Its probably been mentioned before but I thought it was a hell of a good idea. Although there seems to be the opinion of these here boards that Christchurch sucks for music, its great to see that the fact there is so much talent in christchurch is getting recognised.
Chart seems to be aimed at helping bands and musicians stick around in chch rather than them moving away.
The music scene is awesome in that most musicians know each other quite well and support each other. The problem is that only select pockets of people go to select gigs, its uber cliquey. Attending a few of the low hum gigs always gets me wondering "where the hell did all these people come from?"
The music scene is good. Theres just no gig-goers. And you see the same people at every show BUT most are involved in the scene to some degree anyway. Thats where I hope Chart really starts putting the grunt-work in - getting punters along, because there are fantastic bands in CHCH. The ones that survive the chch "horse shoe of power" and lack of punters usually are far far better then the average run of the mill band in other centres due it being so damn hard to keep working. Thats why most bands move away, its just not worth wasting time playing to 3 stony faced people in chch when you could be playing to 50 enthuiastic people in Wellington or Auckland
The quality is higher in some cases in chch but no one cares. I really hope Chart promotes the hell out of the scene to the christchurch music lovers.
Thoughts?
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I think the christchurch scene is ...
I think the christchurch scene is pretty healthy, especially the all-ages scene....I've been to a lot of the shows the yougin's have been putting on at venues like Fuse, the Penthouse, Zebedees and such and, there I see the future of the chch scene being pretty healthy. They've got a lot of bands who can actually play, and eager punters- I went to a show 2 weeks ago at the Penthouse which was attended by 198 people.... on a sunday night, and it was awesome to see them all having a good time.
Also a couple of months back, I went to see the Undercurrents, Coal and A flight to blackout play at the Provincial Lounge, You couldn't tell me the Chch scene is in trouble lookin at the huge crowd there, on a Thursday night.
I suspect if anyone has an opinion that things are on the downturn in chch, perhaps they are just going to the wrong shows... or not enough shows.
I suggest chch people get out this ...
I suggest chch people get out this weekend and do like I plan to, and go see 4 shows in 2 nights.
Friday:
The cold war babies, tim r.p. & umbrellas of fissure at the dux
Lawrence arabia and Lee Devinish at the media club
Frase+Bri and get set play! all-ages at the physics room
Saturday
the renderers at the dux
oh really? i thought the reason why ...
oh really? i thought the reason why gig-goers are mainly only people who are part of the gig-going clique was 'cos it's too hard to have an all-ages scene, 'cos like in Nelson pretty much everyone at College went to concerts and stuff and there were heaps of them where when a band would come to town it was only High Schoolers who attended, and regular R18 concerts didn't begin 'til like 2000 when places like the Phat Club started up. 'cos it was just a five minute walk into town, whereas here if you go to a high school you'd like need to get a lift from your parents or something to go to Zebedees, especially if you live in another suburb, and you can't go to most of the gigs in town 'cos they're all in bars
zebs has a bus stop right outside, and ...
zebs has a bus stop right outside, and i've seen a lot of kids using it. also i'd say a fairly high percentage of the kids who go to those shows are over 16 so at least one of every group of kids has a car and drivers license.
I used to go to heaps of AA shows when I was younger at the likes of the edge and caladonian (sp?) I rarely had my parents pick me up and managed fine.... chch's public transport service has also improved 10 fold in the last 10 years.
Its just such a pity creation had to close cause they had the AA market down perfectly
//I suspect if anyone has an opinion ...
//I suspect if anyone has an opinion that things are on the downturn in chch, perhaps they are just going to the wrong shows... or not enough shows.
Wrong shows=not indie. I'm just guilty of having too narrow a view genre-wise. Chch is definietly indie-town. If you're going for rock or alternative its suffocating. Thats why I get a bit dismayed that the amazing rock and alt bands we've got are forgotten.
But you're quite right, the underage scene is amazing and big things will come out of it. I attribute that to the lovely lads at Outofkilter who amaze me at their nouse and pure passion.
// The music scene is good. Theres just ...
