The State Theater in Ithaca, New York is a hot spot for the local music community. In any given year, the non-profit theater hosts 75-90 performances that consist of touring artists. However, when COVID-19 hit, the venue’s source of income became obsolete, and managers at the venue worried about keeping the place afloat. 

“I was just kind of in a daze, like, ‘holy crap, our lifeblood is gone,’” said Doug Levine, executive director of The State Theater. 

The team at the State Theater, like many venues across the country, worried about making ends meet during the pandemic. While many sought hope in the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG), a government funded effort to help dig venues out of their financial difficulties, it failed to deliver when they needed it most. 

While the 2020 grant amasses $16 million in total value, less than $1 million has been dispersed to venues in need. The State Theater, among countless venues nation-wide, are still waiting to hear information about whether or not they received the grant.

“If it doesn't come through, there are many venues that just won't come back from this,” Levine said. 

In the meantime, Levine and his co-workers found new, creative ways to keep the historic theater alive. Earlier this year, they introduced a “Save your Seat” campaign. With a $100 donation, community members could “buy” a seat at the theater that would then be decorated with their own personalized plaque.

“I didn't know what to expect,” Levine said. “But amazingly, we sold out the entire theater in less than eight weeks, all 1600 seats.”

Before long, news of the Save your Seat campaign’s success spread farther than Levine could have imagined. Soon, he found himself giving advice to venue owners like himself who were trying to keep their own theaters afloat. 

“I got a bunch of calls from venues across the country that were like, ‘I love it, can I copy it?’” he said. “And I said yeah, we're all in this together, we all need to find a way to get through this.”

The State Theater supplemented their income by hosting donation-based livestream concerts and periodically asking for donations from the community. While the community came through to help keep the theater on its feet, Levine said donations amounted to a fraction of the income they would have made on ticket and alcohol sales throughout the year. 

“I just wish the public knew a bit more about how much we're struggling,” he said. 

The plights faced by live music venues is not unique to Ithaca. All across the country, COVID-19 forced many small, independent venues to close their doors permanently.

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Doc. Henry said that while artists in her area are excited for the return of live music, many are also mourning the loss of many venues that hosted and supported them throughout their musical careers. 

“Throughout the last year, a lot of our really awesome, independent venues had to close down, and the venues that we need the most to get started again aren't doing well because they haven't been able to host the artists who help them succeed,” said “It's like, we both need each other, but we can't help each other if neither of us have the means to help each other at the time.”

While some smaller venues in the Nashville area are starting to open back up, it’s a slow process — and artists’ desire to perform has them finding creative ways to do so. 

“What I'm seeing so far is people putting on a lot of house shows again, because that's an easy place to start,” Doc. Henry said. 

Frank Heaney, an artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota said artists in the Twin Cities are flocking to bars, breweries and outdoor performance spaces in lieu of concert venues that have either closed down permanently or are in the process of re-opening. 

“I’ve been doing some concerts in the park, which has been super fun,” he said. “It seems like people, understandably, are more comfortable going to outdoor places. Especially after the Minnesota winter, it's nice to get outside again.”

Despite nation-wide re-openings, venues are still working to reconcile everything they lost during COVID-19. As local venues once again open their doors, here’s what you can do to help:

Buy tickets to see artists perform at local venues! Not only will you get a great live show, but you might even discover your new favorite local artist!

Bring your friends! After a year of solitude, there is nothing more exciting than once again getting to share the experience of live music. By bringing friends to local venues, you are not only supporting the venues financially, but also helping to spread the word about their re-opening across your community. 

Buy drinks! Local venues depend heavily on ticket sales and alcohol sales. Instead of heading to the bar you frequent regularly, grab a beer or two at a local venue — and enjoy some live music while you’re at it!

By supporting local venues, you are directly supporting local business owners, artists and everyone that makes music happen behind the scenes. 

As Localify prepares to relaunch at the beginning of July, we hope to connect people all over the continent with music in their community. Once we do, we will send you weekly digest emails with the latest information on all things local music — including where you can find great shows near your neighborhood. Signing up is an easy first step in helping to support local venues recover from COVID-19, and we hope you will join us!

Local Venues Hit Hard by COVID-19

Keep for Cheap is a folk / indie / prairie-rock band based in the Twin Cities. The band consists of Autumn Vagle (she/her), Kate Malanaphy (she/they), Robert Northrup (he/him), Lydia Willians (she/they) and Ted Tiedemann (they/he). 

I sat down with Autumn Vagle over Zoom to learn more about the band, the Minneapolis music scene and what the band will be up to in the coming months!

Bronte Cook: Do you just want to first tell me a bit about yourself, your band and your relationship with music?

Autumn Vagle: Yeah! So, I’m originally from northern Minnesota, Lake Vermillion area. I grew up in a musical home. Pretty much everyone in the band grew up in a very musical home, playing instruments or otherwise being super inclined to to play music. I started playing the guitar and writing songs my senior year of high school. Then, I came to Hamlin University in St. Paul. Four of the five of us in the band attended Hamlin.

Right when I moved down to the cities, I started going to shows and that was my first time ever being in a DIY show environment like that. Immediately, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I want to be part of the scene. I want to start a band.’

By that time, I was writing songs a lot. I kept going to shows, kept writing songs, but I didn't really start a band until my second year of college. I was in a Hamlin University acapella choir when I met Kate, also a musician. We became really close friends, and are still best friends. We started jamming together. The band was just me and Kate for a while, we played duo shows before we were ‘Keep for Cheap.’ Bert came on next, we knew him from Hamlin. Kate also knew him from an after school program called School Rock, which Ted was also part of. There's like a lot of weird connections we have to each other. Then, over time, we slowly added each member of the band until Keep for Cheap was born.

