Musicians stuck at home focus on positives

Collaboration goes online in welcome rest from the road

Saul Chabot had been sitting for months on the idea of hosting concerts to livestream online. That changed recently, when he was suddenly afforded a bunch of free time.

“Lo and behold, the whole (COVID-19) thing kind of hit us and we’re all stuck in our homes,” Chabot said in a phone interview.

As social-distancing policies continued to change, so did his idea. It went from collaborating with colleagues and hosting live musicians at the Coors Event Centre, where Chabot works as a sound technician, to running the show solo from his home and relying on technology.

The project was aptly named Quarantunes. For better sound and video quality, he got the artists — The North Sound, Dayda Banks, Dump Babes, JJ White and Funkjoint — to pre-record and send him songs to be livestreamed. He played the clips, then video-called the musicians.

The first show took place last week, with a few hiccups, but, more than that, an overall feeling of accomplishment. Chabot tentatively plans to make it a weekly event.

He said the musicians he featured had varied reactions to the pandemic. “There’s moments where it’s getting to them. And then there’s moments where they’re saying, ‘No, we’ve got to get up and take action, because that’s all there is.’”

Eliza Doyle agreed.

“Being a self-employed banjo player, you have to be creative all the time,” Doyle said.

Working so much away from home, she knows what it’s like to see friends and family only through a video-chat.

“I feel like being an artist has prepared me to transition to this and it’s not as shocking to my system as it would be for other people.”

The Saskatoon-based musician is normally planning six months ahead — this year, that meant teaching music and mentoring in Stanley Mission, recording an album in Nashville and New Brunswick, and organizing an annual music festival. As with most people, Doyle is currently pandemic-stayed, and she’s looking on the bright side.

“Now, having that (schedule) wiped clean, it’s kind of like, ‘ Well, wow, I could plant a garden because I’ll be in one spot, potentially,’” she said. “I’m kind of excited about having this time and I think a lot of artists are; there’s gonna be a lot of albums coming out.”

Her Stanley Mission work — mentoring community members in various aspects of music — was to expand to Pinehouse this week. It’s on hold, but it will pick up again.

“I’m just kind of trying to look at all the positives,” Doyle said. “Obviously, it’s a very uncomfortable situation and we don’t know what’s going to happen, but I believe we’ll get through it and I’m looking forward to planting a garden.”

Doyle was slated to play Junofest, which was cancelled on March 12 — the first big indicator in Saskatchewan that COVID-19 was nothing casual.

That weekend “stood to be a significant amount of employment for musicians, tech, and on our industry,” said Mike Dawson, executive director of Saskmusic.

While the pandemic is having widespread economic impact, for the music industry “work stopped on Day 1 as soon as we closed down major spaces.”

Saskmusic is hoping to lessen the financial impact with its emergency relief fund. Musicians, sound and lighting technicians, publicists, booking agents and music teachers can receive up to $1,000, for the music-work-related losses they estimate from March 12 to April 30.

“We’re just hoping to help musicians who’ve had work cancelled, or unrecoupable costs in the last couple weeks, and just make sure that they can keep those basic needs of making their rent, et cetera, in some cases, still a possibility,” Dawson said.