THE WASHINGTON POST.
FRIDAy, MARCH 27, 2020EZ
4
MusicPHOTOS BY KEVIN FOGARTY/REUTERSBY RUDI GREENBERGO
n March 12, D.C.-based
singer-songwriter Justin
Trawick was scheduled to
play a show at Hill Coun-
try Live in C hinatown. L ike almost
all concerts for the foreseeable
future, it was canceled that morn-
ing, leaving Trawick, a full-time
musician, s uddenly out of work.
“For that to just immediately go
away is so incredibly dishearten-
ing,” Trawick says.
Trawick and his girlfriend
quickly decided that if he couldn’t
play a show in-person, he could do
one on Facebook, from the com-
fort of their Arlington apartment.
The Americana singer posted that
he would be going live that night
and nearly 2,000 people tuned in,
requesting s ongs as they s taged an
impromptu concert and solicitedtips via Venmo and PayPal if view-
ers were so inclined.
“I didn’t want people to be giv-
ing us any kind of money out of
charity,” Trawick says. “I wanted
there to be a trade, like with busk-
ing.” The tips from his first two
streams covered the income lost
from five canceled gigs, he says,
and he’ll continue to do them reg-
ularly on Thursdays and sundays
at 8 p.m.
As t he r ipple effects o f the n ovel
coronavirus spread throughout
society, musicians who rely on in-
come from ticket sales have been
hit especially hard, and local art-
ists are getting creative. Many are
turning to the Internet to stage
virtual concerts from their homes
or e mpty venues.
Will Urquhart, a freelance au-
dio/visual specialist who often
live-streams concerts and festivalsfor the website DC Music Review,
saw the rash of cancellations and
postponements e arlier t his month
and put up a post on Facebook
offering to help local musicians
with streams.
“I was thinking about all the
fans who don’t have entertain-
ment for a while, but also all the
bands and how this impacts them
not being able to sell concert tick-
ets,” Urquhart says. “That was the
impetus: Let’s give people stuck at
home something to watch and do
it in a way that we think can help
the bands and help the communi-
ty i n general.”
DC Music Review launched the
Virtual Aid streaming concert se-
ries on March 17 with D.C. power-
punk b and M énage À G arage from
7DrumCity’s the Pocket in north-
west, where the band was sup-
see VIrtuAl concerts on 5NOWHERE TO PLAy BUT ONLINE
Artists are performing live on the Internet
Justin trawick and his girlfriend, lauren leMunyan,
perform a concert via Facebook live in their Virginia
apartment after concert venues closed this month.