BC: So you all got some good shows before COVID?

AV: Yeah. We had been playing shows and we were getting a lot of energy and really ramping up just before COVID. 

BC: What were some of your favorite places to play or show moments? 

AV: We used to play a lot of basement shows, which was so fun. Those are definitely some of my favorite memories. We played a lot of coffee shops, low key places. Now that things are re-opening, we're getting more into venues. Pre-COVID, we actually played The Fallout with Beach Bunny, right before they blew up. That was really, really cool. We played [First Avenue:] 7th St. Entry a couple of times. 

AV: It definitely hit hard. We were ramping up to start playing bigger venues. We had loose plans for a show in Chicago, which would have been our first out-of-state show other than a Wisconsin show we played once. We had talked about maybe touring that summer.  So, it hit hard, but looking back at it now, I can't see it any other way. I just feel like we really needed that break. We were playing shows all the time, but that also didn't allow us the space to really think about what we wanted as a group and learn new songs. So, during the pandemic, we learned a bunch of songs and got material together. Now, we have an album that's going to come out sometime soon.

BC: Yeah, that's what I've heard from a lot of people I’ve talked to. They're like, yeah, lockdown sucked, but it also created a much needed space to really focus on music. 

AV: Oh, totally. At the same time, we were full-time students and musicians. Now, the majority of us are out of school. It feels so different. Honestly, we feel like a different band. I mean, it's a year and a half later, you know? I think we were just so scattered, playing shows all the time. 

BC: Have you guys played any shows back yet since things have started to reopen?

AV: We played the Pride Block Party near Dinkytown. It was so much fun. Our friends came to watch. They were like, ‘you guys are so much more confident,’ which is funny because I was so nervous to be back on stage!

AV: Oh, yeah. I could not stop smiling while singing. It was just such a cool environment for our first show back, too, because it's pride. Everyone's celebrating and smiling at us, and I'm smiling at them. It was so special. 

BC: That actually leads me into my next question. I grew up in Minneapolis, and that’s where my passion for local music started. What do you think makes the Twin Cities so unique in terms of it’s music scene?

AV: The Twin Cities music scene is just so underrated. Seriously, there’s just so many amazing bands. People joke, ‘oh it’s the same five people in all of Minneapolis,’ but that’s not true. You’re just one step removed from everyone — there’s an interconnectedness. Compared to other music scenes, I think it's easier to play big stages or to open for big local bands [in Minneapolis.] It’s not so saturated, and there are wonderful connections everywhere you look.

I feel like it's starting to spread to a point where other people are realizing that something incredible is happening here. There's some big names from the Twin Cities that are still here, like the Hippo Campus guys, which is so heartwarming. 

BC: Do you have any cool things coming up?

AV: On August 6, we’re playing at 7th St. Entry, opening for 26 Bats. We recorded an album this spring — we don’t have a release date yet, but keep your eyes out!

Keep for Cheap is a folk / indie / prairie-rock band based in the Twin Cities. The band consists of Autumn Vagle (she/her), Kate Malanaphy (she/they), Robert Northrup (he/him), Lydia Willians (she/they) and Ted Tiedemann (they/he). 

Interview: Keep for Cheap

Live music is back — and so is Localify

Throughout the last few months, Localify team members have been hard at work to make the app better, smoother and more cohesive than ever. That hard work paid off. Today, we hit the ground running as we officially relaunch Localify, continuing to help users all across the continent connect with local musicians and events in their area. 

In the summer of 2019, team members — a group of IC students and professor Doug Turnbull — worked around the clock to bring Localify to life. Our original mission? To help people find local concerts and support local artists. 

We were inspired by the way ‘Shop Local’ and ‘Eat Local’ initiatives draw support for local businesses. In buying local, consumers help filter money back into their communities. Supporting local venues, booking agencies and artists functions in the same way. By paying a cover to see a local band perform at a brewery or buying concert tickets to a show at a local venue, you are directly supporting artists and showrunners all around you. 

When COVID-19 hit in the Spring of 2020, we were forced to take a step back. Live shows were cancelled. So, we focused on spreading awareness of local artists instead. We published blog posts on the importance of supporting local music during the pandemic and continued to curate Spotify playlists for users based on their listening trends. 

But there was only so much we could do. We are an app based around live music, after all. But now that artists are returning to the stage, we figured now was as good a time as ever to jump back in — and we are ready to share it with the world. 

It’s easy. Head to localify.org and join using your Spotify login. (If you don’t have one, you can join as an anonymous user, but to use the app to its full capacity, we recommend logging in!)

Once you’re in, you’ll be asked to pick your favorite ‘seed’ artists. These are the artists that you feel define your music taste, and will help us determine what kinds of artists and events to recommend. Do that, and you’re set: our ‘recommendations’ page will pop up with local artists and events you’ll find interest in. 

The best part? You’re not limited to one area. You can choose to set your preferences based on different cities. For example, I split my time between Ithaca, NY and Minneapolis, MN — so I added both cities to my page. From here, you can have Localify make you a Spotify playlist for those areas based on your listening trends. “Localify — Ithaca” or “Localify — Minneapolis” will pop up in your Spotify playlists, ready for all of your listening needs. These playlists consist of both your seed artists and local artists you might not know, giving you a sense of familiarity all while introducing you to new artists in your area. 

