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      Justin Bieber Treats Students and Staff at L.A. Elementary School to Private Concert

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      Hours after performing for the charity event, the ‘Holy’ crooner and his wife Hailey Baldwin hit up the star-studded party in West Hollywood with their old pals Drake, Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

      Apr 10, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Justin Bieber has used his time for a good cause amid the coronavirus pandemic. More than two weeks after spreading the word of God at a Los Angeles prison, the “Sorry” hitmaker visited an elementary school in the city to treat its students and staff to a private concert.

      In a clip obtained by TMZ on Thursday, April 8, the 27-year-old Canadian native could be seen singing a few of his latest songs including “Holy”. He was also accompanied by his wife Hailey Baldwin during the event.

      For the outing, the “What Do You Mean” singer donned a white sweater underneath an open checked shirt, jeans and a black beanie. His model wife, who was seen hanging out backstage during the show, opted to go with a light brown jacket, black pants and an army green face mask.

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      Justin held the concert in collaboration with Baby2Baby, a “nonprofit organization providing essential items to children in need across the country.” He additionally detailed on Instagram, “In the last 10 years, Baby2Baby has distributed over 150 million items to children in homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, foster care, hospitals and underserved schools as well as children who have lost everything in the wake of disaster.”

      Hours after performing for the charity event, Justin and Hailey hit up the star-studded party in West Hollywood with their old pals Drake, Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner. Also in attendance were Kendall’s beau Devin Booker, Tyga, Chris Brown, Amber Rose, Megan Fox, Machine Gun Kelly and Pia Mia.

      This came over two weeks after Justin went to the California State Prison of L.A. County to carry out his evangelical mission. A representative of The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spilled to TMZ that he visited the facility with his pastor on March 22 to support its faith-based programs.

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      Ethel Gabriel, a Rare Woman in the Record World, Dies at 99

