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.
There's none of my usual hyperbole there either; I took along 5 or 6 friends and we were half the crowd. Even the bands that opened didn't stick around for the headliners. Which, if you ask me, is pretty damn rude. If you want people to support and respect your music, you gotta do the same for other bands - and especially if you're there as support for another band.
It wasn't that they were bad musically; it just seems to be indicative of the music scene now. People don't turn up to see bands they don't know anymore, creating a catch-22 situation for the bands.
But it's not only the bands that suffer. If people stop turning out to support new local music then the venues struggle to stay afloat and eventually we lose them too.
So this week, it's a short post, but one with an important message. Get out there and support local music. It's not going to cost you more then $10 to go see a gig, and you might discover your new favourite band (I've seen several new bands this year that I'm crazy into now, that I wouldn't have ever heard if I hadn't taken a couple of hours out my life to go check out music I hadn't heard before). You'll also be helping the venues survive to promote more new music, and the circle continues.
This week I've been listening to:
Marvin Gaye, What's Going On. An awesome album, such a cool voice, and so smooth; at the same time, pretty heavy stuff, all about the decay of American society and so on. Critics say it's his best album; I wouldn't know because I haven't heard any of his others. But this one is pretty damn good.
Apparently Octahedron was the Mars Volta's "acoustic" album. Acoustic I think in the sense that it's stripped back. It's my least favourite album of theirs, but I thought I should have another listen to this week. It's still not as interesting as, well, any of their other albums, but the drumming is pretty huge on it and it's easy to listen to.
Sonic Youth kick ass. Dirty is probably the most mainstream of their 8,300 albums, but don't hate them for that. It's an awesome album and it got me into the rest of their music. It's still the album I listen to the most, but I could just listen to 100% over and over if I had to.
Quicksand only ever released two albums in the 90's, and Manic Compression was the second and better of them. I used to be hugely into the hardcore scene in the 90's, sneaking out to local hardcore gigs on school nights, following/idolising bands in the local scene (never mind that by day they were cycle couriers and filing clerks, by night they were cool), so this album kind of takes me back to those days. Ah, memories.
As I write this blog I'm listening to Nothing's Shocking by Jane's Addiction, for no reason other than I had Jane Says stuck in my head all afternoon. As good a reason as any I think... Never got into Porno For Pyros, but Jane's Addiction does it for me every time. What happened to you Dave Navarro, what happened?
So what have you been listening to this week? Drop a comment below and let the world know!
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