You can return to the Localify page whenever you want to check out what events are coming up in your area. You can even add concerts to your calendar and save them to your page for later!

Localify is ultimately a tool to help you better connect with, and support, artists and showrunners in your community. Now that we’re officially back — you’ve got no time to waste! Head to localify.org now to start your journey into local music. We hope you have a good one!

Try it out and tell us what you think using our feedback form.

Tell your friends about Localify. We are poor students and do not plan to rely on paid advertisements. 

Add hometowns for your favorite artists on your detailed artist pages. Knowing where more artists are from helps everyone discover local artists!

On any given night in Ithaca, New York, live music is never too far away. Whether it be an acoustic set at the Bernie Milton Pavilion, a touring band at the historic State Theater, local groups jamming at Porchfest or the town’s annual Grassroots Music Festival, there is no shortage of local music events to explore. 

When I moved to Ithaca to attend college in 2017, I quickly grew to appreciate the small town’s commitment to the arts and local musicians. Some of my favorite college memories involve watching my peers perform at The Haunt, connecting with new musicians at Porchfest and performing with my own band at The Dock.

Despite having a population of only 30,000 people, Ithaca has one of the most vibrant music scenes in Upstate New York. While it isn’t a paramount tour destination like New York City, Boston or Los Angeles, touring artists still often take the time to make a stop in the ‘gorges’ town. 

Through the mediums of performing, composing and word crafting, Kyra Skye aims to create spaces that encourage vulnerability and connection. She graduated from Ithaca College in May 2020 with a BA in Writing and a minor in Audio Production. Click here to check out our full interview with the Ithaca-based artist!

Eddy Crowley, known professionally as Teddy Hyde, is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and indie-pop artist. Originally raised in the Beverly, Massachusetts area, he has spent the last few years living and performing in Ithaca, New York. Recently, he relocated to Brooklyn, NY. Click here to check out our full interview with Teddy Hyde!

Vee Da Bee is an Ithaca-based alt-rock group fronted by Victoria DeBerry. DeBerry was born in Houston, Texas, before venturing to Upstate New York for college. She is now based in Ithaca, NY where she has been performing for 15 years. Interview coming soon!

DSP Shows is an independent concert promoter and special events company located in Ithaca, NY. DSP is the official talent buyer for the State Theatre of Ithaca and The Haunt in Ithaca among other venues. DSP focuses on reviving artist development and providing true artist-centric promotion. Click here to learn more!

Since 1928, The State Theatre of Ithaca has served as one of the most significant venues for performing arts in the Finger Lakes region. In any given year, the non-profit theater hosts 75-90 performances. The venue, which has been holding livestream and donation-based performances since last April, will once again host live performances beginning in September. Buy tickets to their upcoming shows on their website!

Scene of the Month: Ithaca, NY

No matter where you are, there are amazing local artists all around you — even in the gossip-ridden, dimly lit hallways of a high school. Frank Heaney and I met as teenagers in Minneapolis; we were in the same high school chamber choir, had a ton of mutual friends and lived in the same neighborhood. Since then, Heaney has released solo music on Spotify, and performs with his band The Misdemeanors. I caught up with him to learn more about his experience with music since graduation and his future plans as an artist!

Bronte Cook: So, first, tell me about your relationship with music and performing.

Frank Heaney:  I've always been really engaged with music. I started informally making music in middle school, just for fun. Throughout high school, I would do what I could to find musical outlets. In college, I had an informal jam-group, then started playing some shows with some friends who make their own music. For a while, that was kind of enough for me — just having fun, performing their music, doing live stuff. 

I'd say my more intimate relationship with music came when I had a prolonged period of unemployment following college. When everything was going to hell, I really didn't have a lot to do.  I had had a lot of kind of like half-baked concepts that I had written but didn't really have the toolset to actually turn into something that presentable and digestible. So that was kind of the main thing I would do to keep from losing my mind, just being locked up in my house all the time. 

The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn, which was not exactly how I expected things to go. I’ve always enjoyed playing, but never really wanted to get too technical with it. But as I started to do it, it just became a really fun thing for me and a way to socialize. 

BC: Have you performed again since COVID restrictions lifted in Minneapolis?

FH: I just recently started to perform again, which has been a cool experience for me. Like I said, I've performed plenty in the past, but I was usually there supporting other people's work, which I still do and love to do. But it's just been a really exciting thing for me to be able to perform my own stuff with a group of all my best friends and keep a really high energy. I feel like it's just an exciting time to play any kind of live music because people are more receptive. They're more excited. 

BC: That sounds awesome. There's definitely a pent up demand for live music like right now. Just in the last month, things have really started to come back. It's so crazy. 

FH: I know. I would go to any sort of outdoor event or indoor like my music just to have that kind of experience again. So it's cool to see it coming back.

BC: What kind of places do you perform at in Minneapolis?

FH: It's a lot of breweries and bars, and people are moving back towards more traditional venues. I did a park concert the other week at Theodore Wirth Regional Park which was super fun. It’s a lot of outdoor stuff. It seems like people, understandably, are more comfortable going to outdoor places. And as you know, in Minnesota, it's nice to get outside again after the winter. So, for now, it’s a lot of smaller breweries, bars, parks, restaurants, stuff like that. 

BC: You’ve released both solo and collaborative projects on Spotify. When you perform, do you do solo stuff or are you usually with a band?

