As co-owner of Seattle’s popular independent venue Neumos in Capitol Hill, Steven Severin has been a staple in the Seattle music industry for more than 20 years. Roughly 10 years ago, he helped create the Seattle Nightlife and Music Association to bring together the area’s live event insiders, and for the past 16 years has helped run Neumos with its sister club Barboza and the accompanying Runaway bar.

As part of Billboard’s efforts to best cover the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the music industry, we have been speaking with Severin regularly to chronicle his experience throughout the crisis. (Read the last installment here and see the full series here.)

What has changed for you since we last spoke?

Neumos and Barboza opened on July 1. It was all locals and people who work for us. We had Charm the Nomad downstairs [at Barboza] which was a massive underplay for her. It sold out in, I don’t know, a week. She is killer. Upstairs we did this band Spirit Award, which is our assistant GM who is in like 17 bands. Folks from Real Estate, Deep Sea Diver and the Shins came and played. It sounded like it was pretty amazing.  

You weren’t there? 

I couldn’t be there. I can’t stand right now and there is nowhere to sit. But seeing the big line outside and hearing people talk about that – that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve done for half of my life. Literally half my life I have thrown shows and then I haven’t been able to for the last 476 days. We were closed for 476 days. Nothing can ruffle my feathers anymore if we can make it through this.  

Are there still capacity limits for your venues? 

No.  

Do people have to wear masks? 

Nope. You have to have proof that you’re vaccinated or you have to wear a mask. You just have to have a picture of your card. Our vaccination rate in King County and Seattle is super high, but people come from outside of Seattle and it makes people feel more comfortable. It makes us feel more comfortable. But yeah, it is back to 100%. It is going to be weird seeing people be shoulder to shoulder again after so long.  

Any news from the SBA about your Shuttered Venue Operators Grant application? 

[Laughs] I had a friend yesterday tell me how tired I looked. I am so tired and so frustrated. I know that [the SBA] is trying, but it is hard to just accept that it’s so screwed up. The fact that tier 2 and tier 3 people are getting paid before tier 1 is just not okay. (Ed. Note: Tier 1 applicants lost 90% or more of their revenue in 2020, while tier 2 and 3 lost 70% and 25%, respectively.) Now they say they are going to focus and only look at tier 1 applications, but it’s like, “How were you not already doing that?” That was part of the plan. We lost 90% of our income for a year. How do you go and fund somebody who has only lost 50% or even 75%? Everybody needs help, but there are some people who need more help. There are people who are going to close. I hear about it everyday. Then people are getting declined and it sounds like a mistake. The SBA is very apologetic and they sound like they are really trying, but it’s not rocket science.  

Do you personally know venues that have received their funds? 

Lots. I think it’s up to 20% of venues have been either told that they have money coming or have gotten money. (Ed. Note: According to the SBA site, just over 4,220 applicants have been granted awards, which comes out to roughly 28% of the 14,884 applications submitted.) Lots of people I know have gotten it who have really needed it. We celebrate every single one. But then there are people I helped apply and they applied way later than I did. I’m just baffled. [Laughs] Just tell me it’s coming. Just let me know so I can let that stress go.  

If you’re a voting member of the Country Music Association, check your email inbox. On Tuesday (July 6), you should have received the nominations ballot and instructions for the 55th annual CMA Awards.

Voting in the first nominations round extends through July 15. A second round of voting will be held from Aug. 2-12 in which the top 20 vote-getters in the first round square off. (In the top category, entertainer of the year, only the top 15 vote-getters compete.)

Nominations in each of the CMA’s 12 categories will be announced later this summer. Final-round voting will be conducted between Oct. 1-27. The awards will be presented in November.

The CMA has announced that it will allow Morgan Wallen, who is under a cloud because of his videotaped use of the N-word in January, to compete in categories in which there are other collaborators on the project, such as album of the year, but not in individual categories, such as male vocalist of the year.

It will be interesting to see if CMA voters nominate Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album for album of the year. The blockbuster is in its 22nd week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. Long-running No. 1 albums are usually nominated in this category. Of the 27 previous albums that have topped the country chart for 20 or more weeks, 20 have been nominated in this category. The most recent album to hit that mark before Wallen’s album, Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get, won in this category last year.

CMA voters may or may not be not be ready to let Wallen back in their good graces. He won new artist of the year at last year’s show in November 2020 — less than three months before the video that caused his high-flying career to implode.

The eligibility period for this year’s CMA Awards is July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.

Here are seven other burning questions that this year’s nominations and awards will answer.

Will last year’s uptick in female representation in entertainer of the year continue? Last year’s entertainer of the year nominations included two female solo artists (Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood) for the first time since 1979, when Crystal Gayle and Barbara Mandrell were both in the running. (If you combine female solo artists and all-female groups, last year’s nominations constituted the best showing for females in this category since 2000, when The Chicks and Faith Hill were both nominated.) Will female artists do as well this year?