// The music scene is good. Theres just no gig-goers.
I think that's the crux of the problem there. It was true ten years ago when I moved away, and it would seem to still be true now. There were literally dozens of bands, and the only people who went to see bands were the people from other bands and their friends: goths, crusties, punks, indie-kids, jazz-students, metallers. Ahh, Thursday night at the Dux... but, I digress...
I just think, ultimately, the population/demographic isn't there to support the scene as well as it might be.
// its just not worth wasting time playing to 3 stony faced people
// in chch when you could be playing to 50 enthuiastic people in
// Wellington or Auckland
ne'er a truer word spoken. character-building, though, innit?
Last night I went to the Lawrence ...
Last night I went to the Lawrence Arabia show at the Media Club, and during the show I don't think I could have named more than 7-8 people in the room....(it was kind of funny, most of the people there seemed to be 20 year old males with sweater vests and floppy hair) When I popped over to the Dux, I knew everyone there. After the Dux show finished, everyone from that show seemed to decend on the Media club.
Also the Casionova/Frase gig was pretty well attended earlier in the night, although there were a lot of the AA scene kids there.
// Chart seems to be aimed at helping ...
// Chart seems to be aimed at helping bands and musicians stick around in chch rather than them moving away.
I had to leave chch at the start of 2000... I couldnt deal with only having a very small hand full of venues to play at. I mean really... there only a certain amount of times you can play the dux before you're over it completely....
Aucks wasnt much better.....
Wellys doesnt interest me in the slightest.
[ http://www.myspace.com/kroadqueens ]
// Wellys doesnt interest me in the ...
// Wellys doesnt interest me in the slightest.
well, there's is an incredible number of live venues available for small-to-medium sized bands, most of them within walking distance of the central city. off the top of my head: bodega, indigo, valve, cabaret, happy, southern cross; as well as places that get used for the occasional one-off: paramount, the observatory, the soundshell.
moving here from chch and discovering that a) there was more than one place to play, and b) people would actually pay to see you play, was a revelation.
//well, there's is an incredible ...
//well, there's is an incredible number of live venues available for small-to-medium sized bands, most of them within walking distance of the central city. off the top of my head: bodega, indigo, valve, cabaret, happy, southern cross; as well as places that get used for the occasional one-off: paramount, the observatory, the soundshell.
Yeap and theres been quite a few other venues being available for live "band" type music too - I recently played at Immerst (old phoenix theatre) and it was great. Also played at the old Sub-9 and Studio-9 recently and both of them were pretty good play at...
For a change Welly's not lacking places to play...
Christchurch has changed from being ...
Christchurch has changed from being essentially a one venue town these days, the thing with the dux of course is the guarentee which makes it so appealing for bands.
aside from the dux (which now has 2 band bars) there is the jetset, the media club, the provincial, Al's bar, zebedees, the shed, the esplanade, the civic, foam, home bar and *ahem* southern blues bar
lyttleton has the wunderbar, and the harbourlight
and if you want to put in the extra effort there is the penthouse.
//certain amount of times you can play ...
//certain amount of times you can play the dux before you're over it
... not dissing the dux mind! gee... I owe the place a lot.
but yeah 4 years in ChCh was enough for me, personally.
[ http://www.myspace.com/kroadqueens ]
Getting people along to gigs in ...
Getting people along to gigs in Auckland is tricky too! I'm not laying claim to my band being absolutely fantastically wonderfully awesome, but we and most other bands we know have trouble getting people along. The thing is, people will start to come along once you've got a bit of a name for yourself, but you need to put in the hard yards and play lots of gigs before you start to get one (unless you go through the more promotional/ radio/ recordings route). Bit of a Catch 22. And I guess it's the same everywhere.
// Attending a few of the low hum gigs ...
// Attending a few of the low hum gigs always gets me wondering "where the hell did all these people come from?"
Promotion buddy! CHCH is the single toughest town to promote a show in. It is a MASSIVE! Sprawling city. Half of the people with taste live out in Lyttelton, so when promoting a show, I use TWICE as many posters in chch as i do in Auckland or Wellington and three times more then Dunedin.
