606 Club: Channelling the streams – and going live again!

The 606 Club in Chelsea, London, is a much-loved, musician-led venue, usually humming with top-notch jazz seven days a week. Covid-19 has shut its doors to live music for a while, but now with the launch of a new online members’ club and a date for reopening, founder and owner Steve Rubie talks to us about his digital plans for the 606 and what’s called ‘the new normal’ in a post-lockdown world.

Rubie had been contemplating the club’s digital offer for some time and had begun plans to have a regular live stream and create a video library long before coronavirus reared its ugly head:

“I’d been planning to do this for well over a year,” says Rubie, “we just moved the plans forward a little bit. I already had the view that having a strong online presence and getting music online was the way forward, together with live music. Having a mixed music policy was something I’d anticipated.”

Together with professional cameraman Tony Day, Rubie and his team put together a plan for a lighting and camera rig in the club to enable professional-standard live streams. I asked Rubie what prompted him to explore the new digital venture in the first place?

“I was looking at is as an add-on to the business,” he explains. “Streaming not just in the UK, but in different territories to give additional income for musicians and us. The live streams are part of our whole online presence. I set it up in a way that would help to have some kind of income for the musicians.”

How did the pandemic disrupt or help these plans? “I had the idea sitting there and I was planning to do it late February/early March, somewhat ironically, so, it was already in the pipeline, and then of course the Covid thing hit.

“In some ways it was good and actually in other ways it was slightly unfortunate timing as so many people decided to try live streaming; whereas I had expected to be one of the very few people out there doing it, suddenly there was this huge outpouring of live streaming. But the standard of what was being done wasn’t always great.”

The 606 online hub is really impressive. You can become a member via a simple sign-up and then pay a small amount for access to content. There is already a huge amount of content to explore and the team plan to add more in the coming weeks.

A particular highlight is the Liane Carroll (above) stream, which begins with an endearing interview between Rubie and Carroll which really does help to invoke that ‘club-at-home’ feel. Powerhouse saxophonist Derek Nash’s set is also well worth checking out and it’s great to see vivid live British jazz again, albeit in an empty club. The sound quality is also noteworthy, which makes for an enjoyable at-home listen. I was impressed.

“I spent a lot of time setting up something that looks and sounds good,” says Rubie, “it’s always been important to me that we punch above our weight. It’s been important that we set a benchmark.” Rubie feels passionately that musicians should not give away their craft for free on the Internet: “One of the things that’s been bothering me, as online presence will become more and more important, is the idea that everything on the Internet should be free. Why do musicians seem to think they should be playing on the Internet for free? There’s nothing wrong with putting up a promo of a song or two. Putting up a whole concert though, is a major problem because why would people pay if they can go and watch for free?”

Monetising digital content in the way live music is paid for, is important to Rubie and is one of the main reasons he’s set the new online offering up via this particular model: “Getting musicians to understand they should not be putting concert-length videos of themselves online for free is hugely important and I think venues need to understand that too. I just see no reason why this stuff should be made available for free.”

Rubie and his team plan to reopen the club to live audiences in the coming weeks and are busy getting the logistics ready for that.

“I’m hoping to open on the 6th [of August],” says Rubie, “I think we’re probably only going to reopen four days a week to start with; Thursday through Sunday. It’s very hard to judge what the audiences will be like and who’s going to come, it’s completely unknown. We’ll start slowly and then if that goes well, we’ll look to stretch that out.”

What changes has Rubie made to the club to allow for a safe reopening?

“The big things are things everyone knows about. We’re doing this huge risk assessment. Our staff will wear visors and we’ll be doing huge amounts of cleaning and sanitising constantly. Club restaurants already work to pretty high standards so, an awful lot of the stuff required is already in place. Social distancing means going from a capacity of about 130 to a maximum of about 70 people and that’s only if all the tables are fully occupied.

“We can work round that, but this is one of the reasons why live streaming is important, as we’re hoping that, to some degree, it can pick up some of the slack.”

Check out 606club.co.uk for updates on the reopening and information on the online members’ club

This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of Jazzwise. Never miss an issue – subscribe today!