad and Albert. Air drumming to Ladyhawk in between sets with Julie Doiron. Playing in the alley next to the Exchange while The Sadies get high and watch from behind the drum kit. Making records in walk-in-freezers-turned-rehearsal-spaces. Any of the iterations of BandSwap. All of the friends I’ve met going to shows.
It’s been heartbreaking to have been absent from these spaces for so long and also to know that this absence threatens their continued existence. If you’re like me and missed your chance to get one of the fabulous Exchange t-shirts as part of Sask Music’s Sask Venues project, you can still make a donation (for which you will receive a charitable tax receipt) to the Exchange on their website and keep one of Regina’s most important performance centres alive.
Obviously, not only have the spaces in which musicians perform been impacted, but musicians themselves as well. One of the easiest and most direct ways you can support musicians in the city is through Bandcamp Fridays, where Bandcamp (the last pure and uncorrupted thing on the internet) waives its revenue share on the first Friday of each month, meaning artists keep 100% of any sales they make through their Bandcamp pages. The next Bandcamp Friday is May 7, 2021, and you can always check isitbandcampfriday.com to find out when the next one is. Browse the Regina tag to find your new favourite record and support local musicians.
Live performances haven’t completely stopped though. While we wait for in-person shows to begin again, the Regina Folk Festival’s 6th annual Winterruption concert series resumed April 8-10 with pre-recorded live performances from Val Halla, The Snake Oil Salesmen, and Kara Golemba streaming through the festival’s website and social media channels. If you didn’t catch them when they aired, they’ll be available to stream until May 5. You can also watch recorded performances from other local acts on Sasktel Max’s Local on Demand channel as well as their YouTube page.
It’s going to be some time yet before we’re able to have live performances again in any way that resembles anything we’re used to. However, there are still ways you can be supportive until then. Buy a record. Donate to your favourite venue (or order some take-out if they serve food). If you’re like me, you’ll want them around when it’s safe to be sweaty with a group of strangers at the front of the stage.