Tuesday, January 31, 2006

“Dallas - Beyond the Music”

Where do artists get health care?

By Jayson Bales

DALLAS — Lately something has been bothering me. Why is it we organize our capacities, our abilities and our monies to send to far away places and organizations, but yet do so little in our own backyard? Please don’t misunderstand. I support reaching out to victims of the Tsunami, victims of Katrina, victims of child abuse, or even the homeless in downtown Dallas. I think our mission should be to help others any way we can.

Recently though, I’ve been asking myself: Who is helping the music community in Dallas?

Here’s what I mean. Who is there for one of our local rock stars when his wife is in a car accident that wasn’t her fault, but cannot get in to see a back specialist at the hospital because their family doesn’t have insurance? Who pays for the girl working at the local mom and pop music store to go see the doctor? And the guy who books your shows for you––.Who takes care of him when he has an accident on his motorcycle? What about the full-time musician who cannot afford a good CPA but clearly needs help with his income taxes? What about the person running a recording studio that wants to incorporate but doesn’t know the differences between an LLC and an S Corp, nor even has a great interest in knowing? And what about the couple who want to save to send their son to college, but don’t know where or how to start?

I’ve been asking questions and doing research, and I’ve found most of the dedicated members of our local music community do not have health insurance, they don’t have good medical care, if any, and they don’t have access to good legal and financial advice. It’s not that there isn’t a need and it’s not that the community doesn’t want it. It’s a question of being able to pay for it. To me, this is a tragedy. It represents a feeling of isolation many feel when it comes to getting help and it shows a fractured community.

We can’t ask the city to do it. We can’t ask our small record labels (those of us that have them) to do it. And it’s doubtful that the United Way, Red Cross, or the local megachurch is going to do it. Nor should they. Guess what? We can do it and we can change lives and help strengthen ourselves and the Dallas music community by doing so. That’s why I am helping to organize “Dallas-Beyond The Music”(not an official title-just something for now) to help musicians, their families, agents, club workers, media and anyone else in the Dallas music community get low-cost and free services in the health, legal and financial sectors. I NEED YOU TO GET INVOLVED THOUGH OR THIS WILL NOT WORK!

We are putting together an advisory team made up of musicians, media members and small-business members and employees who care about the music scene in Dallas. Together, we will be exploring how to organize our group and how to deliver the services needed. Our initial goal will be offering a free health care and tax preparation day for all group members to be held at The Granada Theater this Spring. This simply will be a day for the Dallas’ music community and their families to seek basic medical treatment and advice with physicians along with help for tax preparation from CPAs. From there, we’ll be able to see the impact of this and really take-off!

Already the Granada Theater & CD World, Pegasus News & TexasGigs.com, The Dallas Observer and countless musicians have pledged their support! But we need more. We need a few more members to round out our advisory team, and in particular, with need someone with time and organizational skills to help build the organization and maintain a membership list. If you are interested, please email at jayson@jaysonbales.com.

This is our opportunity to strengthen the Dallas music community and to change lives and help each other!

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