Getting the Band Back Together
Thoughts on the anniversary of a year living apart from each other
Corky Siegel is a virtuoso musician, harmonica player and leader of a cross-genre band named Chamber Blues. I watched their latest livestream this weekend, a stitching together of recently filmed content combined with footage of past performances like the one above, from six years ago. The entire band was last together over a year ago playing a gig in the Virgin Islands with another legendary musician, Ernie Watts. Then the pandemic hit. Musicians everywhere were forced to stay at home and figure out this thing called Zoom. On March 18, 2020, Corky made one of his first live videos, via his Facebook page:
Yes, that’s Ernie Watts in the video, staying at Corky’s house on the way back to his home in California. I watched this video when it went live, and heard two living legends improvise some amazing tunes for an audience who had probably not experienced this format before. Corky never looked back. One year later, he has almost 100 videos under his belt, archived on his YouTube channel. Here is a performer in the twilight of his career, jumping into the fray that is social media in 2020, embracing the limitations of the form and making the best of it. I don’t think Corky and Ernie have been together in person since this video was made.
CAN’T WAIT FOR COVID TO BE OVER - WE ALL GET VACCINATED - AND THE BAND GETS BACK TOGETHER. THOSE PARTIES WILL BE AH-MAZING
We are one year into our national lockdown. I’m writing this on March 7, 2021. About a year ago, I gave my last ride to a passenger as an Uber driver. I haven’t given another one since. Meanwhile, many of my colleagues have soldiered on through the health crisis, needing to earn money because they didn’t qualify for unemployment, or were undocumented, or otherwise under-employed. While ridership collapsed, they took risks with unmasked passengers in vehicles with questionable air circulation. They were “essential”; deemed by public officials as necessary pawns in the capitalist game we play here in the USA. Now many of them are targets for armed carjackers; easy prey in a social fabric being torn apart due to economic desperation. But that’s a topic for another essay.
This year has changed us. And we’re never going back.
We have gotten used to the now ubiquitous and perpetual Zoom call. Some of us learned how to use Zoom to our advantage. Turning off the camera so we could multi-task, eat our lunch, use the john, or otherwise maintain our homebound sanity while our pets/kids/partners interrupted our professional online persona. We got used to all remote-school all of the time. My kids haven’t set foot in their respective schools for 12 freakin months. And in that time, nobody thought of how our notion of schools should change and innovate to help improve learning, reduce socio-emotional stress (again, cameras off), use technology to bridge the digital divide, eliminate standardized testing, encourage authentic, self-directed learning, recognize the importance of play, getting out into nature, and basically disrupt the hegemony of rigid 19th century modes of teaching and learning. But that’s a topic for another essay.
We also got used to missing out on ALL the major holidays and gatherings. I remember the start of the lockdown because it soon followed the St. Patricks Day revelers/super-spreaders out partying in Chicago’s bars. Soon after, the other casualties became: the 4th of July, summer festivals, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentines Day, a huge swath of sports-related festivities, birthdays, anniversaries, other life events, and of course, music and entertainment events.
Performers and bands were all stuck at home. Concert venues were shut down indefinitely. Attempts were made to do Zoom concerts. Some were moderately successful. I helped a friend produce a terrific ticketed show by New Orleans-based singer songwriter Gina Forsyth. She netted what I thought was a decent take based on a one-hour show out of her house with no travel expenses or a venue taking a percentage of the door. One of the bright notes out of this unprecedented year was that artists found new audiences. Whether on Twitch, Facebook Live, Zoom, or elsewhere, artists who previously might have struggled to get a dozen butts in seats in some small local venue were now getting new fans to tune in worldwide. For myself, as someone pre-pandemic had been too lazy to get dressed and head out to wait in a long line to get inside some cramped nightclub, COVID has been a boon for me discovering a lot of new music via my browser. And honestly, I’ve spent more money supporting these online artists than I probably did before in-person. The savings alone in gas and parking fees probably outweigh the Twitch subscriber fees I’m currently paying.
It felt good to get out today. I took these photos at the Chicago Botanic Garden. We wore masks while walking around the grounds, even though the rules stated we could do so unmasked. Almost everyone else was doing the same. I guess it’s still wise to take precautions, but damn if I can’t wait until things return to the way things used to be. But we’ll never quite go back to those days I’m afraid. The Pandora’s box of videoconferencing technologies has been opened.
Here’s the trailer for Corky’s latest extravaganza, which premiered last night. A septugenarian who’s taken lemons and made musical lemonade. It wasn’t “live” as you would imagine. Almost the entire show was a feat made possible by software like Apple’s Final Cut Pro, which allowed the ensemble - now dispersed across the world in places like Spain, India, Los Angeles, and other cities, to perform asynchronously and then through the magic of technology, appear to perform together. Corky also mused on the new tricks this could enable, like being able to take the viewer into his living room, or onto the lawn of the Bahai Temple in Wilmette, or even inside his car. He is a showman, after all. I am not yet convinced virtual performances will replace the intimacy of an in-person event. When COVID is over, and we have achieved herd immunity, will we all rush back to the sweaty, dimly-lit, standing-room, cash-only sorry no ATM, bad sight lines, washroom out of commission, bartender ignoring me, can’t hear my date over this loud punk rock band, excuse me while I step outside for a smoke, sorry my Uber is here! where is the closest 24 hr IHOP cuz I’m drunk and starving selves that were our lives ONE YEAR AGO?
Hell yes, we will. And it’ll be amazing. See for yourself, live, on Zoom.
Coming, summer 2021
This essay is inspired by Phil H.