By Brooke Lynch
(photo by Lindsey Dalthrop)
Pre-Covid 19, what do you think the state of Olympia music was and what was your experience in it like?
It was ranging from all these different types of people playing music: different genres, different subcultures, different sub genres being shown. It was kind of cliquish, because there is that mentality that sometimes you would go to some shows and other people there would be like, ‘oh, welcome to my house,’ which is great. It builds a lot of relationships around town, and if you stay here for a while, you notice it. But I think the community here was loving, and caring. I will say, as a black artist, it was kind of interesting to make music around a lot of white artists, being in that community and wanting to do something that was black in a way. I feel like it was hard to find a community for that; it was kind of hard to see that here.
My family’s from Louisiana, so we have family in New Orleans, Gonzales, and Baton Rouge. When I was younger, I would be able to spend time down there for a couple months and come back up here. So, my exposure to music, when I first got it, was down there, and then coming up here was pretty interesting in how to be involved with it. I would say you would have to dig your own way to get involved with this whole community. No one’s gonna go up to you, sit down and stare or appreciate it, you have to get out there and push your own music without any help besides your friends. That community has a thing that’s kind of tight knit. And if you want to go anywhere besides that tight knit space, you have to figure out your own way. For example, there was an event that I did in 2018; I held a Black History Month series of shows, around 10 shows, called Black History Presents American Music, and it was all these different shows that were exhibiting black music and where the roots of all music comes from. And I had different artists come up there and play with me and all that stuff. But the interesting thing about that is that the majority of the time I was the only black player up there and it would be mostly white players around me. So I think this community is nice, once you’re able to get into a certain pocket of it. And if you get to know some of the main organizers around town, you get gig spots. Other than that it’s kind of rough to be out here and do music and to get gigs and to be accepted by the people that are playing music out there. Because if you want to do a genre that is not native to this area, it’s not going to be accepted as much, or it might be accepted by the wrong crowd. But yeah, I wish there was more of it; I wish we had more spaces to do stuff in. And I wish we had more support from the city, especially when they say that we’re an arts community. I wish to have more support to local venues and spaces to hold for people to play music, which is really tough for people of all ages. And that’s one big thing for me too, is I want to be able to show the music and all my art and all that stuff to young cats, too. And to give them a little hope, honestly, cause I didn’t have that as much. We’re going to get there, but I just wish that there were more spaces of playing music, and more spaces for artists to say, ‘do their thing’ in, besides homes or studios.
How have you functioned and survived as an artist during the pandemic?
Well, I was doing some work with K records for Calvin, and that sort of stopped because I’m thinking he had all these ideas but didn’t have enough time or money. But I did gigs every Sunday, and probably four to five gigs a week downtown before COVID, but now I’m not getting that. But I’ve been practicing more and I’ve been focusing on learning instruments. Also, during the summer, I was able to do outdoor jams with my friends. So, my friend has a house and we did some jams in his backyard, outside in the heat, which is okay, but we had our masks on, so we were sweating and being burned by the sun. But I think mentally, I’ve been in a hole where… I’m here, and I want to do these things. So, I have a lot of projects that I’ve created to keep my creative flow going to help me get through the stagnant time of not being able to do work with other musicians. That’s the biggest thing, the community of playing with other artists, that those venues gave to us like Rhythm & Rye. It was just a healthy gigging situation. I will say financially, it wasn’t the best, but it did give me something, even though I would do it for free. But the idea of trying to be a musician nowadays with how we make money, it’s kind of hard to do that. And we’re losing venues like Rhythm & Rye, which is hard to think about, because that was the venue that I spent years playing at. You probably won’t see many venues around here, and any ones that are able to do it, won’t be a venue specifically. It will be like “Oh, yeah, we’re a bar and we have a venue.” I don’t think it’s gonna be, “We’re just a venue” for a while. And the funny thing is, I worked there as a sound engineer, so I’m not expecting to do gigs for maybe a while.
I’m probably gonna resort to playing on the streets now, which I’m fine with, but we have the Downtown Alliance, which is a little security team that runs around sometimes. There is a little space that usually has art right next to an abandoned building, and so during Juneteenth, I set up with my friend to play some jazz, and so we did that for a little bit, and then a security person came out and was like, “We need you to leave the premises,” and we ended up getting kicked off the space. But I think that might be the next space for artists to be doing more things: downtown, and in the streets.
What do you think the Olympia music scene will look like after COVID-19?
It’s gonna be an intense sensory overload. I think people want to do things, and might be very hyperactive. It’ll either be really intense, or it might be really slow. It might be really slow, with people starting to feel comfortable coming out doing things, because I feel like the one of the first venues that will be open will probably honestly be the Farmers Market. They might do shows, but I’m experiencing the way that people are still scared to come out. Even with the vaccines, and the numbers going down, the cafe I work at is still slow most of the time. I feel like the shows might be a really slow build to where people are doing gigs maybe once a month. I feel like you might see a piano player at a piano bar or like Batdorf & Bronson, you might see a few players there, or the Farmers Market, you might see a few players. I think that’s the majority of places you’ll see people play at, since the city f—– up the watering hole where they used to be places to do gigs outside. I did a couple gigs there and it was great, but I don’t think they’re gonna let us do that anymore. I probably won’t get a gig until after the first couple of months of gigs happening. I’m also worried that people are gonna want to go really hard, want to go out a lot, and want to do a lot of shows. And that is an indicator of mass spread, which I don’t like. So, hopefully the gigs will start coming, and hopefully they come in a graceful way of not harming other people.
