The life of a working musician is never easy. But this year it’s gotten even harder.
“I’ve been having one of the most difficult chapters in my whole life to be honest,” says Tahoe Sierra songwriter Subra Doyle. “I haven’t really faced challenges like this before.”
“People are telling me they’re missing my music, but I don’t even have a place to store my instruments. It’s hard to be creative when you feel like your house is burning down.”
— Subra Doyle
After coronavirus forced a shutdown of all live entertainment in March, Doyle lost his work and his home within the span of two months. He had a full-time job with benefits as a Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadow A/V technician, but when the ski resort shut down indefinitely, he was laid off and has not yet received any unemployment benefits due to technical glitches in the state-run system.
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Without a steady income or the ability to earn money from live performances, the 32-year-old artist moved out of his studio apartment in Tahoma and into a trailer in his parent’s yard in Kings Beach. Now he’s delivering orders for Instacart while working part-time at Mountain Slice Café & Creamery in Tahoe City and teaching online music lessons for Tahoe-Truckee School of Music.
“I feel like I’m working all the time and I’m still broke,” says the musician who faintly resembles a post-Beatles John Lennon. “People are telling me they’re missing my music, but I don’t even have a place to store my instruments. It’s hard to be creative when you feel like your house is burning down.”
A recent breakup inspired his latest emo-indie single, “Punching Bag For Your Past.”
“I know without a doubt that music is not something I love: it’s part of me,” he says. “I can’t even get away from it if I tried.”
Rising up in isolation
Through it all, Doyle remains one of the most prolific and moving musical artists in our region. After years of studying yoga in India, he released his debut album of meditation music “Ripples of Light” in 2016. This was followed up by 2017’s impassioned and worldly “Fire for Freedom.”
“The power of mantra music is the same power as focusing on your breath,” says Doyle. “It gives an anchor to the present moment.”
For his latest project, Doyle composed the soundtrack to an award-winning short film by Sacramento director Randy Nundlall Jr. “Next Door” is a 32-minute drama about a young woman suffering from isolation and anxiety in her city apartment. Shot at Ryde Hotel in Walnut Grove, the picture delves into the significance of human connection as the lonely Amy surreptitiously explores the world of her next-door neighbor and his possibly imagined lover, Ashlynn.
Doyle recorded the soundtrack with a Fender Telecaster guitar and an assortment of effect pedals. The perfectly subdued score set against a confessional interior monologue lays a poignant tone for the film, quickly pulling the viewer into Amy’s bleak, secluded world.
“It mirrors the times on a collective level and is even more relevant in a post- world,” says Doyle. “The pains of isolation are something everyone is going through now. We are all looking for connection.”
The film has been shown at numerous international film festivals with Doyle twice receiving nominations for Best Original Score.
“I really did enjoy doing the work for the most part,” he says. “The hardest part was doing so many revisions and getting inside someone else’s head. It isn’t easy to draw or compose what someone else is thinking. It opened my eyes to the possibility of writing music to picture, which has always been a dream of mine.”
One of the most powerful moments in “Next Door” comes as Amy converses with Ashlynn over raw oysters at the Empress Tavern in Sacramento.
“I can see it in your eyes,” says her mysterious friend. “You’re just looking for more, something beyond yourself. But you don’t know what it is and you don’t know where to find it.”
Beyond the haze of quarantine, Doyle is ready to walk through the next door of his own life.
His song “Samsara Blues” is set to be part of the feature film “First Date” directed by Manuel Crosby. He’s working on a stripped-down folk album in his trailer and collaborating with local poet Farida Gipson Burtt on a spoken-word music project, all while holding down three part-time jobs.
“For me what lies ahead is somehow transmuting this suffering into art through writing songs,” he says. “That is the power of an artist. You can take pain and turn it into something beautiful. Now I have a wealth of experience to write from.” | Facebook Subra Doyle Art & Music