FH: It's all stuff with bands. My friends and I, we collectively call ourselves some The Misdemeanors. We've got some collective work, but we just play through my stuff or my friends’ stuff, whatever we're working on at the time. So that's been super fun, just to have a group of people I can hang out with and socialize with consistently again.

BC: A lot of the artists I’ve talked to, they’ve said something along the lines of “quarantine is the best worst thing that's ever happened, artistically,” because you just have all this time to learn and make stuff. How is the transition from sitting in your bedroom making music to going out and actually seeing people again?

FH: It's super exciting. It's definitely overwhelming, but I think in a good and healthy way. It's really exciting to be able to go out and present your work and socialize because I think that's a normal and healthy part of just being human and being an artist. Even though it's kind of overwhelming and intimidating after living in solitude, I think that overall, it's just going to be a really good thing. And I think people's art will benefit from it, too. You know, being so pent up, there's a lot of stuff you can create just out of that alone, but then learning tool sets and then hopefully having a collective feeling of excitement and enjoyment coming back into being social and whatnot.

BC: Minneapolis is where I learned how important local music is. In high school, I remember going to a bunch of shows and getting in on the local music community and getting so excited about it. What are your thoughts on the relationship between local artists and the community in Minneapolis? 

FH: The relationship between artists and the community in Minneapolis is incredibly important. If I didn't end up running into people or becoming friends with people who had similar interests as me, I would have never found out how much I love [music and performing.] And you know, conversely, like, having people around me who have different interests and different tastes than me, it helped me find out what I didn’t like. 

BC: What about the digitalization of music in today’s world? Do you think it helps or hurts that community feeling?

FH: It's kind of a double edged sword. It gives people access to tools that were previously only accessible if you had a bunch of money to go into studios, etc. It's awesome that people have access to all these tools and knowledge on the internet. But I think we could also get to a point where people aren't exposing themselves to other artists nearly as much. What I think is cool, especially with Localify, is figuring out how to find that digital meeting ground. And just kind of crucial to, you know, keep in good art getting pumped out. There are some bands I would have never heard about, then I go out and see a show that they play and I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to do what these folks are doing.’ I think some sort of digital kind of meeting ground or playground for people is super cool. Especially because, like you said, people have lost certain abilities to socialize and put themselves out there in vulnerable ways. 

Frank Heaney is an artist based in Minneapolis. You can find him on Localify and Spotify. 

Interview: Frank Heaney

Throughout the last few years, Jake Luppen has come up as one of the biggest artists in the Twin Cities music scene. You probably know him as the frontrunner for indie-rock group Hippo Campus, but he has also worked on projects including Baby Boys, an artist/production trio, and Lupin, his 2020 solo album. 

I first learned of Luppen in 2014. Before Hippo Campus was an internationally-known band, I caught one of their first ever performances at The Bandshell, a free lake-side venue just a mile from my house in Minneapolis. I listened in awe as the band members, just a few years older than myself, shredded it up on the outdoor stage. Throughout my teen years, I saw a handful of Hippo Campus performances at various Twin Cities venues and they quickly became one of my favorite bands. 

I had the opportunity to meet Jake Luppen a few years ago, in London of all places, and recently caught up with him to learn more about the Minneapolis music industry and where the band is headed from here. 

Brontë Cook: Can you tell me about how you first entered the music scene in Minneapolis?

Jake Luppen: I started out in a cover band. When I was 14, Zach [Sutton] and I were in this band called Blade Youth. We played 80s Classic Rock at all these different bars In Minnesota, just shredding all these covers. So that's where we started. Then when I was about 15 or 16, Zach and I started another band called Whistle Kit, which is where we started writing original music. I would email every venue in town to get us places to play, but there weren't too many like all-ages shows. They would think that we were over 21, and we pull up and be 16 and the bouncers got pissed!

JL: Haha, yeah, exactly. Then around senior year high school, we started Hippo Campus. At that point, I had learned a lot about what not to do and started to strategically plan out our shows. I think one of our breakthrough shows was at The Whole on the U of M campus. We had a demo tape, so we handed that out. We played [First Avenue:] Seventh Street Entry a couple times, Varsity [Theater.] We played at … Do you remember the club Mill City Nights?

JL: So before they closed, we played there. The lighting dude there saw us and liked us and connected us with management who broke us open from there. The Current was really supportive as well during the early days of the band. They would spin our demo and there was some hype that started to build around it. We got a manager and an agent at the right time. Then went down to SXSW, and from then on, it became more of a national thing. We definitely experienced that Minnesota love very early on, and the local support. Minnesotans just love anything local.

BC:  I feel like something unique about you guys, too, is that you keep going back to Minneapolis. You'll do your tours and your festivals, but you always go back. You all still live there, right? 

JL: Yeah, we have a studio there too! We've brought a bunch of artists out to Minnesota who do some work in our studio. It's a goal of ours to do more community outreach. In the next couple years, we’re starting a project called Blossom. Through that, we’re trying to connect the dots between all these people like working in Minnesota, to other artists and other cities, through shows, as well as producing music for people and uplifting the community here. Trying to build that connective tissue. 

BC: That sounds awesome! So, you guys have been touring for years now. What was the transition in and out of lockdown for you as a band? 

JL: We actually planned to take the year off….

JL:  Yeah. We had been touring pretty relentlessly for about six years or something like that. It's been pretty much nonstop. So, we planned to take the year off and make a record. We started writing and working on the records about a month before COVID hit. When COVID hit, we probably had the record like 70% done. Then we just couldn't see each other for a couple months, we all were working remotely. 

