Musicians regroup after LA fires took guitars, gear, studios

Reuters

20-02-2025

Summary
Thousands of musicians lost homes, instruments
One guitar player lost $100,000 worth of gear
Donors offer studio space, other aid
LOS ANGELES, Feb 20 (Reuters) - A piano teacher lost two Steinway pianos in the wildfires that torched parts of Los Angeles in January. One film and TV composer's studio burned to the ground, and a folk rock band had most of its equipment turned to ashes.
They are among the thousands of people in the music business working to recover from the fires that destroyed not only their homes but also the instruments, equipment and recording spaces that artists use to earn a living.
Dan Kalisher, a pedal steel guitar player and producer, had his Altadena home burn down along with the recording studio he built in a garage. He said he lost about $100,000 worth of gear including some 15 guitars plus microphones, amplifiers, keyboards and more.
"I did manage to save a few guitars but I lost everything else," said Kalisher, who has been featured on songs by Sabrina Carpenter and Grace Potter and toured with acts such as Noah Cyrus.
Many items had sentimental value. One was a plastic flute recorder that Kalisher learned to play in grade school and would give to his young daughter to play with. Another was an acoustic guitar that his dad had bought in the 1970s.
Kalisher also lost instruments that helped define him as a musician.
"There were guitars that I had saved up all my money for, and had dreamed about owning and then finally got, and it just shaped the way that I played music," Kalisher said. "It was definitely painful to lose all that stuff."
Typical homeowners insurance limits coverage of musical instruments unless a policyholder buys additional protection. Even with coverage, several musicians said the reimbursement was not sufficient to replace what was lost.
Altadena, the town on the east side of Los Angeles that was hit hard by the fires, was home to many musicians, singers, producers and engineers.
On Kalisher's block alone, "there were just so many musicians with their own studios, drummers, violin players, composers, all kinds of different disciplines within music, that suffered massive losses," he said.
DAWES SUFFERS STEEP LOSS
Among others affected were brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, members of the folk rock band Dawes. Griffin Goldsmith's home went up in flames, as did Taylor Goldsmith's studio, where much of the band's equipment was stored.
Dawes played at the FireAid benefit concert in January and at February's Grammy Awards ceremony, which also raised funds to help musicians and others recover from the disaster.
In other relief efforts, a musical couple who lost their home started a registry where people can list the instruments and gear they lost and donors can fund replacements. A longtime music publicist circulated a spreadsheet of hundreds of GoFundMe pages for people in the business.
Guitar maker Fender and other companies have provided free replacement instruments.
Kalisher has started to work again, with donated instruments, from a space at his in-laws' home in San Diego. "It felt really good to, a month later, finally be able to get back into it," he said.
Elie Rizk, co-founder of Los Angeles area record label Good Boy Records, also wanted to help. He offered artists the chance to use his label's recording space and its equipment for free.
"People lost their studios, lost their sanctuaries, their places of creativity," Rizk said. "Anyone can come through and just make music here in a safe space."
Singer-songwriters, rappers, folk musicians and others have used the facility, Rizk said, and the space is booked through March.
One of them was singer Calysta, who had roughly two weeks to finish an EP when the wildfires struck. The studio where she had been recording was located within an evacuation zone, making it inaccessible as she was up against her deadline.
"It definitely put stress on me," Calysta said. "And when I'm stressed out, it's very hard for me to just sit and create while trying to figure out what to do, or how can I go from here? How can I still make this happen?" "I'm so grateful that I just came across this studio," she added, "and was able to take a breather and be able to still create while all this chaos is going on."