In the winter of 2012, Matt Ott and Colin Kendrick gathered in a South Austin backyard with some local musicians and a simple question in mind: what resources would really change the game for the city’s stronghold of aspiring artists? Though the native Austinites and childhood friends aren’t musicians themselves (Ott works for the organizational software company Personify, Kendrick for the solar energy company SunPower), they’d been involved in the local music scene for decades, having founded (along with Nikki Rowling) the Austin Music Foundation a decade earlier.
“It was just a really candid conversation about where each one of us was at,” recalls singer-songwriter Gina Chavez. “Some people needed a tour van, some people needed publicity, some people needed equipment—$10,000 to $20,000 are kind of the numbers people were talking about.”
Out of this gathering, and countless similar conversations, eventually emerged Black Fret, a 501 (c) (3) public charity that increasingly has made waves in the Austin music community for how it supports local talent. In just a few short years, Black Fret has given more than $280,000 directly to Austin artists, including rising stars Shakey Graves, Dana Falconberry, and Wild Child. Later this week, at their annual Black Ball, the organization will announce $200,000+ in grants—upwards of $5,000 for minor grants, $10,000 for major ones—that Black Fret will award to more than a dozen local musicians throughout 2017. The organization also provides access to a network of advisors—a big plus for a town that, while known as the live music capital of the world, “lacks professional-level music industry infrastructure,” says Chavez.
How, specifically, these artists collect the grant money is part of what makes the organization different—and, as Ott and Kendrick hope, a future model for other live music hubs across America. Musicians have to “unlock” it through a series of career milestones: touring beyond Austin (each show earns them $250), recording music ($1,000 per song, awarded incrementally throughout the songwriting and recording process), and playing for other local nonprofits ($1,000).
Where this money comes from echoes the long-established fine art patronage system, with Black Fret’s 350 patrons each paying an annual membership fee of $1,500. In return, they’re able to attend local shows featuring Black Fret artists. “Music deserves the support of the community, just as the opera, the symphony, the ballet have been supported for hundreds of years,” Ott says.
“When I heard of some bands around town getting grants the year it started, I thought that somehow magically the city had decided to give grants,” says Sabrina Ellis, whose raucous nine-piece band Sweet Spirit will receive a grant at this year’s Black Ball. “It’s a really good thing for older, more financially stable people to be involved in. The money is definitely coming from the desire to fund music and party a little bit.”
There are, of course, other music-focused nonprofits in Austin, from the health-minded (SIMS Foundation for musicians’ mental health services, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians) to more general support (Austin Music People, Ott and Kendrick’s own Austin Music Foundation). But it doesn’t change the fact that, according to a 2015 survey of 2,380 local musicians conducted by the city, 20 percent of musicians in Austin are living below the poverty line and 30 percent are hovering just above it. Many of the Black Fret musicians I spoke to made references to day jobs, as well as the challenges that come from the dual—and often conflicting—drives to make art and make a living in a quickly gentrifying city.
Ellis explained that she and her bandmates in Sweet Spirit and A Giant Dog have been working so consistently, “we’ve been either on the road or playing a gig or in the recording studio—and I’m not exaggerating—every day this year.” And yet, she laments, “none of us have ever had the income of a ‘real adult.’”
“When you have a part-time or a full-time job and you have to leave for a certain period of time, not only replacing that income but then being able to pay yourself and your band on the road, paying for gas, or airline tickets—it’s a lot,” says Chavez, adding that her Black Fret grant helped her produce her first major album (Up.Rooted), hire publicists to promote it, and tour with a full band behind it.
Wild Child’s Kelsey Wilson didn’t believe Ott when he first approached her with the Black Fret concept. “‘That can’t be real,’ I thought. And it was totally real, and amazing, and saved our asses,” after Wild Child’s van broke down ahead of an East Coast tour. Wilson and bandmate Alexander Beggins were wary of Black Fret having some sort of “schemeable” catch, as Beggins puts it, but “the catch is you have to just play music,” Wilson says.
It’s a straightforward concept, but it’s one that Ott and Kendrick hope to spread elsewhere once Black Fret reaches full capacity in Austin (1,333 members). “Austin has had a very high level of musicians per capita for a long time,” Kendrick says, “but the problems we’re addressing with Black Fret need to be addressed in every major metropolitan area. All the major cities have rising costs of living and musicians have declining income. The need is very real. The other side of this is there aren’t very many—and there certainly aren’t very many of scale—noncommercial mechanisms to identify incredible popular music.”
What Ott and Kendrick believe Black Fret is capable of achieving, then, is the establishment of 10 to 12 branches across America’s major music cities, with each branch funding (at full capacity) close to 50 bands a year. It’s a wildly ambitious goal that would take years to achieve on a grand scale, but what they’re talking about is extraordinary to even dream of: a support network with tens of millions of dollars behind it annually, for “500 of the best bands in the country”—a “minor league of music,” as they call it.
Amidst a music industry where live shows make the money, the Black Fret model has the potential to be to touring bands what the indie label system used to be more commonly, back when record sales actually mattered.