By Alyana Vera, contributor

Extended Intermission is a new interview series that invites people within NYC’s music ecosystem to reflect on the year without live music. Coinciding with the one-year-anniversary of the live music shutdown in NYC, we’ll be sharing the perspective of bookers, artists, publicists, sound techs, photographers, and bartenders.

For this edition, The Family Reviews checked in with the artists and musicians who have been stranded by the live music pause. In this article, artists Jane Lai, Sasha Ono, and Iris James Garrison share the different personal and professional changes they’ve undergone during pandemic:

As told to Alyana Vera

Meet Jane Lai - Musician, Music Journalist, and Booker at Kirby’s Castle

Jane has worn a number of hats: although she first started attending shows as a fan, it would only take a year for her to start touring and performing with Teenage Halloween. Since then, she's opened and booked Kirby's Castle, a house venue in Brooklyn. When the pandemic closed venues and left touring musicians stranded, Jane started writing about music for publications like Ears to Feed and The Alternative. In this interview, Jane talks about how much she misses live shows, and how she’s using her writing to help keep the spirit of live music alive:

My social life was surrounded by music. That's what I did after my job. I was going to one or two shows a week. My last show was at the Brooklyn Museum, for a family day. This band Thelma played and there was just a bunch of little kids and families running around. I actually knew Natasha because they did sound for one of our shows at Trans-Pecos, so it was cool to see their band live.

At first I was very naive. I thought this would be a few weeks at most. Then a few weeks turned to a month, and I remember I had to cancel a show in April with Mutual Benefit at Kirby's. I asked one of the bands, "Oh do you think we could reschedule for June?" and they replied, "Let's not reschedule yet because we don't know the future of the pandemic.” That was around the end of March and that's when I realized this will be a thing for a while.

Some part of my heart is empty from not feeling a very specific type of intimacy that can only be had at shows. So I've been writing a lot, watching clips on my phone, and revisiting old photos, which has helped re-piece those memories. Sometimes it feels like I have nothing to do, even though that's not true and there are other things to do that's not going to a show.

[Teenage Halloween] released an album in September during the pandemic. We got on a label during the pandemic and received all of our press without playing any shows; We're really thankful for all the opportunities our label has granted us press wise. As a [solo] musician, this past year I recorded an album that is being produced right now. I love playing in Teenage Halloween but it isn’t always the music I love to listen to or am influenced by. Having my own sound is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but never had the intent or time to do. The pandemic has granted me some room to breathe.

I've also been doing piano commissions for a few bands, like Breadboy and Soft Idiot, and giving piano lessons. I’ve been trying to use my skills and still create community, but it has been more difficult in the long run. It feels less natural because you aren’t going to shows or events; meeting people online takes more effort.

It’s been difficult, but in a way also pretty rewarding and enlightening. Over the past year I’ve met so many new folks in the scene who support each other through social media. That’s been the silver lining of this year. It's really reassuring that this community is still strong and there's still new music coming out. A lot of show booking revolves around helping a community without expecting any sort of validation from others.

I'm not really sure of the future of [Kirby’s Castle]. At first we tried doing the live-streams but that quickly faded because there was live-stream fatigue. We haven't really been able to do much with the venue space because we were pretty new; we only got to have three shows. It is quite expensive to live here, so I don't know if I'll be living here next year. I live with people currently who are open to having shows in the future, but I also feel like house shows will be the last thing to come back. I would still like to have shows in some capacity. I think if it wasn’t for the pandemic I probably would have done this for a few more years.

What I think I'm trying to do with the venue is mix music journalism stuff and try to promote these smaller bands. I think my strength in writing is interview essays—I think that’s the one type of piece that brings you closest to seeing a live show and getting to know a band. My approach to writing is actually getting the story out of the band and having them recreate specific moments for me, so that when people read them it's like they're at the show or know the artist a bit more.

One of my main intents of hosting shows here is to give local talent and smaller bands the opportunity to perform. My main intent in starting music journalism was to uplift smaller, up-and-coming bands who are really struggling right now. Algorithms, Tik Tok fame, and PR work to a certain extent. But without a foundation of community, there isn’t much to maintain. Internet clout doesn’t equate to community care. These communities aren’t built overnight.

