Biddle Street Music Complex Support Fund
Donation protected
Big Crunch Amp Repair, Old Town Lutherie, and Magpie Cage Recording Studio have shared the same Baltimore address on East Biddle St. for the better part of a decade, but they have always been more than just three businesses under the same roof. In this space they have created a grass-roots, independent home base of mutual support - not just for each other but for the larger Baltimore music scene.
Big Crunch has been a crucial resource for Baltimore musicians, and touring artists from literally everywhere: bringing broken gear back from the dead, designing the amps of our dreams, and giving workshops to help musicians learn how to help themselves.
Old Town Lutherie has brought an unmatched level of dedication, expertise and love to the repair and maintenance of stringed instruments.
The Magpie Cage is a one-of-a-kind recording space with a long history, where all kinds of artists - bands like Shudder to Think, Boister, Periphery, Clutch -and every style of music from heavy rock to string quartets - have birthed some of their greatest and most enduring work. Artists from around the world have come to record here, and students from our internship program have gone on to do their own great work both here and elsewhere. The live room is a rare space with natural light and a sound and feeling like nowhere else.
Right now, Big Crunch, Magpie Cage, and Old Town Lutherie are all under threat, because COVID-19 has brought them all to a virtual standstill - sessions canceled or postponed indefinitely, tours canceled, repair work and commissions deferred because of the uncertainty of it all. These unique services have fallen through the cracks of government relief programs. But rent and utilities still need to be paid, even though there’s no knowing when things will even get close to normal again. There is a real danger of losing this space, and if we lose it, we’ve lost something that will be impossible to get back.
This GoFundMe, along with streaming benefit shows (TBA), will help us all to stay in this space together by supporting the cost of rent, utilities and insurance while we all slowly make our way back out of lockdown mode. And with your help, we can also do something to help support the part-timers who we can no longer afford to employ.
We do what we do, and came together in this space, because music gave us a community and a sense of purpose - your help means everything, because it will give us a chance to survive this extraordinary challenge so we can keep serving that community together in the future.
Thanks for anything you can do to help - even just sharing this link. Wishing you safety and sanity -
J. Robbins (Magpie Cage Recording Studio)
Big Crunch has been a crucial resource for Baltimore musicians, and touring artists from literally everywhere: bringing broken gear back from the dead, designing the amps of our dreams, and giving workshops to help musicians learn how to help themselves.
Old Town Lutherie has brought an unmatched level of dedication, expertise and love to the repair and maintenance of stringed instruments.
The Magpie Cage is a one-of-a-kind recording space with a long history, where all kinds of artists - bands like Shudder to Think, Boister, Periphery, Clutch -and every style of music from heavy rock to string quartets - have birthed some of their greatest and most enduring work. Artists from around the world have come to record here, and students from our internship program have gone on to do their own great work both here and elsewhere. The live room is a rare space with natural light and a sound and feeling like nowhere else.
Right now, Big Crunch, Magpie Cage, and Old Town Lutherie are all under threat, because COVID-19 has brought them all to a virtual standstill - sessions canceled or postponed indefinitely, tours canceled, repair work and commissions deferred because of the uncertainty of it all. These unique services have fallen through the cracks of government relief programs. But rent and utilities still need to be paid, even though there’s no knowing when things will even get close to normal again. There is a real danger of losing this space, and if we lose it, we’ve lost something that will be impossible to get back.
This GoFundMe, along with streaming benefit shows (TBA), will help us all to stay in this space together by supporting the cost of rent, utilities and insurance while we all slowly make our way back out of lockdown mode. And with your help, we can also do something to help support the part-timers who we can no longer afford to employ.
We do what we do, and came together in this space, because music gave us a community and a sense of purpose - your help means everything, because it will give us a chance to survive this extraordinary challenge so we can keep serving that community together in the future.
Thanks for anything you can do to help - even just sharing this link. Wishing you safety and sanity -
J. Robbins (Magpie Cage Recording Studio)
Organizer
James Robbins
Organizer
Pikesville, MD
