Hamilton music is sick and ill
Righto……
Imagine if there were young musicians who lived in Hamilton. Imagine their sister driving a datsun. They like the word ‘the’. They think oneday they might call themselves ‘the datsuns’. Imagine a ensemble of high school unsocialbles in the music room itching to play to the masses. No one has heard them or believe them.
They decide with a musketeer shout and hurrah that they will approach one of hamilton’s drinking establishments for the opportunity to play their muse to the world… or at least part of hood st. they don’t particularly want to be famous… just want to try out their riffs and spliffs outside the world of the school music room. They believe the time is right…. They have moved on from ‘april sun in cuba’ to their own thing…
So they go to a bar called daggers where they are cut. Cut to the core. Cut by the fact that a room out the back will cost them 200$ to hire. Cut by the bar takings that go straight back to the establishment and none to the band.… cut by the economics that says that after the pa hire, poster run, and venue hire are paid for they will have to sell their instruments to pay for the gig that was supposed to be wicked and instrumental.
After being bored for a few months driving te rapa and hanging out at beef eaters they then decide to get their reform… this time with a manager. They buy some crap guitars on trade me and again decide to relaunch themselves with a stage show and wide denim jeans.
The new manager is impressive at number crunching. She decides that for the band to make a buck, f or the band to pay for the gas from nawton to daggers bar in hoodwink st and pay for a new set of strings each…and pay for the freakin venue hire and the sound engineer, and 2 parcans, the band will set a cover charge of 16$ per head. The band concur. They all passed school c economics. They agree.. a musical revolution is imminint…
On a late Friday night the band play a rockin set of rock that rocks. Its old school. Hard and memorable like the ranfurly shield. Its storming chord progressions spark off lyrical gems and something new is born.
Unfortunately, no one is there to hear it. what is the sound of no punters clapping?
The datsuns blame their naff name, the daggers extravagant room hireage and the fact there was no naked girl on the poster. Refusing to be humiliated by asking their parents for loans everytime they want to play a gig they give up dreams of NME journalistic saliva frothing and touring the states and stop playing their own stuff.
They download the tabs for ricky martin and maroon 5 songs and learn ‘play that funky music’. They play Thursday through Saturday in a dull bar singing a impotent version of Victoria onVictoria st.
Bands like:
The Shrugs
The Clerics
Amy Racecar
This Night Creeps
St Lucy, Radiator
Aether
Disjecta Membra
Mobile Stud Unit
Cosmik Ska Child
Rumpus Room
Daisy Chain Halo
Yokel Ono
Rose Petals & Confetti
Date Month Year
Frogletter
Johnny Fist
Gadget Goose
The Caledonia
The Crazy 88
… are currently in the same dire circumstance. They can’t get a gig that pays a buck..
Why is that??
a) the bands are too crap ?? not true.
It is because live original music has suffered warehouse -isatiion. If I see a pair of jandals for $ 15.00 I laugh …..knowing that I can get the same pair for a ridiculous $4.50 at the warehouse. The warehousation effect is what makes people laugh at a cover charge. They laugh at 5$ and think what they could get at the warehouse for that. The 5$ which will not even pay the room hire at daggers bar on hoodwink st. and daggers aren’t the only ones……
wot is the answer? Do we care….? Is Hamilton to be a cultural wasteland where the local scene is colonized by sad plastic covers bands or the womb of a thriving industry of experimenting original musicians?
Hamilton musicians need some solidarity. A united front who through collective enterprise can make a few things happen. And as we speak musicians in hamilton east and west, in Melville and Fairfield, even in Glenview, are plotting the overthrow of the 3 TRAVESTIES of the hamiltron music scene
a dispassionate audience
a dispossessing venue policy
and a dysfunctional publicity machine…
but The winds of change are howling… the liberation of school music rooms is now in progress… stay tuned…. Honest dave will bring you more as it pans out… the revolution is now. May the datsuns’ eptitaphs not read..THANK GOD WE WEREN’T BORN IN HAMILTRON
this weekend..Vote Hamilton music…and the sohl bar
you’ve been listening to honest dave’s rant on the generator…
Imagine if there were young musicians who lived in Hamilton. Imagine their sister driving a datsun. They like the word ‘the’. They think oneday they might call themselves ‘the datsuns’. Imagine a ensemble of high school unsocialbles in the music room itching to play to the masses. No one has heard them or believe them.