Will Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) land an album of the year nod? The original version of Fearless won in this category in November 2009. Swift was also nominated for the CMA Award for album of the year with her next two albums, Speak Now (2011) and Red (2013), before she went pop. Will Swift’s re-recorded version of Fearless, which spent its first two weeks at No. 1 on Top Country Albums, be nominated for album of the year?

Will Kane Brown land an album of the year nod? Kane Brown’s Mixtape Vol. 1, which reached No. 2 on Top Country Albums, received an album of the year nod at the recent Academy of Country Music Awards. If the seven-song EP duplicates that fete here, the biracial Brown would be the first Black artist to land an album of the year nod at the CMA awards (as a lead or co-lead artist) since Charley Pride, who received four nods between 1969 and 1980.

Will the other albums nominated for album of the year at the ACM Awards also be nominated here? Four of the ACM nominees for album of the year are eligible here. In addition to Brown’s EP, they are Chris Stapleton’s Starting Over (which won the ACM Award), Luke Bryan’s Born Here Live Here Die Here and Brothers Osborne’s Skeletons. The Stapleton and Bryan albums both entered Top Country Albums at No. 1. Skeletons reached No. 4.

Will Underwood’s My Prayer land an album of the year nod? My Prayer wouldn’t be the first gospel or contemporary Christian album to be nominated in this category. Alan Jackson’s Precious Memories was nominated in 2006. Both albums hit No. 1 on Top Country Albums. Underwood has been nominated for album of the year five times, with Carnival Ride, Play On, Blown Away, Storyteller and Cry Pretty.

If My Prayer is nominated, Underwood would set a new record as the female artist with the most CMA nods for album of the year (as a lead or co-lead artist). She currently shares that distinction with Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire and Lambert. (Lambert and Lynn could also land their sixth album of the year nods, but their entries were more modest hits – Lambert’s The Marfa Tapes, a collab with Jack Ingram and Jon Randall, which reached No. 7 on Top Country Albums; and Lynn’s Still Woman Enough, which hit No. 9).

Will Eric Church’s Heart & Soul put him in the album of the year finals for the fifth time? Eric Church has been nominated for album of the year with his last four studio albums – Chief (which won), Mr. Misunderstood, The Outsiders (which won) and Desperate Man. Church’s three-record opus Heart & Soul – or any of its components — could put him back in the running. Heart reached No. 3 on Top Country Albums, & made it to No. 12, Soul hit No. 2.

Will The Chicks’ Gaslighter put the trio back in the album of the year finals? The group, then known as Dixie Chicks, won in this category for Fly (2000) and were nominated for Home (2003), but weren’t even nominated in his category for their next album, 2006’s Taking the Long Way. Gaslighter, which entered Top Country Albums at No. 1, was passed over for an album of the year nod at the Academy of Country Music Awards and for a best country album nod at the Grammys. This is its last chance for major recognition at a top-tier country awards show.

After a bombshell court appearance, Britney Spears’ longtime court-appointed counsel Samuel D. Ingham III will resign from her conservatorship, according to documents filed Tuesday (July 6).

Ingham, who was court-appointed to represent Spears and has done so for the last thirteen years, was allegedly upset after hearing Spears’ virtual testimony to a judge last month, where she expressed, for the first time publicly, her desire for the conservatorship to end and for her father, Jamie Spears, to stop controlling her personal decisions, finances and communications. TMZ was first to report the news of Ingham’s resignation.

According to TMZ, Ingham had regularly given the 39-year-old Toxic singer options, including that she could request for the conservatorship end. But in Spears’ 20-minute testimony, she emphasized that she didn’t know she could petition for the conservatorship to end.

A recent New Yorker story noted that Ingham would report on Spears’ activities and movements and suggested that he may have been more loyal to the singer’s father and to the conservatorship. Spears covers his annual salary of $520,000.

Benny Roshan, chair of Greenberg Glusker’s trusts and probate litigation group, recently speculated that Ingham may announce his resignation due to Spears’ dissatisfaction. “If Britney really wants new counsel, and she tells enough people, there is a possibility that Ingham may consider it wise to resign and end on a high note rather than being removed by a court order,” said Roshan.

Spears’ manager Larry Rudolph resigned earlier this week amid reports that the pop singer has plans to retire. Rudolph had worked with Spears for the last 25 years, though has alleged that he has not been in contact with her for the last two and a half years due to her work hiatus.

Financial form Bessamer Trust, which was appointed as Spears’ co-conservator, also recently requested to resign from the role, citing her desire for the conservatorship to stop.

Among Spears’ few performances in recent years is her Piece of Me Tour in 2018. According to the New Yorker, her contract required she remain under the conservatorship.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.