JL: Before the pandemic, I'd started getting into production. In addition to working on a couple of projects with Hippocampus, I've been producing as many artists as I can — people local, people not local. So I’m honing that aspect of my skill set, which has been awesome. I've completely fallen in love with producing. Honestly, I’m almost digging it more than playing now just because it's so much more fulfilling to help an artist achieve their vision. There's something very pure about making someone happy with the way that their stuff sounds. 

BC: What about now, post-lockdown? Are you performing again?

JL: We have a couple of festivals booked, and then we're going to announce some tour dates here pretty soon. But yeah, I mean honestly I've been enjoying being home and having space to work and grow and collaborate with other people. 

BC: So you talked about this a little bit, but what do you think makes the Twin Cities music scene unique? I credit growing up in Minneapolis for sparking my passion for local music. I remember, in high school, seeing you guys and so many other local bands perform. I fell in love with that, and I think the same thing has happened for a lot of other people there. 

JL: I've been thinking about this a lot lately — what sets Minneapolis apart. I have a lot of friends who work in LA in New York, and I think the market is a lot more competitive out there. High stakes. I think there's something about Minnesota being so remote that really influences the sounds that come out of it. People aren't really thinking about radio or press or anything. People are making music as a form of raw expression. It is very insular too. It’s like a secret, it’s not as widespread. Here, not everybody is an artist or an actor or a writer like in some of the bigger markets like LA or New York. I feel like, here, it’s more unique to be a musician.

BC: And what about what do you think just about the community aspect? In Minneapolis, everyone kind of knows each other just because it's such a small world. But I think that builds a really special kind of relationship between artists and community members. You'll see the same bands play and see the same people coming to them. It builds this whole symbiotic relationship.

JL: Totally. I think there are two different stages. I think, when you're local, everyone is super supportive and loving. And then when you get out, people want you to stay in that spot, stay local. That’s a good mentality to have — it's good to be there and uplift your community. It’s beautiful, but also ridiculous, the obsession with ‘local.’

BC: That's interesting to hear. I feel like you're probably the most high profile person I've talked to, so I haven’t gotten much of that ‘local to national’ perspective. 

It’s cool because you get to meet all of your favorite artists in town. When you get into that spot, no one is too far above. There's a humility among Minneapolis artists that I think is really profound and cool. 

BC: Yeah. It's crazy. I remember, in high school…  Do you know who Caroline Smith is? Now ‘Your Smith’? 

JL: Yeah, I’ve been working with Your Smith!

BC: Oh, my god, that’s so awesome. So my best friend in high school, he was her brother, and that's how I originally got introduced to her music. She’s still one of my favorite artists. It’s just so crazy how everyone is interconnected. She's awesome.

JL: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, she's so cool. We never hung out in the Twin Cities, and then she moved to LA for a while. We hadn’t connected until she reached out to me a few months ago. She was like, I listened to your record, let’s do something. So, there’s some things going on there. 

You can listen to Jake Luppen on Spotify here: Hippo Campus, Baby Boys, Lupin

Throughout the last few years, Jake Luppen has come up as one of the biggest artists in the Twin Cities music scene. You probably know him as the frontrunner for indie-rock group Hippo Campus, but he has also worked on projects including ‘Baby Boys,’ an artist/production trio, and ‘Lupin,’ his 2020 solo album. 

Interview: Jake Luppen

When we launched Localify in the fall of 2019, there was hope and a world full of music on the horizon. A team of dedicated students from Ithaca, NY worked constantly to connect people all over the continent with local performances. We racked up hundreds of users, many of whom used the web app as a vehicle to discover new, live music in their area. Our weekly digest emails kept users up-to-date on the upcoming performances and introduced them to new artists. We cemented relationships with music lovers, producers and journalists across the nation, and gained the momentum we needed to help expand connections between community members and the local musicians that uplift their communities. 

However, just as we began to expand, COVID-19 hit. Artists across the world traded the stage for livestream sets in their living rooms, venue shows took a backseat to livestreams and music-lovers were forced to forgo the joy of experiencing concerts. Live music became obsolete and Localify was forced to take a step back. All of the events we compiled were cancelled. While we pivoted to focus on spotlighting local artists, it didn’t quite stick. We are an app that focuses on introducing people to local shows, after all — during the pandemic, there were few ways to move forward.

But now, things are changing. Last month, I went to my first live show in over a year. I joined a band and began performing at a venue in my college town of Ithaca, NY. People of all ages are once again beginning to gather and experience the joy of live music at both indoor and outdoor venues. I had almost forgotten the immense ecstasy that both performing and spectating live shows brings — and Localify is ready to get back in on the action. 

This summer, Localify is back with a brand new team that is working to make the service bigger and better than ever:

Sam Edelstein | Frontend design and development

Sean Blackford | Playlist algorithms and software engineering

Emmett Barry | Music artist and event data mining

Brontë Cook | Outreach, messaging and creative direction

Doug Turnbull | Project management and playlist algorithms

As we prepare to re-launch Localify, we look forward to once again connecting people all over the continent with live shows based on their Spotify listening trends. The app, in itself, provides a direct connection between community members and the local artists that feed their local music scenes. It gives Spotify users an opportunity to step away from overplayed pop songs and directly support the artists near them.

