Thanks everyone for making very intelligent follow up posts...more intelligent than my original posting. Ha ha. Well it seems like have raised a fairly contentious issue. In the spirit of good-will and actually makinf forward progress I would like to maybe suggest something that may or may not be agreed on by various people who have posted here,
First up I would like to point out that I am not a rabid right winger who wants music subsidisation cut, and I believe most but the most rabid Act party followers would agree.
From reading the posts it seems to me that what is missing from the music funding world is some kind of fund that supports new(ish) artists that sits somewhere in between the gap between the really mainstream focus of NZ On Air but isnt really a Creative NZ project. NZMIC funding seems to be more for well established artists. This could support artists that could be successful commercially but perhaps represent a slightly more risky option than NZ On Air's current target artists.
Who could control this body. I am not really sure whose domain it could be NZ On AIr? Maybe NZMIC maybe Creative maybe?, anothe body..maybe? Where would the money come from hmmm how bout this for a populist notion have 100 MPS that'lll save bucketloads of cash. (that statement was a joke...well not coimpletely actually). As my original posting suggests perhaps there is too much money allocated to mainstream NZ On Air stuff. (of not great qualiyt) and some of these funds could be diverted.
PLEASE NOTE : Now we have all had a good vent (including myself) perhaps it would ne nice if we could start to construct some kind of positive thing out of this forum. ( GIven the combatative nature of internet forums ingeneral, people will probably not want to do that)
Cheers
Cool... and its even better when you live in a country with uncapped 8MBps download moo haa haa
DISCLAIMER: I know this topic has been discussed in previous forums but I tire of reading really old posts (from years ago).
I have decided to let loose on this topic&maybe because now I do not live in New Zealand anymore.
I must say that in its basic premise NZ on Air has been successful , that is it has got more NZ Music on radio/TV.... I have read all the NZ On Air self congratulatory statistics, airplay is up, the government is happy. Great.
But think about it again , woopee I mean who really cares...because most of the music is garbage music. Oh no people cry it sounds okay. My definition of garbage is whether this artist has even a chance of making it internationally. Do you rate them as international quality. Go through the latest funding lists&ask yourself& have you seen them live? Did they suck/ were they average of brilliant&be hard compare them to a really good act? Do they even play live? Potential international (with a bit more experience etc) ? Hmm yes they really aren't that good are they&well I grant maybe a minor proportion are. To be honest some of the artists funded would just get laughed of the stage overseas (if the audience bothered to stay at all).
What it all comes down to is that the whole mandate of the NZ On Air scheme is UNDERAMBITIOUS in its design (and resulting implementation) New Zealand should be aiming in part to create music that has the potential to make an impact at an international level& from the very grass roots of the scheme. Yes it encourages people to be of international quality at phase 4 but it is just silly to promote artists who are of mediocre talent give them a song on the radio so they will be forgotten in a year or two.
CONSIDE THE LOGIC
One thing to bear in mind is that the NZ market is small and that only a very few musicians can actually make a living out of appealing to the mass market (cos it's a very small mass market)&and surely that should be the goal making it so that being a musician can actually be a musicians job (rather than an in your spare time thing). (Note I am not a musician).
Given that the mainstream market is saturated here (ie most people funded don't even a hope of making a living out of it), why bother ???? (for airplay stats ??) The logic follows that in order to make more NZ Musicians successful you should invest in musicians that have a chance of making it overseas&
Continue to follow the logic&.. presumably the most marketable mainstream stuff (locally) has been found&& and well the lower grade (will only ever get one grant) type stuff doesn't have a hope in hell of making it overseas (or even locally) Therefore this chunk of funding should be moved to somewhere where it actually might be productive.
This would be towards artists that have a chance of capturing an international audience&this may be in more niche areas that NZ On Air may typically fund. Such music would not be by the current standards considered 'radio friendly' enough (lets not even get started on the appalling radio station quality in NZ!). The way it stands the definition of radio friendly in a funding decision is 'sounds like all the other stuff out there'. Hence imitation, and non-originality is actually encouraged&how perverse!!!
Of course my suggestion is a little riskier as the music world is extremely fickle but failure to make it, is not guaranteed (unlike with current policy) Think about it this way the big markets already have plenty of people doing mainstream music and they have money to do it bigger and better than $5000 (or $10000 now) NZ can&as such our stuff just looks plain cheap in comparison and big markets wont bother with it.
Instead why not encourage innovative sounds, fresh sounds. We have talent why not encourage it.
When you follow all this logic you really see that NZ on Air doesn't exist for the benefit of NZ Music (or musicians) at all it exists to keep policy makers happy. While the policy makers may have had good intentions of promoting New Zealand music, most of them don't have a clue. When was the last time you saw an MP down at the Kings Arms (forgive my ex-living in Auckland bias???) In fact does anyone involved in NZ on AIR/ commercial radio actually go to gigs?????? (ones they aren't promoting)
As a further criticism of NZ On Air.
A second issue is one of accountability. Who are the people from NZ On Air..what background do they have&for a publicly funded body their decision making process is? Who are these anonymous self-elected people that make the decisions? One thing that is just ridiculuous is that live performance seems to play no part in the decision making criteria. In this world artists still have to be able to perform to make it&.being able to record a 3 minute pop song demo is just not enough.
So why do I say all this? Well I believe NZ has a lot of talented musicians and really good bands who battle away in the underground with very little success or recognition & ironically some of these musicians might even have a chance overseas ... unfortunately they never seem to get much of the funding.
Frankly the whole NZ On Air Enterprise has an underambitious mentality in a global world New Zealand Music should be going for a global market, seeking to be innovative, making fresh sounds, but the way NZ on Air sets its funding priorities this wont be achieved.
I welcome any opinion on this. Personally I am NOT interested in people spouting minor counter examples but am interested in the philosophy and logic behind the whole thing
P.S. By complete accident I just saw the Batucada Sound Machine play at a festival in the UK, they took the audience by storm (probably no one there had ever heard their music before), with their innovative sound. Radio friendly¬ really&. Popular with the audience&hell yes&funded by NZ On Air...probably not.
PS 2 I have more to say but will get there in time.. not that anyone really wants to hear it probably but freedom of speech is a wonderful thing
This is an interesting article thanks Noizyboy.
To put it in persepctive compare iTunes to our NZ's very own amplifier which supports downloads of NZ only music (incase you didnt already know this)
Amplifier gives artists approximately 50% of the cut of selling digital music...well thats if youre independent. Dont know how it works if you are on a label however (what is their cut?)
So this is a helluva lot better than the 10% an artist might get from iTunes ... (not that an indie artist would even get on iTunes) (Note I am in no way affiliated with Amplifier)
I am not sure how this income compares to what an artist gets from CD sales..perhaps someone with some experience would like to comment??
Personally I prefer to spend my recreation money supporting musicians not some big fat corporation. Since there is such a small pot of money in NZ music this discussion seems relevant ..
Yay another mindnumbing stream of absolute rubbish to watch.. I am so excited
Oh if you give me yr email I will pass it on or you can email it to her directly at
lily@lilygreen.co.nz
then she can get hold of you when she gets there...... :)
Cool...she'll defintely swing by...thats a helluva studio there!! Maybe one day she might be able to record there... ah dreams :-)
Absolutely! And you could have the computer update a website with what songs are playing/ have played ... dont even need presenters...!! All you need is a frequency and broadcast equipment..
It is true she is leaving soon for the UK and this will probably be her last Auckland show.
:(
She is amazing.
You should go
Starts 9pm Reb Fountain is opening.
Prevention is best.. free is better!!!
Use avg for free antivirus software free.grisoft.com
and ZoneAlarm for a free firewall.
That'll stop most things unles you keep downloading those porn programs!
I had this funny idea about going out to see some live music....
I thought they were pretty good. I found after half an hour or so of bathing in nice sound.. I got a little bored.. perhaps this could be of the very repetitive melodies, limited range of phonemes, and generally the whole minimalist framework. This of course is to be expected when you listen to their albums. But even a die-hard Sigur Ros fan has to admit the melodies are very similar?
