On Dec. 14, Margin Walker, the largest independent live-music promoter in Texas, announced that it was permanently shutting down.

A business that booked more than 3,500 shows in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio over the past four years had collapsed.

It collapsed under the weight of a COVID-19 pandemic that has taken one of the great joys of life experiencing live music with a crowd of fellow enthusiasts away from us and driven countless club owners to (or past) the edge of financial ruin.

On Dec. 21, Congress passed a $900 billion COVID-relief bill that included the Save Our Stages Act, a $15 billion life raft for this countrys independent venues. Six days later, President Donald Trump signed it into law.

As Margin Walker painfully demonstrated, when it comes to music clubs and promoters, the condition is critical and the need is urgent. The Save Our Stages Act wont be a miracle cure, but it can buy some much-needed time until this country turns the corner on the coronavirus.

Blayne Tucker, a San Antonio attorney and co-owner of The Mix, played a pivotal role in getting the legislation passed.

Tucker helped lead the Texas lobbying effort for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), a 3,000-member organization which formed in April to represent the interests of music venues.

From the beginning, it was an arduous process, because a lot of it was educating various Congress people, calling up every one of them, Tucker said.

Tucker found a receptive audience with the staff members of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He explained to them that the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which had been crafted to provide loans to small businesses hurt by the pandemic, didnt serve the needs of music venues.

Under PPP, loans are fully forgiven only if businesses use at least 60 percent of the funds for payroll.

For a business thats completely shuttered, to base a forgivable loan on payroll, when you have no work to provide people, that program wasnt going to be effective, Tucker said.

Cornyn and U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, a fellow Texas Republican, agreed to lend their names to a letter calling for targeted legislative action to combat the unprecedented crisis afflicting independent venues.

In July, Cornyn and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, filed the Save Our Stages Act, a bill which proposed $10 billion in Small Business Administration grants for independent venues. (That figure subsequently got a $5 billion funding bump when small movie theaters and community museums were added to the bill.)

With NIVAs encouragement, music-loving constituents across the country sent 2.1 million emails to their senators and representatives. More than 1,200 artists including Foo Fighters, Miley Cyrus and The Roots advocated for the legislation through letters, social-media posts or donations of proceeds to the cause.

Tuckers lobbying effort for NIVA was shrewd, because it was rooted in bipartisanship. He and his NIVA colleagues worked on the assumption that the cultural and economic impact of live venues was something that members of both major parties could appreciate. That assumption proved correct.

What I found that resonated, at least on the Republican side, was this idea that these are small businesses that were mandated by government to shut down and ought to be entitled to some form of just compensation, Tucker said. Kind of analogizing it to the Takings Clause under the Fifth Amendment.

I think that constitutional argument was palatable to a lot of folks on the Republican side, where is wasnt as much couching things as handouts or assistance or bailouts.

For Democratic lawmakers, the argument was pretty clear. An overwhelming number of music venues are located in metropolitan areas, which tend to lean Democratic. Those elected officials have had a front-row ticket to the devastation that COVID-19 wreaked on music clubs.

Hundreds have had to close, Tucker said. Its a slow and steady bleed with every week that goes by, right up until funding comes about.

Folks are exhausting their savings, taking out loans, reaching out to family members. Its a matter of holding on, but nobody can hold on like this without some kind of relief. Because its not like the bills go away.

To help with the administration of the Save Our Stages Act, NIVA has created a task force which will provide policy recommendations for federal regulators.

All we can do is make recommendations, Tucker said. Its a new grant program and regulators themselves arent familiar with the business.

Its kind of educating them in order to distinguish between places that are more or less a restaurant and those that are intended to be helped by the bill.

Itll probably be a couple of months before independent venues start receiving funding help. It cant come soon enough.

ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470

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