Also, There is no main central area where the hepcats hang....like for instance, in AKL, you can pay some ace dude like $50 to plaster K'road and you know that in a week, heaps of rad people will see it. In wellington, if you get CUba Street covered, you're sussed. In CHCH, you don't have this easy targeted area, so you need to plaster the whole city..... also, whereas in AKL, DUN, WGTN there are people who will plaster posters themselves...in chch, its is solely Phantom...so its expensive.
There is no Gig guide... aside from Chris Andrews awesome new gig guide zine there is no guide printed in massive runs. In welly you got the package which does a run 0f 5000, in dunners you got The Fink which does a massive run each week as well...I think Chris Andrews' one comes out fortnightly...and how many would be do Fran? So while its growing...it obviously not going to be as powerful as already established gig guides...and well, groove guide is a good read, but the gig guide is usually pretty innacurate and doesn't even cover half the shows on.
I've had some bung shows in chch, totally. Its the only town in the country where I can never guess before a show how many peoplw will come. The AA scene is actually more reliable. I know that I'm always going to get a minimum on 50+ kids at any show I put on down there, even though I'm charging $10/$15 which is alot for young-ins...but the scene that outofkilter have helped build is awesome. If you put on a $5 show there, you can get heaps along.
If you're doing a show in chch, you HAVE to take financial risks. You need to do RDU advertising, do a massive poster campaign etc.... also, you need to stop doing free shows at the Dux, this is the reason nobody will come pay to see you play.... people don't value your music if they can see it for free. I think any band should only ever do two-three free dux shows (MAX) after that you have to charge or you may as well kiss your profile good bye.
At the end of the day I truly believe that the cream will rise to the top, but unless you're pro-active like Pig Out (who I think are about to embark on their third or fourth national tour in 6 months?) and Frase who also gets about, then you can't really complain. Building up a profile outside of chch will build your profile whithin chch.
When I took the undercurrents on tour it was only the first time they had EVER played in welly and the second time ever in AKL. They have been around for ages and that is just wrong. You need to play as often in every main centre of the country as you do in your own hometown...this is my belief.
chris usually does between 90-200 ...
chris usually does between 90-200 dependant on a whole pile of factors... sometimes a fortnight later we are picking up left overs and other weeks we'll have put them out on thursday and there is none left by saturday afternoon.
// Wrong shows=not indie. I'm just ...
// Wrong shows=not indie. I'm just guilty of having too narrow a view genre-wise. Chch is definietly indie-town. If you're going for rock or alternative its suffocating.
PS...this is bollocks. What is indie? The five bands that have headlined low hum tours so far this year are:
Die! Die! Die! - Connan and the Mockasins - The Reduction Agents - Disasteradio - The Sneaks
how is Punk, Blues, Pshycedelic rock, Computer disco and new wave punk this odd genre "indie"? haha, and the next tour is best described as"post-rock"
it has nothing to do with genres.... "indie" just gets coined on stuff thats popular right now. In my mind these 5 bands are vastly different from each other...with only one factor in common, they all make you wanna dance.
Aye, and I never said a low hum was ...
Aye, and I never said a low hum was indie?
indie=music t-dub thinks is crap
Biased git that I am
So why put energy (finance) into ...
So why put energy (finance) into gigging?
Is there not other musical outlets people can attack?
I'm fairly ambivilent to Crowd numbers, which probably sounds horribly blase, but if people don't come to one of our gigs I have no-one to blame but myself. Yes, Chch is hard going for estimates, in fact impossible to track just what works and what stiffs. The weather may in fact be the biggest factor!
I guess I feel that the Live Performance factor of the Music is solely that, Performance.
Concerns over Crowd attendance, appriciation, finance really don't apply as getting a paying wage for a group of Musicians, solely from Live Original work is totally unrealistic.
So if Chart is looking at "keeping Muso's in Chch" one will assume that many other avenues of Musical development will need to be addressed.