Livestreams After Lockdown

Pandemic-era lockdown is, for most people, a somewhat distant memory, but the normalization of livestream concerts, which rose to prominence when most people were spending most of their days and nights at home, thankfully persists. At the height of the pandemic, I reviewed a livestream for The Wire, and I remember thinking at the time how intriguing it was that the laptop on which I “attended” the concert was the same laptop on which I wrote my article (for added frisson, all the music being performed at the show involved live coding, meaning it was being played on laptops as well).

Many music venues regularly post live performances, often in real time, sometimes archived in perpetuity. Among my favorite spots that do this are listed below. If you know of other such digitally progressive brick’n’mortar spots (for electronic music, experimental music, jazz, contemporary classical, etc.) to recommend, please lemme know. Thanks to folks on Bluesky and elsewhere who fleshed this list out after I posted some initial places.

I discuss the concept of “music discovery” with people on a regular basis, and I cite venues around the world as a valuable resource. In most cases, this just means keeping an eye on the upcoming events at places like Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), the Stone (now at the New School in Manhattan — I used to sit next to Irving Stone, after whom John Zorn named the place, at Knitting Club shows on Houston Street way back in the day), and Super Deluxe (Tokyo).

Venues that actually post their live music online provide an incredible opportunity to hear what’s going on out there. Most of the below are on YouTube. For the moment, I’m emphasizing places that don’t charge for viewing.

Bird and Beckett (San Francisco)Cafe Oto (London) has its own dedicated page, not updated often, but a treat when it isCave (Akron), which streams on TwitchConstellation (Chicago)Coaxial (Los Angeles)DNA Lounge (San Francisco), and note that it has a dedicated streaming page on its websiteElastic Arts (Chicago)Emmet’s Place (Manhattan)Experimental Intermedia (Manhattan)Experimental Sound Studio (Chicago)Maple Leaf (New Orleans)Mezzrow (Manhattan)Roulette (Brooklyn)Smalls (Manhattan)

There’s lots of other resources, like the email newsletters dedicated to Toronto (Soundlist) and to Sydney (emus), and the Bay Improviser website in the San Francisco area (where I live), but for the purposes of this list of resources, I’m focused on free live streaming.