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      For much of her more than 40 years at RCA, Ms. Gabriel was a producer, overseeing “Living Strings” and other profitable lines.Ethel Gabriel, who in more than 40 years at RCA Victor is thought to have produced thousands of records, many at a time when almost no women were doing that work at major labels, died on March 23 in Rochester, N.Y. She was 99.Her nephew, Ed Mauro, her closest living relative, confirmed her death.Ms. Gabriel began working at RCA’s plant in Camden, N.J., in 1940 while a student at Temple University in Philadelphia. One of her early jobs was as a record tester — she would pull one in every 500 records and listen to it for manufacturing imperfections.“If it was a hit,” she told The Pocono Record of Pennsylvania in 2007, “I got to know every note because I had to play it over and over and over.”She also had a music background — she played trombone and had her own dance band in the 1930s and early ’40s — and her skill set earned her more and more responsibility, as well as the occasional role in shaping music history. She said she was on hand at the 1955 meeting in which the RCA executive Stephen Sholes signed Elvis Presley, who had been with Sun Records. She had a hand in “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” the 1955 instrumental hit by Pérez Prado that helped ignite a mambo craze in the United States.She may have produced or co-produced the album that contained that tune, but April Tucker, lead researcher on a documentary being made about Ms. Gabriel, said details on the early part of her career were hazy. Ms. Gabriel often said that she had produced some 2,500 records. Ms. Tucker said officials at Sony, which now holds RCA’s archives, had told her that the number may actually be higher, since contributions were not always credited.In any case, by the late 1950s Ms. Gabriel was in charge of RCA Camden Records, the company’s budget line, and was earning producer credits, something she continued to do into the 1980s.In 1959 she began the “Living Strings” series of easy-listening albums, consisting of orchestral renditions of popular and classical tunes (“Living Strings Play Music of the Sea,” “Living Strings Play Music for Romance” and many more), most of which were released on Camden. The line soon branched out into “Living Voices,” “Living Guitars” and other subsets and became a big profit-generator for RCA — which was not, Ms. Gabriel said, what the boss expected when he put her in charge of Camden, a struggling label at the time.“I’m sure he thought it was a way to get rid of me,” she told The Express-Times of Easton, Pa., in 1992 (too diplomatic to name the boss). “Well, I made a multimillion-dollar line out of it, conceived, programmed and produced the entire thing.”Ms. Gabriel with her fellow producers Don Wardell, left, and Alan Dell at the 1983 Grammy Awards. They shared the award for best historical album for “The Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra Sessions.” Ed and Nancy MauroThere were other profitable series as well. Ms. Gabriel was particularly good at repackaging material from the RCA archives into albums that sold anew, as she did in the “Pure Gold” series. In 1983 she shared a Grammy Award for best historical album for “The Tommy Dorsey-Frank Sinatra Sessions” By the time she left RCA in 1984, she was a vice president.Yet, unlike the top male record executives of the era, she rarely made headlines. Ms. Tucker, an audio engineer, said she had never heard of Ms. Gabriel until one day she went searching to see if she could find out who the first female audio engineer was. She brought Ms. Gabriel to the attention of Sound Girls, an organization that promotes women in the audio field, and soon Caroline Losneck and Christoph Gelfand, documentary filmmakers, were at work on “Living Sound,” a film about her.Ms. Losneck, in a phone interview, said they had been hoping to complete the documentary by Ms. Gabriel’s 100th birthday this November.Ms. Losneck said Ms. Gabriel had survived in a tough business through productivity and competence.“She knew who to call when she needed an organist,” she said. “She knew how to manage the budget. All that gave her a measure of control.”Many of the records Ms. Gabriel made fit into a category often marginalized as elevator music.“It’s easy to look back on that music now and say it was kind of cheesy,” Ms. Losneck said, “but back then it was part of the cultural landscape.”Toward the end of her career, as more women began entering the field, Ms. Gabriel was both an example and a mentor. Nancy Jeffries, who went to work in RCA’s artists-and-repertoire department in 1974 and had earlier sung with the band the Insect Trust, was one of those who learned from her.“Being a woman and having ambition at a record company in those days was something that just didn’t compute with most of the male executive staff, but I was fortunate enough to land in the A&R department at RCA Records, where Ethel was established as a force to be reckoned with,” Ms. Jeffries, who went on to executive positions at RCA, Elektra and other record companies, said by email. “She had developed a couple of deals that, while they weren’t particularly ‘hip,’ generated a lot of income and financed some of the more speculative workings of the department. Lesson one: Make money for the company and they will leave you be.”Mr. Mauro summarized his aunt’s career simply:“She was successful early on when the playing field wasn’t level.”Ms. Gabriel, interviewed by The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1983, had a succinct explanation of her ability to thrive in a man’s world.“I didn’t know I was somewhere I shouldn’t be,” she said.Ethel Nagy was born on Nov. 16, 1921, in Milmont Park, Pa., near Philadelphia. Her father, Charles, who died when she was a teenager, was a machinist, and her mother, Margaret (Horvath) Nagy, took up ceramic sculpture later in life.Ms. Gabriel studied trombone in her youth and formed a band, En (her initials) and Her Royal Men, that played in the Philadelphia area. While at Temple she began working at RCA in nearby Camden putting labels on records and packed them before advancing to record tester.Ms. Gabriel at her home in Rochester, N.Y., in 2019. She had a succinct explanation of her ability to thrive in a man’s world: “I didn’t know I was somewhere I shouldn’t be.”Living Sound FilmAfter graduating in 1943, Ms. Gabriel continued her studies at Columbia University and worked at RCA’s offices in New York, including as secretary to Herman Diaz Jr., who led RCA’s Latin division. She spent a lot of time listening in on studio sessions, and by the mid-1950s trade publications were referring to her as an “RCA Victor executive.”In 1958 she married Gus Gabriel, who was in music publishing. The couple counted Frank Sinatra as a friend. In a 2011 interview with The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, she said that in 1973, when her husband was dying in a hospital, she walked into his room one day and found his nurses in a tizzy.“I asked, ‘What’s wrong?’” she recalled. “They said, ‘Oh, everybody got autographed pictures from Sinatra!’”Ms. Jeffries said that Ms. Gabriel had always mentored the women at the company no matter where they were on the corporate ladder. But her helping hand was extended to men, too, as the producer Warren Schatz found out when he joined RCA in the mid-1970s, as the disco wave was building.He had an idea for an album that might catch that wave, he said, and she came up with $6,000 to get it made. It was by the Brothers and included a song, “Are You Ready for This,” that became a dance-floor staple.“So Ethel basically started my life off at RCA,” Mr. Schatz said in a phone interview. Soon he was vice president of A&R, and she was reporting to him.“Whatever she wanted to do, I would just say yes to,” he said. “She was so calm, and so knowledgeable, and so self-sufficient.”Ms. Gabriel left RCA in 1984, in part, she said, at the urging of Robert B. Anderson, a former U.S. treasury secretary, who persuaded her to turn over to him her retirement package — more than $250,000 — so that he could invest it in the hope that the proceeds would finance future music ventures. The money disappeared, and Mr. Anderson, who died in 1989, was later convicted of tax evasion.Ms. Gabriel lived in the Poconos for a number of years before moving to a care center in Rochester to be near Mr. Mauro and his family. As she died at a hospital there, Mr. Mauro said, the staff had Sinatra songs playing in her room. More