Meet Sasha Ono - Session Cellist and Founder of the Lotus Chamber Music Collective

Sasha is a born-and-raised New Yorker who grew up surrounded by music: a jazz trumpeter for a father, a dancer for a mother, and grandparents who shared their love for classical music with her. Sasha first started playing the cello in elementary school, and her love for music propelled her to get a Master’s in music education. She used to direct elementary and high school orchestras while juggling freelance performing, but after a couple of years of doing both she decided to freelance full-time with some teaching artist work. Sasha not only performs in collectives like the Little Kruta Orchestra and the 8-Bit Big Band, but she's also founded Lotus Chamber Music Collective, which focuses on performing compositions by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ composers. In this interview, Sasha talks about how the pandemic could change the nature of a musician’s profession as well as her efforts at addressing anti-Asian racism in the classical music community.

Part of Lotus Chamber Music Collective’s mission has been to create community and help research and educate others about composers of color and women composers who haven't necessarily been included in music history textbooks. That's been a lot of my work over the last five plus years. As a public school teacher, I advise students on how to hold these discussions about race in the larger school setting. I put together a lot of materials for my students like diverse composer profiles, and I write arrangements for my kids to learn more about the diverse history of classical music. But what I've been focused on is the ways in which a lot of these youth orchestras address racism in the classroom or amongst the administration.

I quit my teaching job at the Orchestra of St. Luke's due to an inability to resolve issues around Anti-Asian racism I experienced and witnessed while working there. The incident happened right before the pandemic, the October before everything shut down. I intervened in the moment—no other adults intervened—and I reported it to my manager, who was basically like, “This isn't a big deal.” That same thing happened for months at the school. I don't blame the students at all because they're just kids and they're relying on adults to intervene in these situations. I brought it up again in light of all the anti-Asian hate crimes that have been going on, so we could maybe take a step in a more positive direction in this area. That's what motivated me to write a resource document for teachers because it's uncomfortable for a lot of teachers to address racism and talk about racist students, especially if you've never done it before.

It's definitely harder to address racism in some ways in the performance aspect because there's such a scarcity mind-set even pre-pandemic. If I'm thinking about how much I used to work every week versus now there's maybe 10% of what there used to be in terms of work. You don't really want to rock the boat too much because even something small can prevent you from working.

Most of my work has been remote recording. Different bands that I normally play with in person, like the 8-Bit Big Band, will send me tracks and sheet music and I'll send them back. My string quartet was lucky enough to book two in-person concerts at a museum in the beginning of last fall when the numbers were lover. I have a solo show at a museum this weekend. I've gotten a couple of other concert offers, but there's so many things to consider. Now, if you're going to be playing with wind instruments, I have to check-in with my apartment pod. I've never had to go through the details of a gig with anybody else before, and now I'm just like "We're gonna be this many hours together, there will be people who are unmasked because of their instruments."

I think that we can no longer be dependent on in-person concerts. I think the whole structure of what it means to be a musician in New York is just not there anymore. I think online life is here to stay and that for me, I've really pivoted more to finding ways to play concerts online. I've been playing a lot of concerts at senior homes or for home-bound seniors from my apartment. I have this live-stream set-up where I’m an audio engineer figuring out how to route sound to different places and put together different paid livestream events. I’ve been figuring out how to expand my remote recording, which I love doing. I've been writing and arranging music for people and figuring out copyright and royalties on that kind of music and recording.

I think in some ways it is a healthy change for some musicians, just in terms of restructuring. A lot of my friends and colleagues were performing and working so much that you spend a day not eating because you're going to show to show in different boroughs. I think everybody, for at least the first month or two, was just resting. Financially, if you are looking for the same opportunities that were there before or hoping for those performances to come back, I think that's definitely not financially stable.

I think at first I was really grateful to be able to rest a little bit. Before it was a lot of running around the city and making sure I would pack a bag that had everything I needed. Now I never leave the house with my cello, which is something I used to do everyday, so my back is very happy about that. Then, with all of the structure of my day gone and not being able to make music with other people, it was really difficult mentally and emotionally to be like, "When am I going to work again? When am I going to see my friends? When am I going to hear other people besides myself make music?” But I'm really grateful that it gave me a lot of time to spend with my family, which is something I wasn't able to make time for before. There's definitely been highs and lows.

