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Art work IS work!"Art work IS work." I've got a bumper sticker of that on my car. Our careers are careers not dreams, and our work is work not a hobby. Most of the world seems to grasp this, but the United States largely does not. Despite our music being our biggest contribution to world culture, our musicians are not considered "workers," in many ways (though we pay Self-employment tax, which includes both the employee and employer portions of social security tax.) Early in the Pandemic, after many things had been pretty much shut down, the government made a list of essential and non-essential workers. Musicians and artists were near the top of the list of non-essential workers, and rightly so. It has taken a long time for live music to start again, and it is very limited. This is a good thing and it has probably saved some lives! Sports, on the other hand, started up really quickly, despite the fact that one of the first known "super-spreader events" was a college basketball game. Why did sports re-open so much before music and the arts? Seems pretty obvious to me. Anyhow, in labelling us as "non-essential workers," the government acknowledged that we are WORKERS. There is a popular new corporate structure, which is to hire independent contractors, or "gig workers," in order to avoid benefits, healthcare, etc... When the CARES Act was passed, gig-workers were finally made eligible for Unemployment insurance, probably because so many people are now gig workers and there would have been riots if these people were all left out of this assistance they all paid into in their self-employment tax. At that moment musicians were acknowledged as "gig-workers." Our industry was shut down through no choice of ours, for the public good. It was kept closed down for an appropriate amount of time, un-like sports. This hurt many people besides musicians, and closed many businesses, directly and indirectly related to presenting music. Our industry may never fully recover. What will happen going forward? Will gig-workers remain eligible for unemployment? It's a tough situation. For us it is hard to prove we looked for work, because we don't necessarily fill out applications or send resumes. What most often happens is we keep calling someone until we catch them, even though they never call back, and when we catch them we book the gig. We send many emails until finally we get an answer. Will we have to prove we sent 50 gig-inquiry emails to keep collecting unemployment? I don't know. I think at the heart of all of it is the fact that many many Americans work a whole lot but are not "employees," and the system needs the change to accommodate that if corporations want to keep hiring gig-workers. We independent musicians are a very small minority of this class. There are probably more Uber drivers, waiters, and delivery people than professional musicians... Friday, May 28th 2021 |
04/29/2023 | Last Thoughts on Covid | ||
03/14/2023 | March 2023 | |||
03/14/2023 | BLM, Covid, ALM | |||
02/8/2023 | Fitting In | |||
12/4/2022 | Addiction | |||
11/4/2022 | Small Talk | |||
10/3/2022 | Every Bullet | |||
10/3/2022 | Order and Chaos | |||
07/20/2022 | Childbirth | |||
06/6/2022 | Breakup Songs | |||
05/26/2022 | Thoughts and Prayers | |||
05/26/2022 | Pro | |||
05/26/2022 | Guns and Capitalism | |||
04/30/2022 | World Religions | |||
02/14/2022 | Spotify | |||
06/26/2021 | Civil Disobedience for Climate Justice Verses the Power of Song | |||
05/28/2021 | Art work IS work! | |||
05/24/2021 | Healthcare | |||
12/28/2020 | Inauguration Day | |||
11/6/2020 | Facebook Community Standards | |||
11/3/2020 | Masks, Red Arrows, and Entitlement | |||
07/29/2020 | Stella Immanuel | |||