The live version of the app isn’t fully featured yet. While we are still recommending local artists for you to listen to, we haven’t started recommending events in your area. But don’t worry, we expect to be operating with full functionality by the end of June. Stay tuned for future announcements about Localify and our upcoming relaunch!

As we prepare to re-launch Localify, we look forward to once again connecting people all over the continent with live shows based on their Spotify listening trends. The app, in itself, provides a direct connection between community members and the local artists that feed their local music scenes. 

Relaunching Localify

Brontë Cook: First, will you tell me about yourself and your relationship with music?

Kyra Skye: So, my name is Kyra Skye — hi! My relationship with music is … oh my goodness. I feel like music is literally magic. It has this way of connecting us to one another. You don’t even need to know the language that's being like, expressed or like what the words are being said — music, you can just feel it so viscerally. 

BC: You graduated from Ithaca College last year — tell me about that!

KS: In school I studied writing and audio production. Being able to learn about the two was really cool because like I got to learn about literal word crafting, like how to take letters, all these like blocky symbols and create meaning. Then with audio production, I learned how to move and manipulate sound waves. Put together, you can create moments that can be accessed at any time and shared like all over the world. I just think it's so cool. Recently for me, music has been about creating time capsules for my life — really trying to spindle moments and memories that I want to cherish, even the ones that are painful. 

BC: You do a lot of live performing and you also release music on Spotify. What was the transition like, when COVID hit, having to stop live performances and move completely online?

KS: So on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14 2020, I played one of the biggest shows that I have ever played in Ithaca. It was a Planned Parenthood showcase at The Haunt. It was so much fun, I got to play with all my bandmates and be surrounded by all these great people. It was filled with so much love for the music scene in Ithaca, and showed how everyone really comes out to celebrate one another and the community. 

KS: Yeah. We were booked up in March, we were excited. Also, during that time, I was recording my album. My bandmates and I were in the studio together, putting it together at school. Then it was spring break, then it was the end. It was really hard. It was definitely a grieving period. It made me realize how much live shows mean to me — not even just as a performer, but going to shows was a massive part of my life experience and deeply intertwined me with the community I was in.

Not having that was incredibly difficult. I found it hard to make anything for a while because being disconnected from the community aspects of music made it hard for me to also connect back to myself. So much of how I create comes from within the community. 

BC: A lot of the artists I’ve spoken to have talked about quarantine as one of the ‘best, worst things’ to happen because of all the free time they had to write and create music. Do you relate to that?

KS: I kind of went into hermit mode and wrote stuff to try to help me process things. Through that process, I wrote a bunch more songs. By December, I was like, ‘Oh! I have enough material to make an album now.’ 

I locked myself in my grandma’s basement for like two weeks straight. I barely left that spot and just deep dived. I sang and played and sang and played and cried and played. In March and April, I mixed the whole album in my own studio, aka my room, and now it's done. Now it's in the releasing phase. It’s kind of wild to be releasing it while the world is opening up. It feels very much symbolic in that way. I am grateful to be in this phase of my music while the world is in its phase of reopening and healing as well. 

BC: Have you done any live shows since things have started to reopen? 

KS: Yeah, I did one on my birthday! Oh, it was really fun. I played the show at the Kava Bar [in Ithaca on June 19.] It was put on by Ithaca Underground. They're the whole reason that I am the person that I am able to do what I do. My two best friends, also my bandmates, opened for me and then we played a song together. Everything I could have ever hoped for came together in a way that was just so beautiful. 

BC: Could you just tell me a bit about your experience with the Ithaca music scene?

KS: Well, Ithaca Underground, for one — they're amazing. It’s an incredible group of individuals that care so much about music, the community, uplifting each other and bringing people together to create. Their shows cultivate a home for me inside of my own body. It’s very community focused, Ithaca focused, and it’s such a great mix and match of local artists and touring artists. It creates so much diversity in terms of the sounds, but also the people that come through. 

BC: Ithaca Underground is awesome, I’ve been to a couple of their shows. 

KS: They’re the best. Then we also have Dan Smalls Presents, which put on a lot of shows at The Haunt and the State Theater. That's a whole other thing — they bring artists from literally all over. I’ve seen some of the coolest shows through DSP — I just saw Lake Street Dive perform at an orchard!

BC: And then there’s the colleges, too. 

KS: Right! The school of music [at IC] — I've met and collaborated with so many musicians. Every weekend there's a music party somewhere, someone's having a concert at their house. They have all the college kids that are in bands perform, and also people reach out to them like, ‘Hey, like I heard you put on shows at your house, can I play?’ 

The music school also has shows. You want to go see a classical concert? You can go for free. It’s incredible, because everyone's so talented. There's also Cornell, which also puts on great shows. I played a couple shows at Cornell. Everyone's really nice, and it's a different vibe. People from all over the place come here to play because there's such a rich community of music. Now we get to share that magic with everyone else in the community and continue to cultivate that. It's just this beautiful cycle of sharing music and passion and it's just awesome.

BC: So, you mentioned your album is in it’s release phase — what can people expect from Kyra Skye moving forward?

KS: Yeah! My album Cherish This Moment comes out August 20. The first single from the album is out now, it's called Golden Hour — it’s on all streaming platforms, or for purchase on Bandcamp, iTunes and my website, www.kyraskye.com. 

Interview: Kyra Skye

Bronte Cook: This is a tough first question, but let’s try it — what does music mean to you?