It's nice in many ways to work in such a relatively unstructured business but in other ways it is hard to make systemic change and apply aid to so many art workers and musicians who need it. Orchestra musicians used to have the dream, the steadiest jobs that you could imagine, and they're all out of work for two years. Whether you've been in a stable high-paying job for 40 years or you've been freelancing, you're all in the same situation, which is crazy to see. Although it's an extremely difficult time for musicians and artists in terms of work, I think in some ways it's going to be an opportunity for them to be more empowered in their work and to really feel like they have the power to ask for more money, to restructure the way we were doing things before to their benefit and to fight for their arts in New York City.

If you’re missing live music, Sasha has two shows coming up on May 1st: one with the NYChillharmonic at the Culture Lab LIC and another with the 8 Bit Big Band at Sony Hall.

Meet Iris James Garrison - Musician, one half of Bluish

Iris is originally from New Jersey and moved to New York City after studying acting upstate. Although they moved to New York to be an actor, Iris has been singing and playing guitar since they were five. A job at Little Skips helped introduce them to the local DIY scene, and acting just fell to the wayside as they fell in love with the music. Now, they perform in Bluish, a pop-rock duo that we’ve covered before. In this interview, Iris talks about how the pandemic has changed the way they view their relationship to their music, to others, and with themself:

I remember in February there were a lot of shows; I was at three a week. The one I remember the most is Youbet’s release show at Alphaville. It was packed with so many people that I adored and was friends with. It was just a lot of interconnected webs and people sharing pride for their friend and this record that was super good. Alphaville is such a gross but amazing place, there were people hugging and singing along. I'm really romanticizing it right now in my head, but at the time if I could just pause and be like, "This will be the last time I will be in this setting" I think I would just stay there.

My roommate at the time was also my new bass player at the time, and they were really stoked on playing all the shows we had lined up. I remember them looking at me in the living room and being like, "I don't think we're gonna play any shows, like, again." I remember just taking that in and looking at them and being like, "I guess it's all gone." Then I went to my room and cried. I remember calling my friend who's also in live music and I was like, "How do we feel like we exist if we don't have this thing that regulates my system" Everything seemed to be regulated by playing or being at live shows, and that external experience being gone made my stomach sink.

I think it's going to be really different re-entering and I'm sure a lot of things will feel really precious that felt super normal at the time. I got vaccinated last week, and I'm hoping that this summer there's going to be some outdoor activity. I'm hoping to see people I haven't seen in a while. I'm excited to re-enter spaces that I share with certain acquaintances or friends because it's a very special experience. You have to be really present when you're playing or not; it's all happening in real time. The fact that someone carves out an hour of their day in New York to stand and watch someone is something I can't wait to go back to. I'm dying for an artist to come into the cafe and for me to be like, "I'm totally going to your show later!"

I'm not used to all this internal space. I didn't realize I was such an extrovert, but I think overall it's been a huge adjustment to not have a million things to do. I mean a lot has happened; I'm in a new relationship, I'm in a new place, and I work at the same place but I feel like I've grown up a lot. Everything was really fun when we didn't have to be in lockdown, and I think I could just fuck around and not think things through because there was always something going on. I would have liked for it to last longer, but I think it was good for me to take a minute and grow up from some of that. Instead of people being bar friends or people I see sometimes, I needed to be like "Who are the people I commit my time to?" What's important to you all became so present. 

You realize that some people don't have anything to talk to you about until you can go to an event, so that changed a lot of the relationships, especially the relationship with myself. It's come with pain and loss, but also a lot of healing and growth. I think that I needed to create an identity and sound for the music that wasn't happening because we weren't able to catch-up with ourselves. So I guess it's been more of exploring the actual soundscape of the music and I feel like there's a really good record I can be proud of as opposed to a rush, trying-to-keep-up sound.

It feels like I've approached everything differently; my music, relationships, and myself. I think the experience of gender in isolation has been noticing a lot how much society and outward expression plays into gender roles and fixed ideas of how trans and non binary people should look. So being in isolation has really opened up my relationship with my body and my gender beyond what the world sees me as. 

That's really played a huge part in my music writing and not taking in too much external validation; my expression and my music not resting on what other people expect it to be. Not having the expectation over how I should be perceived, what's desirable for others, has been really good and really difficult to realize how much that played a role in my thoughts. External validation as a performer was a huge part of my life before, so I think having a year without it has been really important in strengthening the inner person. The person underneath all those layers has gotten to really take up some space.

Bluish's full length, Place to Land, is coming summer 2021. For now, you find the latest single from their LP on the Oof Records Compilation.