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      Taylor Swift Finally Releases Revamped 'Fearless' Album

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      Instagram

      The ‘Cardigan’ singer has finally launched ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’, the re-recorded version of her 2008 Grammy-winning album ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’.

      Apr 10, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Taylor Swift has released the first of her re-recorded albums, “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)”.

      The 31-year-old megastar’s new recording of the 2008 Grammy-winning LP features 26 songs and six previously unheard tracks.

      Taylor had already released “You All Over Me (From the Vault)” featuring Maren Morris, “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)”, and “Mr. Perfectly Fine (From the Vault)”.

      The latter was penned in 2008, but never made it onto the final track-listing for the original cut of “Fearless”.

      In the tune, which fans have speculated may have been written about her ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas, Taylor sings, “Mr. perfect face. Mr. here to stay. Mr. look me in the eye and told me you would never go away.

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      “Hello, Mr. perfectly fine. How’s your heart after breaking mine? Mr. always at the right place at the right time, baby. Hello, Mr. casually cruel. Mr. everything revolves around you. I’ve been Miss misery since your goodbye. And you’re Mr. perfectly fine.”

      Keith Urban – who the “Cardigan” hitmaker supported on the Escape Together World in 2009 – duets with Taylor on “That’s When (From the Vault)” and the Australian superstar also added harmonies to “We Were Happy (From the Vault)”.

      “Bye Bye Baby” concludes the six unreleased cuts from “Fearless”.

      The final song on the track-listing is the bonus remix “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” by Elvira Anderfjard, a Swedish producer who has worked with the likes of Katy Perry and Tove Lo.

      Taylor had previously revealed her plans to release new versions of her early records after Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings bought the rights to her back catalogue.

      “It’s going to be fun, because it’ll feel like regaining a freedom and taking back what’s mine,” she said. “When I created (these songs), I didn’t know what they would grow up to be. Going back in and knowing that it meant something to people is actually a really beautiful way to celebrate what the fans have done for my music.”

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      Making Music Visible: Singing in Sign

