24 September 2011

I have excellent news for the world. There's no such thing as grunge.

It's the 20th anniversary today of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind and that's got me thinking about the whole "grunge" phenomenon of the 90's.  I've already been into why Nevermind was such a defining album in the 90's so I won't rehash that here.  Head over here to read that post.

I think that the way Nirvana exploded took the music industry, particularly the marketing side of it, by surprise.  Nobody expected it to happen and the prevailing trend in music at the time was definitely pop.  Suddenly, here were these punk kids making a lot of noise, selling a lot of records, and someone needed to capitalize on it.

15 September 2011

My take on the Wellington Music Showcase

Last night I attended a showcase of Wellington music; part of the Going Global summit run by Independent Music NZ, the NZ Music Commission and the Music Managers' Forum to assist bands with understanding how to be successful marketing their music overseas.  You can see sets from the show here.

The showcase was the finale to a day of talks by industry representatives from the UK and USA, including BBC radio programmers and record label reps.   The format involved 6 bands playing short sets, around 25-30 minutes each, with a (supposedly) quick changeover between bands.

It was encouraging to see so many people turn out on a school night to support local music; it can only have given the foreign attendees a positive impression of the New Zealand music scene.

7 September 2011

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

A few weeks ago I headed out to a local music venue to photograph and review and up and coming band.  It was a cold winters night, I think there was some kind of big rugby game on, and no one turned up.