Earlier this year, musicians’ advocacy group Sweet Home New Orleans announced the Empower Musicians Seal of Approval program which commends local music venues that provide its performers with an equitable wage and a professional work environment. The seal’s merit is based on a 30-point metric that evaluates a venue across four major categories: 1) Pay and pay transparency, 2) Social responsibility, 3) Sound quality and 4) Gig marketing. Since February, d.b.a., Three Muses, Rock ‘n’ Bowl and the Ogden Museum have each received an Empower Musicians Seal of Approval.

In this week’s episode of OffBeat’s Look-Ka Py Py Podcast, SHNO’s Executive Director Sue Mobley talks to OffBeat podcast host, Zachary Young, and sheds insight on the program that she contends is the equivalent of “fair trade” for musicians. “You put your money where you think it’s important,” she says. “If you have a budget for alcohol and a budget for marketing your venue, then you should have a budget for paying your musicians.” Mobley also goes into detail regarding some of SHNO’s other endeavors around the community, notably the development of a reasonable noise ordinance. “When the laws support the will of a handful of people,” says Mobley, “and the solution to the laws on the books not being enforced is let’s make harsher laws, I think we run into trouble.”

For more on Sweet Home New Orleans’ efforts to cultivate better working relationships between the community’s venues and musicians as well as to develop a stronger music industry infrastructure in New Orleans, tune in below…

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