Teddy Hyde: Music has always been an outlet for me to organize my thoughts outside of my head. It's very helpful to take an idea and just play with it, take it to the physical realm to just be like, what is this? What's actually going on here? When your thoughts are sloshing and whirling inside your skull, it's just hard to keep track of everything. So I find that that that's like a helpful way for me to grow and fit in, assess what's going on with myself. That's basically how I try to approach music. And with that, I end up trying to make a lot of different types of music, because I definitely fluctuate a lot, how I'm feeling on any given day. The limit of sticking to a certain genre isn’t for me, it's helpful to try to express anything and everything through anything and everything, including stuff beyond music. Like, working with animation and with other artists and painters and everything like that. 

BC: What were your experiences with performing and music-making pre-COVID?

TH: I really started working on material for my first album the summer before I came to college, but I was doing music before that. I would take music lessons at a local place, at home. We would have like our own mini concerts, so I had some experience playing live like that since I was six or seven. In terms of performing my own music, I played a couple of shows in my hometown, mostly at cafes. That was my first ever real time playing my own music in front of people. Then I came to Ithaca, and as I started to release music, there were a few different performing opportunities like local house shows and open mics. Junior year and senior year, I lived with other musicians that I played with. So, when we would parties, I would end up playing there sometimes. That was always so much fun, because everybody was there to have a good time and there were a bunch of familiar faces.

BC: You played at The Haunt a few times too, right?

TH: Yeah, yeah, once or twice. Everything before COVID is such a blur!

BC: Have you performed at all since things started reopening? Or do you have plans to?

TH: I want to! Right now I'm in the process of working on new material and trying to finish up an album I've been working on this year. I actually got a studio space that I'm setting up, which is really exciting. Within the next few months, I'd really like to get back out there and do some stuff.

BC: Could you describe your experiences with the Ithaca music scene? What do you think makes it unique from other places?

TH: Ithaca brings a lot of different types of people together, and I think all those different types of people share a respect for each other's differences. They all come from a desire to express themselves. I think that I feel like that speaks a lot to the Ithaca community and breeds a lot of intercommunication between different expressive, creative people. It creates these really fascinating combinations of artwork and music and film. I did my Bachelor's in music composition. Throughout my time there, I befriended a lot of film students just by circumstance. They were making films, and I would score it. I scored something like eight student films. In the process of doing that, I got to witness all their films, learn about them, react to them, develop a relationship through artwork. All sorts of students in the music school get together through all different kinds of ways. A lot of it is that you make friends, and then you find out that your friends are really talented. And then you say, well, what the hell, let's do something at the same time. All sorts of really cool things happen. Everybody's so friendly that it's really easy to make friends and meet people who are willing to give you their time.

BC: What are you most excited about in terms of the return to live music after lockdown?

TH: To be honest, I think I'm most excited about being a consumer of art more than a producer. Especially with the growth I've had throughout college, I feel like I've learned a lot about how important it is to me to be consuming even artwork and appreciating what's being created around me. It's very easy to get tunnel vision and work on your own projects, and that can really diminish your sense of connection to your community. So, I'm most excited to go out and really be there for all these concerts and see all the people that are going to be out there. I think it's going to have a really big impact on me and that feeling of being unified with the world again. I think I think it's gonna do for me what it does for everyone, which is just bring everybody back together.

Interview: Teddy Hyde

When I was six years old, my grandparents took me to a bluegrass concert in the park near their apartment. We packed a picnic and I wore my favorite sundress. I drank lemonade in the sticky July heat, humming to the tune of the banjo. I convinced my grandfather to dance with me and giggled with delight as he spun me around on the “dancefloor” — a patch of grass near the makeshift stage. The band played until the fireflies came out, at which point I drifted into a sweet sleep under a blanket in my grandmother’s arms. 

I attended high school in Minneapolis, a city that takes great pride in it’s local music scene. In fact, it’s named the second best music scene in the country. This isn’t because it breeds big name artists — although it is home to Prince, Bob Dylan and Lizzo. It’s because Minneapolis-based artists have a unique connection and dedication to their city and community. 

In 2016, I attended three concerts that featured Hippo Campus, an indie boy band that graduated from a local high school just years before I did. Before Lizzo made it big, I saw her perform alongside a group of other local female artists at Rock the Garden, a summer music festival that brings national and local artists together for an afternoon of music appreciation, dancing and fun (and, the year I went, very sweaty mosh pits in 90༠ weather!)

Throughout my teenage years, I attended dozens of local concerts; each time growing more excited and connected to the art. When I was 16, I was introduced to Caroline Smith (now Your Smith), an indie-folk-pop singer who grew up in Minneapolis. She quickly became one of my favorite artists — she was also my best friend’s sister. 

Local music communities like this exist all over the world.  The majority of musicians aren’t heard on commercial radio stations; they’re heard in bars, train stations and community centers. They can be found at obscure festivals, local music venues and art fairs. They are the heartbeat of every community.

While local and community-centered musicians have always played a significant role in the music industry, the rise of technology has changed the way consume music in the 21st century. 

Today, Spotify is the world’s biggest and fastest-growing music streaming platform. In 2017, the app had 377 million song streams; in 2019, it had 217 million active monthly users. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of people using Spotify increased by 44 million. 

While Spotify allows users to create their own playlists, the app’s most popular playlists are curated by the streaming service itself. These playlists account for three-quarters of all followers of the platform’s top 1,000 tracks, demonstrating their influence on listeners’ music taste. 

However, these playlists don’t always authentically represent the diversity of the music industry.  In 2018, the world’s four biggest music labels, including Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, were responsible for nearly 90% of the content on Spotify. Today, these labels continue to dominate user streaming.