05/8/2020 | Respect the Elders | |||
03/24/2020 | Buddha, Jesus, Patriarchy, President | |||
03/21/2020 | Covid 19 Virus Days | |||
09/13/2019 | 9/11 | |||
05/13/2019 | Look to the Kids | |||
07/4/2018 | Independence Day 2018 | |||
05/20/2018 | Abortion and Guns | |||
05/2/2018 | Civil Disobedience | |||
12/1/2017 | Price of Progress | |||
01/28/2017 | Prayer for America | |||
05/27/2014 | "Free" music | |||
12/30/2013 | Happy New Year | |||
09/26/2013 | Ignorant Bliss | |||
11/29/2012 | Gillen & Turk 2008 Opening for Todd Rungren | |||
08/27/2012 | Shallow Money Trench | |||
06/22/2012 | Crazy Horse | |||
05/9/2012 | Talk | |||
01/19/2012 | Freedom | |||
12/31/2011 | Happy New Year | |||
12/13/2011 | Men of Business | |||
11/19/2011 | WAR | |||
11/18/2011 | Earth And Spirit | |||
10/10/2011 | Occupy Wall Street | |||
10/6/2011 | Independence | |||
09/20/2011 | Anger and Love | |||
09/6/2011 | You Can't Have Everything | |||
09/1/2011 | The Instruments | |||
08/30/2011 | Fathers | |||
08/2/2011 | On Being An Artist | |||
05/11/2011 | Speaking The Truth | |||
04/25/2011 | Tuning the lead vocal | |||
03/17/2011 | Instilling Values | |||
01/14/2011 | The Current Music Business | |||
11/5/2010 | Even The Air | |||
10/19/2010 | Rednecks, Racism, This-ism, that-ism | |||
09/8/2010 | 9/11 | |||
07/18/2010 | Being Ecumenical | |||
07/6/2010 | Dust | |||
06/30/2010 | Gay Rights/ Marriage | |||
03/11/2010 | The heart | |||
03/11/2010 | Culture | |||
01/5/2010 | Coats | |||
12/11/2009 | Pete Seeger | |||
12/2/2009 | Environmental Protest Songs | |||
10/5/2009 | Adam & Eve | |||
06/18/2009 | The World Rolls Along | |||
06/11/2009 | Clearwater | |||
06/10/2009 | The World Rolls Along | |||
06/10/2009 | War Machine | |||
06/9/2009 | alternative media | |||
06/9/2009 | alternative media | |||
05/14/2008 | God | |||
02/24/2008 | broke | |||
02/11/2008 | HOPE MACHINE | |||
01/6/2008 | Dennis Kucinich | |||
12/27/2007 | NYPD | |||
10/4/2007 | Mitakuye Oyasin | |||
05/21/2007 | The Past | |||
04/15/2007 | Kurt Vonnegut, Indian Point | |||
10/8/2006 | God | |||
06/26/2006 | From the Pe Sla -the heart of the heart of Lakota sacred land -the Black Hills of South Dakota | |||
06/5/2006 | Mowing The Lawn | |||
03/24/2006 | Gone Gone Gone | |||
02/25/2006 | grace | |||
09/26/2005 | Sky To Mountain | |||
09/22/2005 | Love | |||
09/14/2005 | Look Down | |||
04/19/2005 | April 2005 | |||
01/27/2005 | Poverty | |||
01/11/2005 | Grace | |||
12/3/2004 | Standing Up 2 | |||
12/1/2004 | Tired | |||
11/29/2004 | Standing Up | |||
11/29/2004 | Mercy | |||
09/18/2004 | Beaten | |||
08/7/2004 | Half Full | |||
07/16/2004 | Hallelujia! | |||
07/16/2004 | Battered Feathers | |||
03/14/2004 | gifts | |||
03/1/2004 | Ancestors | |||
03/1/2004 | A Prayer | |||
12/24/2003 | "The Bomb" | |||
05/16/2003 | Safe | |||
05/16/2003 | Satan | |||
05/5/2003 | Faith, Hope, Love | |||
03/10/2003 | Tatoo | |||
02/11/2003 | Folk Music is alive and well! | |||
01/13/2003 | Revolution | |||
01/2/2003 | January 2003 | |||
11/17/2002 | FEAR | |||
11/9/2002 | Election Day | |||
10/30/2002 | Election Day | |||
10/14/2002 | Checkpoint Charlie | |||
06/17/2002 | Revolution | |||
06/3/2002 | Gold | |||
06/3/2002 | WAGE LOVE! | |||
06/3/2002 | Mercy | |||
06/3/2002 | New World Order? | |||
04/4/2002 | Real? | |||
04/4/2002 | Billboards | |||
04/4/2002 | Faith | |||
03/22/2002 | Living into the 21st century | |||
03/22/2002 | Comfort | |||
03/22/2002 | Barren Ground | |||
03/22/2002 | Dreams | |||
03/14/2002 | March 11, 2002 | |||
02/25/2002 | Germany | |||
12/14/2001 | NOW | |||
09/19/2001 | September 11, 2001 | |||
08/6/2001 | #5 Taking Responsibility | |||
07/12/2001 | Television | |||
06/11/2001 | #3: Sprawl | |||
05/16/2001 | #2 | |||
05/16/2001 | #1 | |||