UNPLUGGED: COVID-19 (and Facebook) Pull the Plug on the Local Electronic Music Scene By Greg Roques
2019 was an epic year for live music in New Orleans. Jazz Fest, French Quarter Fest, and Essence Fest all saw record-breaking attendance, Buku Fest dropped the bass on a sold-out crowd, and fans braved inclement weather to watch reunited rock legends Guns N’ Roses deliver a blistering nearthree-hour performance at Voodoo Fest. The combined audience for these annual showcases alone was nearly two million—or slightly more than 42 percent of the population of Louisiana. Then came COVID-19.
At the onset of the outbreak, spring favorites Buku, French Quarter Fest, and Jazz Fest scrambled to reschedule for the fall, only to cancel their postponed shows shortly thereafter, once the long-lasting impact of the pandemic became clear. At the time of this writing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White Houses’s Cornavirus Task Force, said that the nation may not experience a degree of pre-COVID normalcy until the end of 2021, stressing the continued need to “hunker down.” If he is correct, New Orleans (along with everyone, everywhere) could continue to thirst through a live-music drought for at least another year—an economic dry spell which many promoters, artists, and music professionals cannot endure. “For a large selection of people, being a full-time musician here, even in a city as musical as New Orleans, is a struggle,” says Erik Browne, a local electronic music artist, producer, and organizer who performs under the unforgettable alter-ego Unicorn Fukr. “I don’t know any full-time musicians, either locally or even folks I’ve performed with touring internationally, who aren’t having a hard time right now— myself included.” Browne took a position as the resident DJ for the Fillmore New Orleans earlier this year, broadcasting live performances from his home studio Saturday nights via Twitch
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and Facebook. At the start, these streams allowed him to earn roughly the same amount, via digital tips, that he would get for a live performance. However, as the pandemic progressed, those gestures have been harder to come by. He’s now lucky to bring in $50 a show. Though electronic dance music may be synonymous with technology (all its sub-genres were crammed under the catch-all term “techno” before the turn of the century), many indie-EDM artists are finding it hard—possibly harder than other musicians—to take advantage of the physically removed digital landscape in which we all now interact. “The beautiful thing about live music is that you can connect with your audience,” says Andre Waguespack, aka Klutch, a local DJ who has performed at Buku numerous times. “[When music isn’t live], you can’t look out into the crowd and see if they are feeling what you are playing, and if they’re not, transition to something totally different and then get a sense for if they vibe with that.” Waguespack’s digital output has been strong since shutdown. He has continued to put out new music on a monthly basis, a practice he has maintained for the past two years. He also continues to livestream performances, including a recent set at the
