The year the music might die: British clubs face closure

When Keiron Marshall was 15, he found his way out of a desperate situation with help from an unexpected source: Eric Clapton. guitar great was host at first gig Marshall ever went to, and he was joined on st by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Who's Pete Townshend and Beatle Ringo Starr.

Since n, London's music scene has been a life-raft for Marshall, a musician who w runs a group of small concert venues with his wife. Growing up in south London, he'd endured racial slurs and regular beatings because of his Pakistani herit. His uncle was killed in a racially motivated attack; his mor was a heroin dict.

“Music for us is a really personal thing,” said Hannah White, Marshall's wife. “It’s been totally life-changing.”

But music scene y kw and love may soon be unrecognizable because of coronavirus pandemic, which has plunged U.K. ecomy into its worst recession on record.

Live music venues have been forced to shut doors for nearly five months - and scores are at imminent risk of permanent closure. According to charity Music Venue Trust, which represents 670 grassroots venues, more than 400 across country are in crisis.

One of those is Marshall and White's south London venue group, Sound Lounge.

government anunced that indoor and socially-distanced live music could resume on Saturday. But this doesn't mean that live music scene will be immediately restored.

“ truth is that actually only 11% of venues will be able to open in a financially viable manner,” said Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust.

Less than a third of venues have physical to house safe, socially-distanced gigs. And majority of those would lose too much money on se reduced-capacity shows for it to be ecomically feasible.

Clubs have alrey amassed millions of pounds in debts since March, with more expected in coming months.

“In total, se venues are going to be over 60 million pounds ($78.3 million) in debt" by end of September, Davyd said.

government anunced on Jul.25 that 2.25 million pounds would be funneled to 150 grassroots venues that would orwise have been out of cash by end of September. fund was first slice of a 1.57 billion pound “culture recovery pack” that was rolled out on Jul. 5.

Davyd welcomed emergency fund, but cautioned that this was just a “short term fix,” one that was only aimed at helping “venues identified as being in crisis.”

In total, 500 million pounds of recovery pack has been allocated to cultural institutions that can "demonstrate ir international, national or local significance.” Grant applications for this scheme opened Monday, and venues have until August 21 to submit. For a lot of grassroots clubs that have never applied for grants before, 11-day window is going to be ar challenge.

Derek Nash, a veteran saxophonist and member of Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, worries about who recipients of bailout will ultimately be.

“Let’s t give it all to opera,” Nash said, ding that he wants funds to go to venues like 606 jazz club, a small but popular venue running shows seven nights a week.

At moment, 606 Club is surviving off a government loan it qualified for through Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme. But that has put club heavily in debt.

“ smaller venues that you come up through where you kind of learn your tre – those are incredibly important,” said club owner Steve Rubie. “If those venues aren’t re, those musicians aren’t getting a chance to practice and learn ir tre. So it’s a really serious issue.”

Meanwhile, Sound Lounge has stayed afloat with help from friends and crowdfunding. Last week, owners applied for government's emergency scheme and received 8,500 pounds, which means y won't be out of business by end of September.

“If we can survive it, I think culture, and especially music, is going to have a massive role to play in our recovery,” White said.

“People need experiences,” she ded. “That’s what we all felt in lockdown. It’s t really stuff or shopping we missed, it’s human contact. So re’s a massive potential, but we need to be able to survive.”