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      On a recent afternoon in a brightly lit studio in Brooklyn, Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant and Brandon Kazen-Maddox were filming a music video. They were recording a cover version of “Midnight Train to Georgia,” but the voices that filled the room were those of Gladys Knight and the Pips, who made the song a hit in the 1970s. And yet the two men in the studio were also singing — with their hands.Primeaux-O’Bryant is a deaf actor and dancer; Kazen-Maddox is a hearing dancer and choreographer who is, thanks to seven deaf family members, a native speaker of American Sign Language. Their version of “Midnight Train to Georgia” is part of a 10-song series of American Sign Language covers of seminal works by Black female artists that Kazen-Maddox is producing for Broadstream, an arts streaming platform.A look behind the scenes as Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant and Brandon Kazen-Maddox collaborate on a signed performance of the classic song.Up Until Now CollectiveAround the world, music knits together communities as it tells foundational stories, teaches emotional intelligence and cements a sense of belonging. Many Americans know about signed singing from moments like the Super Bowl, when a sign language interpreter can be seen — if barely — performing the national anthem alongside a pop star.But as sign language music videos proliferate on YouTube, where they spark comments from deaf and hearing viewers, the richness of American Sign Language, or A.S.L., has gotten a broader stage.“Music is many different things to different people,” Alexandria Wailes, a deaf actress and dancer told me in a video interview, using an interpreter. Wailes performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 2018 Super Bowl, and last year drew thousands of views on YouTube with her sign language contribution to “Sing Gently,” a choral work by Eric Whitacre.“I realize,” she added, “that when you do hear, not hearing may seem to separate us. But what is your relationship to music, to dance, to beauty? What do you see that I may learn from? These are conversations people need to get accustomed to having.”Mervin Primeaux-O’Bryant, who collaborated with Brandon Kazen-Maddox on “Midnight Train to Georgia.”Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesA good A.S.L. performance prioritizes dynamics, phrasing and flow. The parameters of sign language — hand shape, movement, location, palm orientation and facial expression — can be combined with elements of visual vernacular, a body of codified gestures, allowing a skilled A.S.L. speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text.At the recent video shoot, Gladys Knight’s voice boomed out of a large speaker while a much smaller one was tucked inside Primeaux-O’Bryant’s clothes, so that he could “tangibly feel the music,” he said in an interview, with Kazen-Maddox interpreting. Out of sight of the camera, an interpreter stood ready to translate any instructions from the crew, all hearing, while a laptop displayed the song lyrics.In the song, the backup singers — here personified by Kazen-Maddox — encourage Knight as she rallies herself to join her lover, who has returned home to Georgia. In the original recording the Pips repeat the phrase “all aboard.” But as Kazen-Maddox signed it, those words grew into signs evoking the movement of the train and its gears. A playful tug at an invisible whistle corresponded to the woo-woo of the band’s horns. Primeaux-O’Bryant signed the lead vocals with movements that gently extended the words, just as in the song: on the drawn-out “oh” of “not so long ago-oh-oh,” his hands fluttered into his lap. The two men also incorporated signs from Black A.S.L.“The hands have their own emotions,” Primeaux-O’Bryant said. “They have their own mind.”“The hands have their own emotions,” said Primeaux-O’Bryant, far right. “They have their own mind.”Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesDeaf singers prepare for their interpretations by experiencing a song through any means available to them. Many people speak about their heightened receptivity to the vibrations of sound, which they experience through their body. As a dancer trained in ballet, Primeaux-O’Bryant said he was particularly attuned to the vibrations of a piano as transmitted through a wooden floor.Primeaux-O’Bryant was a student at the Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington in the early 1990s when a teacher asked him to sign a Michael Jackson song during Black History Month. His first reaction was to refuse.But the teacher “pulled it out” of him, he said, and he was thrust into the limelight in front of a large audience. Then, Primeaux-O’Bryant said, “the lights came on and my cue happened and I just exploded and signed the work and it felt good.” Afterward the audience erupted in applause: “I fell in love with performing onstage.”Both men spoke of the impact ballet training had on their signing.Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesSigning choirs have long been common around the world. But the pandemic has fostered new visibility for signing and music, aided in part by the video-focused technology that all musicians have relied on to make art together. As part of the “Global Ode to Joy” celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth last year, the artist Dalia Ihab Younis wrote a new text for the final chorus of the Ninth Symphony which, performed by an Egyptian a cappella choir, taught elementary signs in Arabic Sign Language.Last spring, the pandemic forced an abrupt stop to live singing as choirs were particularly thought to be potential spreaders of the coronavirus. In response, the Netherlands Radio Choir and Radio Philharmonic Orchestra reached out to the Dutch Signing Choir to collaborate on a signed elegy, “My heart sings on,” in which the keening voice of a musical saw blended with the lyrical gestures of Ewa Harmsen, who is deaf. She was joined by members of the Radio Choir, who had learned some signs for the occasion.“It has more meaning when I sing with my hands,” Harmsen said in a video interview, speaking and signing in Dutch with an interpreter present. “I also love to sing with my voice, but it’s not that pretty. My children say to me, ‘Don’t sing, mother! Not with your voice.’”The challenges of signing music multiply when it comes to polyphonic works like the Passion oratorios of Bach, with their complex tapestries of orchestral and vocal counterpoint and declamatory recitatives. Early in April, Sing and Sign, an ensemble founded in Leipzig, Germany, by the soprano Susanne Haupt, uploaded a new production of part of the “St. John Passion” that is the first fruit of an ongoing undertaking.Haupt worked with deaf people and a choreographer to develop a performance that would render not only the sung words of the oratorio, but also the character of the music. For example, the gurgling 16th notes that run through the strings are expressed with the sign for “flowing.”“We didn’t want to just translate text,” Haupt said. “We wanted to make music visible.”Just who should be entrusted with that process of making music visible can be a contentious question. Speaking between takes at the shoot in Brooklyn, Primeaux-O’Bryant said that some music videos created by hearing A.S.L. speakers lack expressivity and render little more than the words and basic rhythm.“Sometimes interpreters don’t show the emotions that are tied to the music,” he said. “And deaf people are like, ‘What is that?’”Kazen-Maddox signing “relationship.”Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesPrimeaux-O’Bryant signing “gone” or “left” or “took off,” as in a person leaving.Justin Kaneps for The New York TimesBoth men spoke of the impact ballet training had on the quality of their signing. Kazen-Maddox said that when he took daily ballet classes in his 20s, his signing became more graceful.“There is a port de bras, which you only learn from ballet, which I was really engraving into my body,” he said. “And I watched my sign language, which had been with me my whole life, become more compatible with music.”Wailes, too, traces her musicality to her training in dance. “I am a little more attuned with the overall sensitivity to spatial awareness in my body,” she said. And, she added, “not everyone is a good singer, right? So I think you’d have to make that analogy for signers as well.” More

