“Infrastructure” is defined as the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. When most hear this […] The post Infrastructure?</br>Who Actually Cares? appeared first on OffBeat Magazine ..read more

What can be done to save live music? Last August, I wrote a blog that demonstrated my concern about the state of live music in New Orleans. Summers are always bad in New Orleans because it’s just hot as hell (and getting worse) and we just don’t have the influx of visitors that we have during most of the rest of the year. When OffBeat started, one of the things that we did immediately was to distribute the magazine in all the area hotels and motels, because tourists have always been told that NOLA has fantastic live music….and there was really no way to promote local music to visitors. That’s ..read more

In my opinion, it’s a real act of courage and confidence when a musician chooses to make a living making music full-time. But it can be extremely difficult to make ends meet, and there can be a lot of uncertainty in figuring out how to make a decent living. Unless you have a gig or two that pay a living wage, your life is a series of scrambling from gig to gig to make enough money to pay the rent and to feed yourself. It’s usually a hard life—but then most creatives have that difficulty—so what are the alternatives? This is an interview with a musician who was not able to make enough money to ..read more

An important conference is coming to New Orleans on June 3-5: the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) will be held in New Orleans for the first time from June 3 – 5. NIVA is a relatively new organization, formed in response to the devastation in live music that occurred beginning with pandemic in March 2020. Of course, musicians’ ability to play and to make a living was affected just as badly: no venues means no live music. NIVA connects with Congress to push the SVOG legislation. NIVA took the bull by the horns and successfully lobbied Congress to provide relief to venues by advoc ..read more

New Orleans, a “music city,” is stepping up its efforts to determine why and how we can call ourselves such by investing in a census of all the components of the city’s music economy. There has not been a comprehensive count of musicians, venues and music businesses since OffBeat‘s Louisiana Music Directory—which was an attempt to gather information on all the musicians, bands and music businesses throughout the state of Louisiana. The Louisiana Music Directory identified and categorized real data from original research around the state relating to music: bands, type of music offered; music bu ..read more

Live music—the bedrock of New Orleans’ reputation as a music city—is in danger of collapsing. This is kind of a complex issue, so bear with me. OffBeat has always been focused on live music. Without live music, New Orleans would not be the music mecca it is. Live music is the fist thing that groups who want to develop our music industry need to address. Yeah, it’s a gig economy, but it’s a start for any musician who wants to make a living playing music. It’s elemental. But getting $100 a gig today is not the same as making $100 three years ago or even last year. Costs of everything—especially ..read more

Radio station WWOZ is negotiating to sign a long-term lease for a new home to be located on the entire fifth floor of The Shops at Jax Brewery, a prime location at 600 Decatur Street overlooking the French Quarter and Mississippi River. As readers of OffBeat know, WWOZ has been looking for a new permanent home for a while, and more urgently since the station’s plans to move to a property at 717 St. Charles Avenue were shot down by the Board of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (the Foundation). The St. Charles Avenue property that WWOZ wanted to relocate to is a three-story, $2.37 ..read more

New Orleans has long been known as the “City That Care Forgot,” but I think it might be renamed “The City That Doesn’t Care” when it comes to its musical history. Having published several features over years regarding the deterioration of New Orleans musically-significant properties, I was dismayed and disappointed to read in today’s newspaper that Buddy Bolden’s home in Central City may be “demolished by neglect” by the city—because it’s literally falling down. We’ve already lost so many relics of the city’s musical history that one wonders if New Orleans is really a city that cares about her ..read more

In response to last week’s blog on the sad state of Frenchmen Street, we received this letter from a local jazz musician, who asked us not to identify him, his colleagues or club name. He has some interesting points that made me think about the state of New Orleans music: Your latest “rant” on May 25 has inspired me. Let me tell you a story about an experience I had recently on Frenchmen Street. My first gig in that area was when Jason [Patterson] was calling Snug Harbor “The Faubourg” and it was the only club on the street. (I vividly remember playing James Black’s tune “Jasmine”, which tune ..read more

Last weekend, I wanted to showcase Frenchmen Street to a music-loving friend from Europe who had never been to New Orleans before. We ventured there late on Saturday afternoon; the city was chock-full of tourists, and even so early in the day there were many obvious tourists wandering down Frenchmen, which typically has music starting usually about 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. I can sum up his impression of Frenchmen Street in one word: sleazy. The street is filthy, there’s rancid water standing everywhere as a result of poor drainage on the street—something the business owners on the street have been com ..read more