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Curbside Concerts Let’s You Hire Musicians to Play in Front of Your Home

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Musician Beau Thomas plays a Curbside Concert in Frisco, Colorado in May 2020. Todd and Maura Altschuler launched the live-music delivery service to help musicians who have lost revenue and provide entertainment to music fans during the pandemic. (Photo from Curbside Concerts)

The shuttering of live music venues across the country due to COVID, has made things incredibly difficult for musicians and bands. It’s been over five months since live music has become verboten, creating a situation where millions of performers can no longer make a living. Luckily the folks at Curbside Concerts have thought of a rad solution: bring the live music directly to you.

Curbside Concerts is a new platform that allows you to book a band or musician to come play in your front yard, driveway, cul de sac, or any other open space that allows for social distancing. As a recent press release explains, “The website allows people to search musicians by genre, price and location then watch videos of those that might be of interest to them. Once they find a match, booking happens in just 3 clicks.”

Currently there are over 250 musicians and bands you can book nationwide, including Bay Area performers likeEric McFadden, Natalie Cressman, Parlor Tricks, and Jordan Feinstein. The prices range from $100/hr to $750/hr depending on who you’re booking. And the bets part is, the musicians keep 90% of the money. This means you’re actually supporting creators instead of helping some tech tech company worth hundreds of millions of dollars like Sofar Sounds.

The site was started in May by Maura and Todd Altschuler who wanted to “make ordering a concert as easy as ordering a pizza”. The Altschulers are live music fans that wanted a musician for a driveway party and then started helping their friends do the same.

So if you want some sweet tunes for your next socially distanced hang, and you want to support musicians while doing so, book a band through Curbside Concerts. You can learn more right here.

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Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Broke-Ass Stuart - Editor In Cheap

Stuart Schuffman, aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, TV host, activist, and general shit-stirrer. His website BrokeAssStuart.com is one of the most influential arts & culture sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and his freelance writing has been featured in Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Bold Italic, Geek.com and too many other outlets to remember. His weekly column, Broke-Ass City, appears every other Thursday in the San Francisco Examiner. Stuart’s writing has been translated into four languages. In 2011 Stuart created and hosted the travel show Young, Broke, and Beautiful on IFC and in 2015 he ran for Mayor of San Francisco and got nearly 20k votes.

He's been called "an Underground legend": SF Chronicle, "an SF cult hero":SF Bay Guardian, and "the chief of cheap": Time Out New York.