Few people would be surprised to find Julie Byrne working in the service industry. The singer/songwriter, after all, is in her mid-20s with one album to her credit, and it’s hard for an emerging musician to make ends meet performing for small audiences and selling records one by one.
But if you see Byrne working at Rozz-Tox in the coming weeks, it’s not for that reason. Instead, she’s the first artist-in-residence at the venue, and her one-month stay in the Quad Cities – running through early June – will include a show on May 28.
The residency, Byrne said last week, originated with the idea of finding something to fill the gap between a two-month tour and her summer concert bookings. “I knew that going on such a long tour would be really wonderful and really exhilarating but also challenging just because there’s no privacy and no space to reflect on these constant, rapid experiences – each day in a new place,” she said. “So I was trying to figure out a calm, tranquil environment where I could exist after the tour to kind of take it all in and begin working on new material.”