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      Quavo Appears to Diss Saweetie in New Snippet of Unreleased Track

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      WENN/Apega

      The Migos star and the ‘Icy Girl’ raptress have a messy breakup after the former is accused of domestic abuse following the leak of their elevator fight footage.

      Apr 9, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      Quavo appears to be having no intention to keep things civil between him and Saweetie following their split. If this is any indication, the Migos star may have caused further strain in their relationship as he appears to diss his ex in a new snippet of an unreleased track.

      In the newly-surfaced audio, the Athens-born artist rhymes, “Skrtttt Skrtttt takin back dat Bentley/ F**d dem h**s now I gotta act stingy/ new Huncho & Petro otw.” He is likely referring to the Bentley that he gave his then-girlfriend as a gift in December 2020.

      Following their split in February, there were rumors saying that Quavo repossessed the expensive car that he gifted his ex. “Quavo’s no dummy – the Bentley wasn’t in her name,” a source told MTO News at the time. “He’s not being petty or anything, but she’s on Twitter talking s**t. So he took back the car… He got that s**t.”

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      TMZ, however, later debunked the news, claiming that the 29-year-old emcee neither leased the car in his name nor ended the lease early in the wake of his breakup from his ex-girlfriend.

      But that wasn’t the ugliest part of their breakup. In late March, a video surfaced of Quavo and Saweetie’s altercation in an elevator. In the footage, the “Best Friend” raptress appeared to lash out at the “Congratulations” spitter and they grappled over a Call of Duty case.

      Saweetie tumbled to the floor as her then-boyfriend stood over her. Quavo eventually exited the elevator as his ex gathered herself and got up.

      Saweetie later addressed the video, saying that “this unfortunate incident happened a year ago.” She also denied that the physical altercation led to their breakup. “While we have reconciled since then and moved past this particular disagreement, there were simply too many other hurdles to overcome in our relationship and we have both since moved on,” she explained. “I kindly ask that everyone respect my privacy during this time.”

      Quavo, meanwhile, denied that he ever laid hands on his ex-girlfriend. “We had an unfortunate situation almost a year ago that we both learned and moved on from,” he told TMZ. “I haven’t physically abused Saweetie and have real gratitude for what we did share overall.”

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      Prince's 2010 Album Finally Gets Release Date After Previously Being Scrapped

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      The album titled ‘Welcome 2 America’ which was abruptly called off on the eve of its 2010 release is finally going to see the light of the day later this year.

      Apr 9, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      The 2010 album Prince scrapped on the eve of its release is finally set to drop.

      “Welcome 2 America”, which has been sitting in a vault for a decade, will be released on 30 July (21).

      A deluxe box set version will feature a previously unreleased full-length concert film from Prince’s show at The Forum in Inglewood, California in 2011, featuring covers of India.Arie’s “Brown Skin”, “What Have You Done for Me Lately” by Janet Jackson, “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry, and Roxy Music’s “More Than This”.

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      This month (Apr21) marks the fifth anniversary of the music legend’s death and his estate officials are opening up Prince’s Paisley Park recording compound so fans can celebrate his life.

      “On the fifth anniversary of the passing of the incomparable Prince, Paisley Park, his home and creative sanctuary, is opening its doors for fans to pay tribute and celebrate his life,” a statement reads. “Guests are also welcome to leave flowers, mementos, and other memorial items in front of the Love Symbol statue outside the Paisley Park main entrance.”

