Pandemic slows music scene

By TOM LAVENTURE

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Ironwood — Members of an emerging band said a lot of firsts were realized at the First Friday live streaming concert, Friday.

For most of the members of Myron Elkins and the Dying Breed it was the first time to the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. It was also their first opportunity to live-stream a concert.

“It feels nice to be up here,” said Myron Elkins, the lead singer, who also works as a welder in Kalamazoo. “Down where I’m from everyone is just 100 miles per hour all the time.”

The band formed just over a year ago and has enough material for an album. They were getting a lot of positive attention up until the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. 

“I just turned 20 and am living in crazy times,” Elkins said.

The band started to form when drummer Ricky Wayne LaDuke went to hear Elkins, a distant cousin, perform at a bar. He was impressed with the gravelly voice and his musicality.

“He blew me away with his voice,” LaDuke said. 

LaDuke had been playing drums since age 8 and has been in bands since he was 13. After that night, he and Elkins started to put together a band. 

McKinnon Elkins, another cousin with a lot of bluegrass experience, came in on bass guitar. Avry Whitaker, who is a relative by marriage, came in on rhythm guitar, and LaDuke’s friend Caleb Stampfler came in on lead guitar.

“We practice really hard and a lot,” LaDuke said. “Myron has grown big time. He has just learned so fast.”

Myron Elkins is someone with extraordinary talent who is no longer putting it on the back-burner, he said. He has a gift and he now realizes it, he said.

Elkins just completed a solo project with Mackinaw Harvest Studios. He recorded an EP at a lighthouse in Orangeville and released it on Friday.

“I recorded some really simple songs, five of them,” he said. “I liked how it came out because it didn’t put any pressure on the band because that is what I really want to push.”

Songwriting needs to be natural, he said. It doesn’t feel natural to sit down with the idea of writing a song. To force a song he fears it will be stale or formulaic.

“It kind of just comes to me,” Elkins said, adding a line from one of his heroes, Hank Williams, who once said that “if a song can’t be written in 20 minutes, it ain’t worth writing.”

The band’s process is to take the framework of one of Elkins’ songs and each member brings something to it until it becomes something that belongs to the entire band, he said. 

“We’re all real close and we live right next to each other and we practice a lot,” he said.

Elkins’ voice and timeless music got him labeled “an old soul.” He grew up listening to soul singers, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson, but he was as equally enthralled with the stories of classic country music at home. His other influences are the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd, who he said were bands that shared the influences of soul and country.

Elkins said his inspiration to become a performer came after watching the 2005 movie “Walk The Line,” which told the life story of Johnny Cash. 

He started by imitating the singers he grew up with and that his own voice emerged from that somewhere. He said he needed courage to perform and found it at his church.

“I belong to a gospel center and they got me up there and I sang some songs,” Elkins said. “I thought that was really cool, especially because the people feel it so much there at church where everyone is listening.”

Playing in the bars didn’t bring that same type of attention but he could tell some people were listening. Things began to take off but now the lack of live performances keeps the band concentrating on their first album. 

“We want to do it the right way,” he said. “We were getting so lucky in the beginning just meeting people and getting heard and that makes it a lot easier. But it seems like the whole world’s burning down and we’re saying ‘hey, listen to my new song.’ It seems a little narcissistic at times.”

The live stream is a rare opportunity right now, he said. They have played a few outdoor events but music won’t really make it back until the pandemic blows over, he said.

Zona Wick, chair of the Historic Ironwood Theatre Board, said hosting the First Friday music and emcees for live-streaming has been a rare use for the venue since March. 

“It’s been a fun thing and it’s been fairly popular,” Wick said.

It will remain to be seen what uses for the theatre will be possible in the near future, she said. Even with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer rolling back closure orders on more businesses including gymnasiums, reopening the theatres is a more delicate matter, she said. Reopening at 25% capacity would allow for around 175 people to be seated in a social distancing manner but that is still problematic and counters the purpose of live entertainment. 

“We make money by packing theaters and the dance companies and all of them want to fill the seats,” she said. “I don’t think we’re going to be up and running for a while.” 

Bruce Greenhill, theatre operations manager, said he and the sound crew were thrilled to work with the city of Ironwood for First Friday live streaming. 

“I am sure you can imagine that it’s a tragedy to come into an empty dark theatre and there’s nothing going on,” he said. “So even though there’s no audience here it’s great to hear live music on the stage and know that people in the safety of their homes can enjoy some great music.”

The videographer, Tyler Salvey, is a volunteer who said he increased his skills by learning to broadcast the services at Range Community Bible Church in Hurley, where he is an associate pastor. 

“I like doing video,” Salvey said. “I like getting to partner with Travel Ironwood and getting to show off the theatre and the bands that they bring up.”

The quality has improved from two cell phones and cheap microphones when it started to a real professional recording by the end of the season, said Tim Erickson, community development specialist for the city of Ironwood and First Friday committee member with the Downtown Ironwood Development Authority.

The crew learned quickly that they needed a good camera and to take advantage of the theatre’s new sound system, and also to use a better internet connection so that the video could broadcast at higher quality, he said.

“We just learned that sometimes you have to put a little more effort into it,” Erickson said.

“We want to try to have some diversity of sound which they absolutely fulfill,” Erickson said of the bands. “We also try to book Michigan musicians because the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs like to see us spending money on artists in the state.