Posts by Ian Jorgensen
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
No university and a lack of interesting jobs means that most people who can leave at 18 do so and don't come back until retirement.
yeah, I've always believed a wee bit in this as well, however, there are quite a few exceptions to the rule, towns and communities which don't make sense. There are quite a few bands who have done monstorous tours of NZ and found great audiences, prob is making that a regular circuit. Trying to create twenty Barrytowns, but also, partly why those shows go off is due to them being so irregular, so would putting on shows every weekend kill what was already there? Haha, this has literally haunted me.
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Why don't Taupo/Whanganui/New Plymouth/Hamilton/Tauranga/Rotorua all have 150 capacity venues run by enthusiastic music heads (wether young hipsters or old flying nunsters it doesn't matter).
I am pretty confident taking just ONE months funding from NZOA I could establish ten "pop-up" 150 cap venues around NZ that could present shows every Fri/Sat for at least a year and be part of a network linking together to put together easy tour routes for bands presenting 1000 shows a year in towns without existing live venues. Sure, its not NZOAs responsibility given their current mandate, but just food for thought.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Russell Brown,
haha, another rant I left out of the book was how I saw the death of nzmusic.com as having a HUGE effect on the music scene. It was a site that music fans of all types would come together to discuss music. If you saw a band get a good review on there, people paid attention. These days, people just pay attention to the artists they already "like" (on FB or in real life). It seemed like everybody was on that site and bands got big just on the back on good feedback on that site. It was massive. People left nzmusic to carry on the discussion on myspace, but the forum to discover stuff they didn't already know was gone. Now you need to be a dedicated passionate music lover to discover stuff, Nzmusic was a site where just casual fans could discover stuff and engage with it.
Maybe its just me, but I saw the death of that site and Channel Z around the same time as massive blows to taking bands from the underground to that next level.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
sorry Geoff, i didn't pick that up from what you said.
You're totally right, of course its just a theory and yes, its just one small part of the problem and totally untested other than some observations I've made (and explain in the essay) but yeah, haha, i don't blame game of thrones for everything, its partly breaking bad's fault too ;)
I had quite alot of international response to those interviews around those theories and they created quite a bit of interest, I received a bunch of emails from people who hadn't thought of that connection before but could really see a correlation between declining attendances at underground live shows and the advancement of decent television programming and broadband...however, it could just be a coincidence, and like most of my essays, just fodder to get people talking.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Hey geoff. I think you entirely just missed the point of what i said. Have a read again. I dont think illegal downloading of music has any negative effect on the music scene... I believe the opposite to be true. Its that people watch so much tv these days that is hurting the live scene
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I'd run this as a guest post!
Chur. Though yeah, quite a few people read that UTR interview where I explain the crux of it - I can send something a bit more elaborate your way next week. I couldn't really think of any fixes so felt it didn't really fit in with the book even though i believe it is a major issue. I tried to avoid running the essays which were just depressing, :/
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Russell Brown,
Kinda. I don't know the exact formula, but it's a small fraction of gate takings vs logged plays of music at sports games
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in part of my research on this, i talked to a songwriter who heard his song played at a sports game, called APRA when they didn't see anything on their statement and was told BY APRA, that they don't collect from sports events - which is totally wrong, they do.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Have you posted it online anywhere? I'd be interested to read it
there are a whole bunch of essays, and extended parts I chose not to run for various reasons....many things I just felt that I was being a broken record about. Ie: i wrote a big piece about kiwifm in 2006, and nothing much has changed in how i feel about them eight years later - also, haha, pretty hard to fix the TV problem other than making gigs MUCH more attractive to watch than they currently are.
i talk about the "game of thrones" theory here:
http://themusic.com.au/interviews/all/2013/10/09/ian-blink-jorgensen/20401/
http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/interview/655/Blink-on-Square-Wave-Festival-Puppies---More.utr -
Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Russell Brown,
Well said. haha, I wish you'd just written the book instead of me.
Something I didn't really go into in detail but that really rammed home things for me about the current music scene was how difficult it was for me to get people out to the recent Flying Nun 30th anniversary shows I put on. When down at Sammys in Dunedin, I was hearing stories of how that venue in the 80s/90s was packed out with 700+ every weekend with people just to see covers bands. In 2011, I was putting together killer line-ups: The Clean + The Subliminals -- HDU + Dead C -- Shayne Carter etc.. and really struggling to get 250+ along to each show there, even with some pretty significant promo.
It's what I really try to get the bottom of (though do a bad job of it) in the book, trying to work out how we can get back to that situation where going out to a gig on the weekend is something that a huge portion of our population get into....and yeah, i work on my ideas to fix that - regulated show times, better valued/priced shows, more all ages shows, more shows in smaller towns, better community involvement/broadcasting, less funding on one-off projects and more emphasis on "global"/long-term initiatives.
I've mentioned in several interviews prior to the book coming out, so didn't want to appear a broken record in that I think the amazing quality of TV available and the ability to stream/download it has really put a dampner on the live music scene in the past years. It's died that fast. There was a time 2004-07 where I felt crap not getting 300 out to see some local acts, now I'm happy with a 1/3rd of that. People are just staying home and watching TV - they are in control of the timing, have amazing quality entertainment, can drink cheaper, are nice and warm and can control the environment - why go out? Downloading of TV, not music is killing the music scene.
My essay on that theory is called "Fuck Game of Thrones" - and haha, I chose not to run it in the book.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas and grumbles, in reply to Russell Brown,
You're complaining because they won't change and because they've asked your for your input on changes? Jeez, I know you're slightly joking, but maybe don't be too ungracious Blink ...
haha, i'm not complaining, i already told anthony a couple of weeks ago I would come back to him with some ideas, just funny them making that "public", when it kinda makes them look like they are unable to think for themselves - which is probably true ;)