[ local music ]
EXIT STAGE RIGHT: Independent music venues band together to press for federal financial relief by Matthew Moyer Small independent venues are an essential ingredient for a city to have a vibrant music scene, key in giving support and a spotlight to touring bands on the rise and nurturing local performers who need a place to hone their craft. Locally, places like Soundbar, Will’s Pub, Uncle Lou’s and the Haven Lounge (and so many more) have hosted an unbelievable array of diverse and exciting sounds. Now those venues, as well as similar places all around the country, need help.
PHOTO BY MATT KELLER LEHMAN
TOTAL PUNK F**KS OFF Rich Evans of Total Punk, Mayhem on Mills and Golden Pelicans leaves Orlando BY MATTHEW MOYER
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n a news cycle that brings bad news on the hour, here’s another little kicker for you: Rich Evans – of Total Punk Records, gloriously trashy local punks Golden Pelicans, and upstart bizarro wrestling fed Mayhem on Mills – is leaving town. This week. In a sign of how bizarre this particular timeline is, the Golden Pelicans gave their farewell (for now) performance in an empty Will’s Pub on Facebook Live last Friday night. The band made the best of it, rampaging through a set of no-frills, sleazy rock with energy to spare. And even the streaming glitches were appropriate. They came on late – punk time until the end – and though there were cameras set up to capture the action, some of it ended up streaming from Will Walker’s own smartphone. DIY ’til death! Whether with Golden Pelicans, his three record labels, the Total Punk Total Fuck Off Fest, tireless show booking, Vinyl Richie’s Wiggly World of Records or the surreal Mayhem supercards, Evans worked untiringly to make Orlando an infinitely weirder and louder place. His presence will be missed. Orlando Weekly caught up with him by phone to debrief him on his coming departure: This has to be a weird note to go out on. I was thinking all of this through and it was supposed to be that the Golden Pelicans got to do our last tour in Australia. I’d come home, have a two-year anniversary show for Mayhem. And then after that, I was going to have this band from Canada come down to play my last Turnbuckle Tuesday, and then have a big show on May 16 as a send-off with Gino and the Goons, the Curlies and some other Florida bands I really like. And then … this happened.
You were interviewed in Barron’s (a sister publication of the Wall Street Journal) about coronavirus impacting live music. Is it true wrestling made you realize your Australian tour was over? It’s true. The day we landed in Australia was the day Tom Hanks announced that he had coronavirus in Australia. From the moment we landed things were doomed. The first show in Melbourne was amazing, the show in Sydney was really good. We were supposed to play a festival at the end, and that was up in the air … so we were in Sydney and we had a day off, and we went to a bar to blow off some steam. And we were sitting at the bar and somebody turned on WWE Smackdown, and there was no audience, and I was like, “If Vince McMahon is passing on an opportunity to make some bucks, this shit is serious.” And that was basically it for the tour. I never thought I’d end up in the Wall Street Journal. And you’re leaving Orlando this week. Yeah, I’m going to Portland. I’m 43 years old, I’ve lived my entire life in Florida. This has nothing to do with disliking Florida. It’s just, you only live once. The Golden Pelicans were playing a festival down in Puerto Rico last year and I met this girl there, Neisha, and we hit it off and then met up again in Memphis at Goner Fest. And she and I had been traveling back and forth between Portland and Orlando to see each other. And I was thinking, “You know, I’ve always wanted to live somewhere else,” so this seems like the perfect opportunity. All of “this” kind of complicated things, but the upside is gas will be real cheap and roads will be empty. Just me and Groucho on the road, Mad Max style. music@orlandoweekly.com
“If you take away the independent venues – the developmental venues – how do bands eventually make their way to the big leagues?” asks longtime local promoter Kyle Raker, of Norsekorea Presents. “The local, smaller, independent music venues are essential to the health and growth of our nation’s music and entertainment industries and economies.” Concert venues in Orlando have been closed since mid-March, and in Florida’s phased reopening plans, they will be among the very last things to open back up. Some clubs and halls might not be able to hang on long enough to reopen, as the pandemic – and a spotty, inconsistent federal and state government response – stretches on. The National Independent Venue Association – a newly formed coalition of independent venues and promoters – is putting out a clear and impassioned call for federal assistance. Now. NIVA, already 1,200 members strong, is asking for legislative action including tax relief and grants from the federal government to help tide them over because the bills don’t stop, even if the music does. “Every show I had scheduled from March through April were almost immediately postponed, canceled or rescheduled to the fall. … Essentially that moves any potential income from the show for me, the venue, the band and the venue’s staff to seven months in the future, and even then it’s still an ‘if.’ So it makes it difficult for everyone involved to suddenly be told, ‘You may or may not have an income at some point later this year. Maybe. Or maybe in 2021,’” explains NIVA member Raker. “I would certainly say time is of the essence right now. These local independent venues are small businesses, owned by regular people who don’t have millions of dollars cached away to keep things afloat.” Visit nivassoc.org/take-action to send an email to your Congressional representatives, asking them to take action.
orlandoweekly.com
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MAY 13-19, 2020 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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