      Prince died in April 2016 from an accidental overdose of the opioid fentanyl. He was remembered by family and friends in a private memorial service taking place at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in May the same year. By August, it was announced that his famous Paisley Park home will be turned into a museum and opened for public tours starting in October.

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      DMX's New Song Released Amid His Hospitalization

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      A rap/rock collaboration between DMX and Ian Paice as well as Steve Howe has been made available for purchase while the rapper continues to fight for his life in hospital.

      Apr 9, 2021

      AceShowbiz –
      DMX is on his way to enjoying a cross-over rap and rock hit as he fights for life in a New York hospital – his collaboration with Ian Paice and Steve Howe has just been released.

      “X Moves”, his rock/hip-hop hybrid that also features Parliament-Funkadelic star Bootsy Collins, dropped on Thursday (08Apr21), and Cleopatra Records boss Brian Perera, who co-produced the track, is hoping DMX gets to hear it.

      “Obviously, we are all holding our breath and praying that DMX pulls through and makes a full recovery,” he says. “As X Moves shows, he is still one of the most innovative and original hip-hop artists around. Our hearts go out to all of DMX’s family, friends and supporters.”

      [embedded content]

      The rapper was admitted to White Plains Hospital on Friday night (02Apr21) after suffering a heart attack. He is currently on life support and in a “vegetative state” while medics carry out tests on his brain.

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      Reports suggest DMX has not regained any brain function since he was hospitalised. He remains in a coma.

      “We ask that you please keep Earl/DMX and us in your thoughts, wishes, and prayers as well as respect our privacy as we face these challenges,” the rapper’s family said following his hospitalization.

      Fellow celebrities were quick to offer their support and ask fans to pray for the rapper.

      “DMX prayed over me once and I could feel his anointing. I’m praying for his full recovery,” Chance the Rapper wrote on Twitter while Ja Rule added, “Prayers up for my brother DMX.”

      “Prayers for DMX and his family,” Missy Elliott wrote, and Lil’ Kim added, “Come on X plzzzz. We need you. Prayers all the way up for you bro,” while fellow rap veteran LL Cool J tweeted, “Today is 4/3/21 – it’s only right that we celebrate the talent and genius of my brother @DMX on the 4,3,2,1 song. We Love you X get well fast.”

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      Cultural Venues’ Quest for Billions in Federal Aid Is Halted by Glitch