They decide with a musketeer shout and hurrah that they will approach one of hamilton’s drinking establishments for the opportunity to play their muse to the world… or at least part of hood st. they don’t particularly want to be famous… just want to try out their riffs and spliffs outside the world of the school music room. They believe the time is right…. They have moved on from ‘april sun in cuba’ to their own thing…
So they go to a bar called daggers where they are cut. Cut to the core. Cut by the fact that a room out the back will cost them 200$ to hire. Cut by the bar takings that go straight back to the establishment and none to the band.… cut by the economics that says that after the pa hire, poster run, and venue hire are paid for they will have to sell their instruments to pay for the gig that was supposed to be wicked and instrumental.
After being bored for a few months driving te rapa and hanging out at beef eaters they then decide to get their reform… this time with a manager. They buy some crap guitars on trade me and again decide to relaunch themselves with a stage show and wide denim jeans.
The new manager is impressive at number crunching. She decides that for the band to make a buck, f or the band to pay for the gas from nawton to daggers bar in hoodwink st and pay for a new set of strings each…and pay for the freakin venue hire and the sound engineer, and 2 parcans, the band will set a cover charge of 16$ per head. The band concur. They all passed school c economics. They agree.. a musical revolution is imminint…
On a late Friday night the band play a rockin set of rock that rocks. Its old school. Hard and memorable like the ranfurly shield. Its storming chord progressions spark off lyrical gems and something new is born.
Unfortunately, no one is there to hear it. what is the sound of no punters clapping?
The datsuns blame their naff name, the daggers extravagant room hireage and the fact there was no naked girl on the poster. Refusing to be humiliated by asking their parents for loans everytime they want to play a gig they give up dreams of NME journalistic saliva frothing and touring the states and stop playing their own stuff.
They download the tabs for ricky martin and maroon 5 songs and learn ‘play that funky music’. They play Thursday through Saturday in a dull bar singing a impotent version of Victoria onVictoria st.
Bands like:
The Shrugs
The Clerics
Amy Racecar
This Night Creeps
St Lucy, Radiator
Aether
Disjecta Membra
Mobile Stud Unit
Cosmik Ska Child
Rumpus Room
Daisy Chain Halo
Yokel Ono
Rose Petals & Confetti
Date Month Year
Frogletter
Johnny Fist
Gadget Goose
The Caledonia
The Crazy 88
… are currently in the same dire circumstance. They can’t get a gig that pays a buck..
Why is that??
a) the bands are too crap ?? not true.
It is because live original music has suffered warehouse -isatiion. If I see a pair of jandals for $ 15.00 I laugh …..knowing that I can get the same pair for a ridiculous $4.50 at the warehouse. The warehousation effect is what makes people laugh at a cover charge. They laugh at 5$ and think what they could get at the warehouse for that. The 5$ which will not even pay the room hire at daggers bar on hoodwink st. and daggers aren’t the only ones……
wot is the answer? Do we care….? Is Hamilton to be a cultural wasteland where the local scene is colonized by sad plastic covers bands or the womb of a thriving industry of experimenting original musicians?
Hamilton musicians need some solidarity. A united front who through collective enterprise can make a few things happen. And as we speak musicians in hamilton east and west, in Melville and Fairfield, even in Glenview, are plotting the overthrow of the 3 TRAVESTIES of the hamiltron music scene
a dispassionate audience
a dispossessing venue policy
and a dysfunctional publicity machine…
but The winds of change are howling… the liberation of school music rooms is now in progress… stay tuned…. Honest dave will bring you more as it pans out… the revolution is now. May the datsuns’ eptitaphs not read..THANK GOD WE WEREN’T BORN IN HAMILTRON
this weekend..Vote Hamilton music…and the sohl bar
you’ve been listening to honest dave’s rant on the generator…
posted by Honest Dave at 2:28 pm
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