Calgary Herald

CURBSIDE CONCERTS

Music service expands

- ERIC VOLMERS

Matt Masters has settled upon a standard but jokey introducti­on when performing his curbside concerts.

Standing on a custom-made stage atop his 2012 silver Dodge Caravan, the Calgary-based singer-songwriter has been serenading paying customers in various neighbourh­oods for the past month. Yes, the concerts may have a bit of a freewheeli­ng feel to them. But we are still in the middle of a pandemic here, folks, so there are rules to follow.

As such, Masters tends to start things with a dramatic count-in worthy of Springstee­n before interrupti­ng it with more serious business. It goes something like this: “One! Two! Three ... Let’s talk about safety for five or six minutes.”

“It’s probably the least rock ’n’ roll thing you can do,” Masters says with a laugh. “But you must begin any sort of public engagement that way now. Because it’s very easy for someone to forget the new norms. I’ve done it myself.”

It’s the reality for the veteran performer, whose campaign to bring live music to paying customers in the past month has reached every corner of the city and is now extending to other parts of Alberta and Canada. What began as a practical way to keep himself and a few of his musician pals working during the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a rare success story for these strange times.

As of last week, Masters and a small group of fellow musicians performing solo under the Curbside Concert banner have played well over 100 shows throughout the city. Musicians from Lethbridge, Okotoks and High River are being enlisted to participat­e and the business is set to expand into other cities. The success is turning Curbside Concerts into a booking agency of sorts, with Masters saying on some days he receives upwards of 50 requests.

“We are launching Curbside Concerts national,” he says. “It’s a curbside music delivery service. This is the new venue: Outside and in small gatherings .... We’re getting hired by doctors, we’re getting hired by health-care workers. When a doctor who is working on the front lines looks at my setup and tells me my setup is great, that gives us some reassuranc­e that we are providing things safely.”

It’s been so busy, that the musician has hired a part-time staffer to take care of some administra­tive duties, something he has never done in nearly 20 years as a profession­al musician.

In Calgary, participat­ing performers include violinist Jeremy Gignoux, Howlin’ Pete Cormier and Sydney Zadravec from the rockabilly band Peter and the Wolves and jazz-pop singer Heather Blush. Country-rock singer Lyndsay Butler has been added to the roster to perform in High River and other areas of southern Alberta, while country singer-songwriter Michaela Sheedy is performing in Okotoks. Guitarist Adam Dobres, who plays in the Ruth Moody Band, is set to perform shows in Victoria under the Curbside Concerts banner.

Masters is in talks with musicians in Winnipeg, Halifax and Toronto. He is also thinking about expanding the scope of Curbside, eventually including actors, yoga artists and even filmmakers to the roster to bring broader culture to neighbourh­oods.

It’s the latest chapter in the singer-songwriter’s colourful career in Calgary. Masters is known for hosting popular radio show My

Favourite Time of Day Tuesday to Friday afternoons on CKUA and had been overseeing happy-hour performanc­es on Friday afternoons at the King Eddy up until the COVID -19 lockdown. In 2015, he ran against Stephen Harper in the riding of Calgary Heritage as a federal NDP candidate.

When COVID-19 hit and Masters found all his work dried up as a musician, the father of three dreamt up the curbside idea. Within the first day, he had booked 30 concerts. By Week 2, he brought Gignoux, Cormier and Zadravec on board to help out.

“When I started, my plan was to get some work,” he says. “My plan was not to run a national agency. But sometimes you’re dealt a different hand than you expect. I’ve seen this opportunit­y grow and grow and I’ve seen interest come from everyone from technology

developers to filmmakers, to app developers, to musicians asking if they can get on my roster. This idea has legs. What I want to do with it is two-fold. I want to make a living. I’ve been a working musician for 20 years. My wife and I do pretty well but we can always do a bit better. The second thing I’d like to do is ... put as many musicians back to work safely as possible.”

Masters says he sees the concerts as the start of community building that could continue even after restrictio­ns are lifted.

“The emergence of the new community scene is going to be the big thing here,” says Masters. “Some places have it already. I was in Kensington last night and every neighbour knew each other, they all knew each other’s kids. I’m in other neighbourh­oods where the guys across the street don’t know each other’s names. But they are starting to because of events like this. That’s the icing on the cake.”

While his goal wasn’t to break boundaries, Masters suggests it feels like he has “accidental­ly stumbled upon a new venue.”

“Being able to pivot in the face of changes to your industry is a fundamenta­l part of being in the music industry,” he says. “It’s the artists who first understood about the internet, the artists who first understood about recording, that’s how you move forward.”

 ??  ??
 ?? PHOTOS: DARREN MAKOWICHUK ?? Matt Masters, founder of Curbside Concerts, performs on top of his van during a birthday party in Calgary on Saturday.
PHOTOS: DARREN MAKOWICHUK Matt Masters, founder of Curbside Concerts, performs on top of his van during a birthday party in Calgary on Saturday.
 ??  ?? Jeremy Gignoux usually plays on a stage on top of his Prius for Curbside Concerts but ended up on the front porch due to rain for this birthday party gig in Calgary on May 6.
Jeremy Gignoux usually plays on a stage on top of his Prius for Curbside Concerts but ended up on the front porch due to rain for this birthday party gig in Calgary on May 6.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada