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And thus begins our long journey to try and improve the music world as we know it in Sydney. Not only are we to improve the audiences that attend gigs everywhere and anywhere in Sydney, but also we will need to improve venues, encourage young artists to strive for the stars, and for us to fall back in love with the world of pub music.
The great Bob Marley once said that:
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain”
Why would you not want to experience something wonderful and magical as new, undiscovered music? Imagine you turn up to a show, you see a band and you really enjoy them. At the end of the show they are selling their CD for a simple donation, and if you don’t wish to donate you can have it for free. You give them a $2 donation and take this CD. Years later there is this new band that has just hit the mainstream with this song that has hit #1 in 12 different countries on their charts. It is the same band that you saw all of those years ago and you saw them at one of their original shows and you have a now ‘limited edition’ CD that is out of print. Imagine how lucky you would feel to have seen that band and be able to tell your then friends ‘I saw that band when they were just beginning’.
I encourage all of you, before the end of the year, to go to a random show, one where you don’t know the bands, bring some mates and truly get into it. Forget about everyone else around, just lose yourself in the music that is being played, and afterwards go up to the band and thank them for playing a great show, it will be truly appreciative of it.
Having organised gigs myself, the most imposing question was not which bands will we get, because there are so many within the city of Sydney. It was not which venue, with lots of venues more then happy to let us use their venue either cheaply or even for free. Not even the question of crew or food or drinks, but rather, the most pressing question being, how much do we charge for entry?
Now though this may not seem like an important question it truly is the most important. Imagine your mates ask you to see their band play at this venue because they would love the support. You, being a top mate, decide to go and support even though you have seen them practice thousands of times and have heard all of their songs. When you get to the venue you find out that there is a cover charge at the door. How much would you pay to see your mates play?
With most places charging $10-$15 nowadays, this is alot to ask of people, especially uni students and younger fans. Add onto this the cost of food and/or drinks (if you feel so inclined), it could easily add up to a big night. Though this may seem like a fair price to pay, when your mates band plays all of the time whenever they can to get their names out there it becomes a bit of a pricey event to be attending. So is it fair to have cover charges for smaller bands? If it should be free think of the people who have done all of the work behind the scenes to get this show to happen. Is it fair that they should get nothing for their efforts?
On the shows that I organised, we usually settled on $5, having at least 5 bands playing each night. Our aim was for each band to bring in at least 10 people, and then the money we brought in would mostly cover costs then a little bit extra. It’s hard to ask people to pay to see their mates play but it is a part of the industry, but could this be what is causing people to not go to local bands who they don’t know? The fact that it costs too much?
Would love to hear your opinions, comment below with your thoughts!
After having the 3 interviews with the Artist, Engineer and Organiser I have come to to deduce one thing, the culture seems to be the reason for the poor music scene that has developed. You don’t find many small, unique and interesting places where you can go see a local band, drink, and have a good time. I mean, why would you want to go see a band where you wouldn’t know any of there music when you can go out to a club and listen to music you know? Where would your mates be going?
The thing that we would need in order to change the scene in Sydney, I believe, is a big cultural shift within the city of Sydney, to intimate venues that are more suited towards bands playing in a nice venues, where there is seating and a great atmosphere, not one for clubbing. I believe that if we start to see a few more venues like this pop up we may start to see a shift in the culture back towards bands, rather then clubs.
Also, I believe that there could be a problem with many venue owners not willing to take a punt and risk bringing bands in, when there is a probability that as little as 2-3 people could turn up to see the band, thus the venue losing money as a cover charge is on the door and people don’t want to go.
Maybe someone needs to take a punt, an organiser, a venue manager, someone, needs to risk opening a new, smaller venue, and start an attempt to swing the culture, to not necessarily just bands, but an even mixture of bands and DJs.
Very interesting blog post. Very much worth the read
An article written by Triple J presenter Brendan Maclean regarding the closing of the Sandringham hotel sparked considerable controversy regarding the relationship between artists and venue owners. While it’s clear that Brendan’s article was written from a negative point of view following an unfortunate experience with the hotel’s management, he does make some important points regarding how the Sando was being run and the pressures placed by management on the artists they booked.
A follow-up conversation between Brendan and Matt Rule, owner of the Annandale hotel, investigated further the conflicting issues faced by both venues and musicians and how a lack of cooperation between the two results in far greater challenges than what need be faced.
Brendan: “But you put out a positive energy about musicians, that’s the difference. Whereas Tony, yes it’s hard to run a business, but he didn’t do that. He repeatedly put out PR releases that…
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How long have you been doing it?
Who are you currently mixing for and who have you previously mixed for?
Why do you think that Sydney lacks a music scene that we used to have or that places like Melbourne have?
Do you have any possible solutions to this problem?
Do you have any plans for the near future in regards to the music industry?
- What is your name and what do you do in the industry?
My name is John Blois (The Mighty Jabs) and I perform as an MC in a group called Bay Side Wreckers with DJ Bobby Digital.
2. How long have you been doing it?
We have been performing for 5 years, but I have been rapping since the age of 12 (16 years) and taking it seriously for about 10 years.
3. How Many CDs have you released?
We have put out several releases for free download online, but only 3 of them have been available on CD, with us releasing them ourselves independently.
4. Do you find it hard to get people to attend shows that you put on?
We have in the past when we have too many shows too close together or we don’t promote it enough.
5. Why do you think this is?
It’s important to space shows out to make it more of an event than “just another show” as most of our “fans” are really just friends supporting us.
If people have seen what you can do then they dont think they’re missing out of you’re doing the same thing again. Plus being in Sydney means there’s alot of competition in terms of other things people can do instead of attending your show.
6. Do you have any possible solutions in encouraging more people to attend shows in Sydney?
Try and play to different audiences to attract a following in different circles. Also do shows with different bands as much as possible because the networking exposes you to different fans and that’ll grow yours.
7. Do you have any plans for the near future in regards to your music?
Yes we’re puttin out an EP entitled BAY SIDE in coming months along with a video accompaniment for it. Our 5 year anniversary show is in a couple of weeks, after which we’re launching a crowd funding project to raise funds for the release of the EP and some merch, which will be interesting.
- What is your name and what do you do in the industry?
I’m Anthony Cavallaro and I run a company called ‘AC Presents’. We’ve only been around a short time but we’ve managed to get our foot in the door in quite a few areas of the music industry with each area growing steadily. The company’s broken down into five main areas:
– AC Presents The Underground –challenging the concept of traditional live music venues – we use a variety of quirky spaces such as backyards, parks, lounge rooms and warehouses as performance spaces all over Sydney
– AC Presents In The Spotlight – in organizing tours for a variety of artists we’re building a strong network throughout Australia’s bars, hotels, clubs and festivals
– AC Presents Shout It Out Loud – We promote a range of live music events, showcases and tours for domestic and international artists
– AC Presents The Long and Winding Road – Representing bands and artists at all stages of their development we work with them to guide and develop their careers
– AC Presents Taking Care of Business – we provide business solutions, accounting and financial advice for a range of music industry agents, managers, promoters, publishers, artists and bands
- How long have you been doing it?
Once I knew I wanted to go into the music industry I took around 6 months to study up, plan it all out and I got some great advice from some great people. Then a good friend Josh Wang called me up asking if I’d be interested in co-promoting an event with him and that was my first real hands-on taste of it. That was around a year ago.
- Why do you want to do it?
There’s no other buzz like it. Putting on a show and making people happy is the best part of it for me – whether it’s the audience having a great time, the band performing having a blast, the venue guys being happy that there’s a big crowd or the graphic designers excited to see all their posters up everywhere – it’s a great buzz all round.
- Do you find it hard to get people to attend the shows you put on?
Of course we always want more people coming to attend the shows we put on but I’m pleased to say attendance has been pretty solid for the majority of shows and for those that haven’t filled up as much as expected I’ve always sought to understand the reason behind it and learn from it.
- Do you have any solutions that you believe could encourage people to attend more shows in Sydney?
I think something that would help encourage Sydneysiders to attend more local gigs would be to improve the look and atmosphere of local live music venues. You can see from The Sando and to a lesser extent The Annandale that while they are highly respected as Sydney’s more heritage venues, one of the reasons they are having financial issues and finding it difficult to get people through the door is the fact that the place just isn’t up to scratch in terms of look and atmosphere. Sydney’s outgrown ‘dive bars’ – we’ve been there done that and the only people that you see in them during the week are usually a few aged 40+ old school rockers – that’s it. We’ve entered an age where for the majority of people everything must be aesthetically pleasing to both eye and ear (especially in the entertainment industry) and there’s no point trying to fight that. That’s why if we were going to start encouraging people to attend more local gigs in Sydney a good start would be to give these older venues a facelift so that people will actually want to visit them and swing by for a hangout, even if they don’t know the band playing. That’s part of the reason why local Sydney venues Upstairs Beresford, The Standard and Oxford Art Factory are booming and hardly ever empty no matter what day it is or who’s playing – they’ve kept up with the times.
Whilst out last night, doing what young adults do, I came across an interesting thought, is the problem that any of us have failed to realise what the music industry is now? I mean, look at what festivals are becoming big, Parklife, Future Music Festival, Stereosonic… does this mean anything? I can already see the pattern here, on the radio we don’t hear your classic ACDC sound or your smooth Michael Buble as much anymore (except for the occasional release of a single), all we hear are the latest songs from the likes of Calvin Harris, Skrillex and Rihanna. Do these artist have any places in the likes of our sacred venues such as the Annandale?
I don’t mean to diminish from what I am campaigning for, the effort to get more people to attend local venues to see up and coming bands, but maybe they already are the clubs that litter the city of Sydney. I have many mates who want to make it big, similar to the likes of Deadmau5 and Calvin Harris. This is music, supporting young artists just not the music that we would classically classify as ‘gig music’. By going to a club and having a drink, it gives the chance for a young DJ from Sydney to get the chance to play for lots of people. In essence this is what we want but maybe we just refuse to see the swing in popular music towards dance music rather then rock music, or pub music.
I still would love to have people attend musicians of all genre’s shows but maybe we need to recognise that this is our strongest area, and maybe the best way is the merge in with them and try to work through dance music to get other bands on the map.
Maybe we should look at supporting young DJ acts like House Bear (https://www.facebook.com/housebear64) and try to support them in the future? Maybe this will encourage people to go and see more local acts, especially if we start to see more of other genre’s seep into dance music through remixing sampling.
What makes the perfect gig? What makes you leave a gig being like ‘wow… that band was phenomenal!’. Is it the way that the songs are played? Is it the way that the frontman interacts with the crowd? Is it down to the lighting show or how the show is mixed?
The whole range of things comes into play when we go to a show. The venue can play a huge part in whether it is an intimate gig or an arena spectacular. I mean, it would be a completely different vibe if a band like U2 played in Sydney Entertainment Centre, which would be a huge show and full up, compared to in the Annandale where there would be very few people who would actually be able to attend due to the size. So does this also play on the idea of whether it is a good gig?
Me personally, one of my favourite gigs I ever went to was The Rocket Summer at the Annandale in 2011. The reason for this is the fact that the frontman, Bryce Avary, Went out into the crowd and engaged with everyone and got friendly and actually came into the crowd during the gig. To me, the fact that he didn’t sit up on stage the whole time but actually engaged in the audience made the gig so enjoyable. It was also in The Annandale (which I love) which is an intimate venue so there were less people and that made it even more enjoyable.
Probably my favourite ever performance of a single song, though, is of Coldplay at Sound Relief and their song Fix You (mind you I was not at this gig I saw them that night). The video is phenomenal and the fact that he just ran through the crowd makes it even more special.
GIGS! 