I thought Anima were okay but what is interesting is that so many people liked them! Auckland has alot of experimental music with people playing computers, odd instruments etc(Although it tends to be more improv than the composed structures of Anima) but noone goes to that stuff...hmm just a thought and my 5 cents
It is great to see that posting on NZ Music actually causes effects outside the virtual world!
Good on ya Cat for raising the concern in the first place ... and good on the Schooner for replying thoughfully and fixing the problem.
Just heard it on bfm. Sounds like more tool to me (not that that is a bad thing).
I was only listening on my car radio but it seemed fairly heavy in places (msehuggah?)
Just my 10 cents...
Oh yeh I forgot about the whole free society thing
Very nice hijack tclak
Wll it wasnt' literally pulling the plug basically he just told them to stop playing halfway through their set.... wouldnt that make you happy
Saturday will be Wellington's first chance to check out the wonderful Lily Green playing with Fideleo and My Silver Service. Yay
L:ily Green is stunning pianist/vocalist/programmer who writes emotive songs with deep textures in a sonic genre all her own. Though a solo act her use of samples/programming/effects combined with her stunning piano playing and voice can fill a very large space with a big sound
Come check it out. Her brand new CD will be available at the door! Downloads at her website and her myspace page
Well I am going to second you on this one. Quite frankly the manger of the schooner tavern is a dick! When an unnamed artist played there at a gig the other night despite holding a crowd that was clearly about to leave the manger declared that this artist was never allowed to play at the schooner tavern again. What type of venue manager declares who can/cant play there?… I mean if they pull a crowd. Ironically everyone left after unnamed artist finished……hmm. Perhaps he was annoyed that people stopped drinking and started listening to the music?
Later that night which… went a bit late (2am)... which wasn’t that much over schedule... the manager pretty much pulled the plug on the last band. Well that pissed them off as you can imagine as they had waited to watch all the other bands play. I would not recommend anyone plays at the Schooner. There are better venues and artists shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of shit from bar managers.
When she plays,
jaws drop (is that sort of playing even possible?)
and ears prick up in interest.
Last week her gig at Kaleidoscope was described by various punters (strangers not friends) as "world class" "intense",and "amazing".
Her name is Lily Green and she has one of the most innovative sounds in the country today.
She is playing at the Indie Club this Saturday night (25th), Grand Circle, from 9. Her freshly pressed CD will be available that night as well!
So come check it out
"Lily is a stunning new performer influenced by artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Tool, The Beatles, David Bowie, Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Radiohead and others but creating a dark emotive style that is purely her own."
.... from the club bizarre website
Lily Green is playing at Undressed at the Kings Arms this Sunday.
Lily plays piano and sings (and programs). Her style is anything but the saccharine pop of many other piano songwriters rather it is hard edged as she pushes the piano and her songs to the limit all the while retaining listenability and emotion. Her website has some demo material to download.
Seeing her live is a breathtaking musical experience and her style is totally different to other performers/groups around NZ. So go check her out if you haven't seen her live before
Enjoy
"So let me get this right. NZ on Air know that they have been getting more and more Recording Grant applications, sometimes up to 280 per round, so they decide to make the chances even harder by reducing it from 10 down to 5???? WTF!!! And lets look who they gave them too...." CRabs
Yes this totally strange isnt it.....lets do the logic again on what the change on this is.....under the old system of New Recording NZ On Air would like a song...give it money presumably the band would come back 3 months later and if they havent completely retarded up the recording process then NZ On Air should still like the song and give it a video grant (since there are so many more video grants than song grants)...So what does the current change mean??
What it means is that there is basically 20 more video grants....per year and 20 less recording grants. But since under the old scheme people given a recording grant would get a later video grant this means that it impacts on the new artists who get money very little if at all. What the change in effect means is that the emphasis is being taken away on new artists and being placed on sponsoring more established work in a video context sice there doesnt seem to be any limit on how many times you can get a video grant.
As a side note is funny (in a morbid way) beacuse I always found music TV stations in New Zealand to be completely unbearable to watch (I couldnt get alt TV so cant comment on that)
I agree with Noizy here.. why not send the money more on making good music rather than video production (what a strange notion). Videos already have a big chunk of the money which just got bigger.. I like the idea of siphoning some of that video money off to a "fill the gap scheme"