While this promotes artists with rising popularity across all genres, it also limits the visibility of smaller, local artists. But, they’re there. You just need to know where to look.

The nature of today’s streaming world makes it easier than ever for aspiring musicians to put their work out into the world. Localify presents a simple, accessible alternative to Spotify generated playlists that can help us discover them. And, it’s really important that we do so — for the artist’s sake and for our own. 

A number of studies show that playing music and participating in the local community has a positive impact on musicians. This isn’t surprising, as it gives these artists an opportunity to share a primary part of their identity with the world. But it also has the potential to significantly impact community members.

Right now, the U.S. is experiencing a loneliness epidemic. Experts say this is largely due to a lack of genuine, human connection, which could be attributed to the expansion of technology. So, while apps like Spotify provide a great platform to start finding new and unfamiliar music, our support for local artists shouldn’t end there. It’s important that we attend live performances and immerse ourselves in the unique culture these artists help cultivate in our communities.

As streaming platforms continue to dominate the way we listen to music, we must remain conscious of what we consume — and recognize what steps we can take to remain loyal to local artists and, in turn, to our communities and ourselves. 

This was my first experience with local music. The first one I remember, anyway. As I grew up, my community continued to shape and expand the way I thought about local music and taught me the meaningful impact it can have on a community.

Local Artists Promote Connection and Community

It’s an exceptionally warm Sunday in September, and the central neighborhoods of Ithaca, NY are more lively than usual. Shirtless toddlers dance barefoot on the warm pavement as college students cheerfully sip iced coffee in the shade of nearby trees. Elderly couples lounge in lawn chairs and families parade down the streets, singing and dancing to live music. Around them, the entire neighborhood pulsates with the sweet, jubilant sounds of local performers. 

This was Ithaca’s 13th annual Porchfest. Every year, homeowners in the city’s Fall Creek and Northside neighborhoods dedicate their porches as stages for local artists. This year, local bands and musicians populated over 100 porches to share their music with the community, representing an extremely diverse range of genres including 60s Motown, Americana vocal soul, and improvisational funk- jazz-rock (just to name a few.)

Throughout the last decade, Porchfest has become one of the most anticipated events in the Ithaca community. It began in 2007, when two Fall Creek neighbors spontaneously raised the idea of bringing a local music event to the area. They gathered approximately 20 performers to play in the neighborhood, launching the first-ever official Porchfest event. Now, over a decade later, the festival consistently draws hundreds of acts. This year, over 170 musicians performed.

What began as a small festival in a relatively small town has inspired a widespread appreciation for local music; not just locally, but worldwide. 

In the last decade, Porchfest has spread to over 130 cities in North America. From Montreal to Sacramento, communities all over the continent have adopted the event as a platform to celebrate local music and community. This year, it even debuted in Morpeth, Australia! If you do the math, this means that Porchfest gives a stage to over 10,000 artists per year.

I attended Porchfest for the first time in 2017, when I was a freshman at Ithaca College. As a native midwesterner, I barely knew anything about Central New York, let alone Ithaca. I wanted to get to know the community I would be a part of for the next four years, and I figured attending Porchfest would be a great place to start.

The festival was nothing short of magical. Not only was I impressed by the abundance and variety of local artists, but also by the locals’ engagement and pride in their community. The festival opened my eyes to the presence of local art and music initiatives in Ithaca, and how they help cultivate a creative community like no other.

Ithaca has many organizations that support local artists.

Ithaca is known for its commitment to community-centered art; Porchfest is just one example. The town is also home to Ithaca Underground, a local nonprofit that aims to empower local artists, organizers, and community members by providing communal resources and support. The organization encourages locals to tap into music outside the mainstream and stages over 60 local shows a year. 

The city also houses events and collectives that provide opportunities for community members to engage with visual and performance art. The Cherry Arts Collective is a not-for-profit organization that supports a wide range of artists in a variety of disciplines. Recently, the Quinfolk Festival, a new film, arts and mental health festival dedicated to the celebration of queer and trans people of color, offered a respectful space for community members to engage with queer and trans artists. These don’t even begin to cover all the opportunities for community members to engage with local creatives — but they are a few great places to start. 

The presence of local creative spaces not only helps people find ways to engage with art but helps local artists themselves authentically engage with audiences and find their footing in the industry.

Localify.org is a “digital stage” for local artists

Today, streaming platforms dominate the way we consume music. They constantly introduce us to the latest “hits” and curate playlists to our liking. However, popular Spotify playlists are primarily dominated by commercial, mainstream artists. Many of these artists are already prominent in the music industry and have the financial backing of big record labels, leaving little space for local artists to be heard. 

This is exactly why we decided to create Localify. The app is similar to Spotify-curated playlists in that it uses your listening history to create personalized playlists and introduce listeners to music they might be unfamiliar with. However, unlike Spotify playlists that are dominated by mainstream artists, Localify gives local artists a chance to really gain visibility and be discovered within the Spotify ecosystem.

With the support of these audiences, smaller artists can really begin to gain traction. Wider audiences translate into more performances, bigger venues and subsequently bigger paychecks, making it more likely that performers will be able to financially sustain themselves through their craft. 


Events like Porchfest also help to bridge this gap. They provide an opportunity for locals, students and visitors alike to unplug their headphones, turn off their Kanye West or Rihanna-inspired Spotify playlists and get to know the very people who pour their heart, soul and music into the community. 