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      On the first day nightclubs, movie theaters and other arts organizations hurt by the pandemic could apply for $16 billion in federal aid, the system malfunctioned. No applications got through. As the government prepared on Thursday to start taking applications for a $16 billion relief fund for music clubs, theaters and other live event businesses, thousands of desperate applicants waited eagerly to submit their paperwork right at noon, when the system was scheduled to open.And then they waited. And waited. Nearly four hours later, the system was still not working at all, sending applicants into spasms of anxiety.“This is an absolute disaster,” Eric Sosa, the owner of C’mon Everybody, a club in Brooklyn, tweeted at the agency. Shortly after 4 p.m., the Small Business Administration — which runs the initiative, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program — abandoned its effort to salvage the broken system and shut down it down for the day. No applications were processed. “Technical issues arose despite multiple successful tests of the application process,” Andrea Roebker, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written statement. After discussions with the vendors that built the system, the agency decided “to shut down the portal to ensure fair and equal access once reopened, since this is first-come, first-serve,” Ms. Roebker said. “This decision was not made lightly as we understand the need to get relief quickly to this hard-hit industry.”In social media forums and Zoom calls, frustrated applicants vented and shared their anger. “It’s hard to keep hearing ‘help is on the way’ and then not be able to apply,” said Tom Weyman, the director of programing at the Columbus Theater in Providence, R.I. “I don’t think any of us thought the application process would be totally smooth, but this is life and death for our venues.” The meltdown echoed problems the agency had last year in taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, which it also oversees. When that program opened, the agency’s overwhelmed systems seized up — and the same thing happened again, weeks later, when a new round of funding became available. Applicants for the grant program were incredulous that the agency was not better prepared — especially because the funds are to be distributed based on the order in which people apply. Those who get their applications in early have the best chance of getting aid before the money runs out. “It pits venues against each other because we’re all mad-dashing for this,” Mr. Sosa, the Brooklyn club owner, said in an interview. “And it shouldn’t be that way. We’re all a community.” For businesses like Crowbar, a music club in Tampa, Fla., getting a grant is a matter of survival. Tom DeGeorge, Crowbar’s primary owner, took out more than $200,000 in personal loans to keep the business afloat after it shut down last year, including one using its liquor license as collateral.More than a year later, the club has reopened with a smattering of events at reduced capacities, but the business still operates in the red, Mr. DeGeorge said.“We lost an entire year of concerts in the blink of an eye, which was close to $1 million in revenue,” Mr. DeGeorge said. “That’s why we need this grant so badly.”The aid was authorized by Congress late last year after months of lobbying by an ad hoc coalition of music venues and other groups that warned of the loss of an entire sector of the arts economy.For music venues in particular, the last year has been a scramble to remain afloat, with the proprietors of local clubs running crowdfunding campaigns, selling T-shirts and racking their brains for any creative way to raise funds. For the holidays, the Subterranean club in Chicago, for example, agreed to place the names of patrons on its marquee for donations of $250 or more.“It’s been the busiest year,” Robert Gomez, the primary owner of Subterranean, said in an interview. “But it’s all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”As it struggled to make ends meet, the Chicago club Subterranean decided to place the names of patrons on the club’s marquee for donations of $250 or more. Robert Gomez, its primary owner, said, the year has “all been about, ‘Where am I going to get funding from?’”Lyndon French for The New York TimesEven before Thursday’s fiasco, the opening of the shuttered venue program was riddled with complexity and confusion.The Small Business Administration posted a 58-page guide for applicants late Wednesday night, then quickly took it offline. A revised version of the guide was posted just minutes before the portal opened on Thursday. (An agency spokeswoman said the guide had to be updated to reflect “some last-minute system changes.”)And less than two hours before the agency was supposed to start accepting applications, its inspector general sent out an alert warning of “serious concerns” with the program’s waste and fraud controls. The Small Business Administration’s current audit plan “exposes billions of dollars to potential misuse of funds,” the inspector general wrote in a report. Successful applicants will receive a grant equal to 45 percent of their gross earned revenue from 2019, up to $10 million. Those who lost 90 percent of their revenue (compared to the prior year) after the coronavirus pandemic took hold will have a 14-day priority window for receiving the money, followed by another 14-day period for those who lost 70 percent or more. If any funds remain after that, they will then go to applicants who had a 25 percent sales loss in at least one quarter of 2020. Venues owned by large corporations, like Live Nation or AEG, are not eligible.The application process is extensive, with detailed questions about venues’ budgets, staff and equipment.“They want to make sure you’re not just setting up a piano in the corner of an Italian restaurant and calling yourself a music venue,” said Blayne Tucker, a lawyer for several music spaces in Texas.Technical glitches marred the beginning of the first day of submitting applications for the grant program. Empty chairs were seen in Crowbar.Zack Wittman for The New York TimesEven with the grants, music venues may be facing many dry months before touring and live events return at anything like prepandemic levels. The grant program also offers help for Broadway theaters, performing arts centers and even zoos, which share many of the same economic struggles.The Pablo Center at the Confluence, in Eau Claire, Wis., for example, was able to raise about $1 million from donations and grants during the pandemic, yet is still $1.2 million short on its annual fixed operating expenses, said Jason Jon Anderson, its executive director.“By the time we open again, October 2021 at the earliest, we will have been shuttered longer than we had been open,” he added. (The center opened in 2018, at a cost of $60 million.)The thousands of small clubs that dot the national concert map lack access to major donors and, in many cases, have been surviving on fumes for months.Stephen Chilton, the owner of the 300-capacity Rebel Lounge in Phoenix, said he had taken out “a few hundred thousand” in loans to keep the club afloat. In October, it reopened with a pop-up coffee shop inside, and the club hosts some events, like trivia contests and open mic shows.“We’re losing a lot less than we were losing when we were completely closed,” Mr. Chilton said, “but it’s not making up for the lost revenue from doing events.”The Rebel Lounge hopes that a grant will help it survive until it can bring back a full complement of concerts. And if its application is not successful?“There is no Plan B,” Mr. Chilton said. More