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Radio Will Kill The Internet Star
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[what follows is a rant of epic proportions - apologies for the rawness]
South African music is shit for a reason.
I'm the editor of a music blog (about 1000 hits a day, whoohoo). We've been around for a few months. I love heading to live shows, getting press accredited and meeting the handful of others in this country who do what I do. But today I feel like packing it all in.
Why? Because I realise how insignificant writing on the Internet is, and how little impact my daily, weekly, monthly efforts at creating a live entertainment scene must seem. I realise how ridiculous these words must seem, stuck away in a corner of the world so small that I judge my efforts by an 'Entertainment' subcategory called 'By Posts' on Amatomu.co.za, the supposed weblog index of South Africa. It's not really that we're below a multitude of other sites with less interesting content that gets me. It's that relying on other sites to index me begins to act as a value barometer, and I'm losing faith in posting videos with crap audio that nobody watches.
Creating a live entertainment scene. Why? Because I have seen it, felt it and believe in it. I think that we're all so terrified of leaving our houses that we're missing out on arts and culture. Not just the stuff that I'm into, but the late-night shebeens, the jazz spots nobody outside of Mitchell's Plain has heard about, and the Afrikaans morning market music shows that happen far awaw from here.
This place is awash with culture! And talent! How far do you have to look to notice something new about South Africa and your region every day? I learned the other day that there's a mosque on Signal Hill in Cape Town. I've seen the diversity, I've seen the talent go unrepresented. I have seen good people who deserve to earn a lot more than they do put their hearts and souls into performance and upward mobility, and they've had no help.
So what do I do? I sit here every day and post their Facebook messages. I call them back from my own phone when they send please call me's and invite them to our meetings. I'm a very talented musician. The kinda guy who creates magic instead of just performing a bunch of songs. Yeah. That's me. And even with a completely unique approach towards performance and production of music, I still refuse to try and make a career out of it in this country.
What can we do? I'm tired of asking that. I don't know. Keep going? Have another coffee? Every time I read a blog post or article about Ramfest or Oppikoppi, one side of me celebrates that there is the post-event coverage and thus the demand for it. The other side just bawls at how insignificant our music culture has become, and I guess has always been. But it's not that. It's that I feel disconnected from it. Familiarity has retarded me.
We're consumers of music, no longer listeners. We share MP3s, and that's fine, but we've stopped listening. The average MP3 collection has been dumbed down into such broad categories - rock, hip hop, jazz, etc - that now we just sedately nod and tell our friends, 'I like indie rock.' And this is the goddam reason that South African musicians are copying everyone else instead of cultivating new ideas -- new musical ideas, yes, but also new ways of releasing music, new, inspiring ways of engaging with the people. Ideas specific to this place and time. Go! Write songs about how much you love or hate tourists. Eye contact! It's live, and you're alive now, listening to it, not processing it through your memories of the over-compressed MP3 you liberated from your buddy. There is no substitute for a live performance. The techno-art of sound engineering is defined as an attempt to reproduce the live sound. Most concerts I go to are like a fucking m3u Windows Media playlist.
I dunno about black people, coloured people and whatever goes on past Athlone, but I'm fucking over my scene. I can't go watch more music without being inspired. I saw a group last night in a small venue in the suburbs playing to 30 people like they were playing to 10,000. They just had this energy about them. It's not a dumb, get-pissed-and-play kinda thing. It's an honest, fun-loving sweat. I couldn't believe it. Lead the way, band.
Maybe I've just seen enough for a while. Maybe the soul has moved on to other places, other pursuits. Maybe I'm too old or experienced to enjoy the bullshit that comes with a night out. I. WANT. TO. SEE. PASSION.
Man. Normally I go into intellectual mode when I write about music, but this is just an outburst.
Why are we not sourcing and creating more outdoor venues in Cape Town? I suppose we're scared of being robbed. Where are the crazy, free-spirited musicians amongst us? Where are the personalities of the sport? Working jobs so they can afford to practise. Last year I wasted hundreds of rand and time trying to organise weekly jam sessions in my circle. Yeah, everyone's got a different excuse. At one point, I had a myspace up, was telling all my mates, paying for the venue, buying fucking beers for chrissake, and still the ethos is apathetic and the passion dormant. Only because there appears to be no way forward right now.
Oh but there is. Leave the country. It really is the best idea for a musician in South Africa, and I endorse it thoroughly. Yeah, I know being a musician and performing is a job, no matter where you are. It can be a chore - I'm not trying to glamourise it here. I just think that bands are fighting way to goddam hard to get an inch of representation in this town, and I propose to either make all South African music really expensive (and therefore valuable, by some backward method of thought) or give up on it all together. There's a trickle of MP3 sale going on. We're disconnected from our government. The only MBE you'll get for songwriting in this place is a Mr MBEra, who wants half your royalties. It's fucking true. NORM and RISA and SAMRO and AIRCO are organisations with their hearts in the right place, but are actually doing precious little to enforce SA music radio quotas and distribute dues. I have never heard a single musician I know mention radio royalties. There is no demand because there is no exposure.
But people are going offline. I think. I reckon there's only so much information you can reap about someone from the Internet, and even then it's still a quality of information that is often intimidatingly presented: paying online for an MP3 is a scary process, lemme tell you. Seeing the same band's colours and logos and pics repeat themselves over Myspace, Facebook, Reverbnation, LoadtheShow, Amie Street, iTunes, Beatport, etc, is scary. It's like the part in your shopping trip where you're judging the cheeses by price, not by quality.
It's simple. How impressed you are by a show is purely a matter of how often you've heard the music. Nobody at the back of MyCokeFest could actually see Matthew Bellamy's face. On the screen, yeah, but that's just another digital copy. It's not live music. So it's hearing the songs you've come to know over the years that impresses you, not the power and might of the songs or even the lighting rig. Without the familiarity, it may as well be an Andalucian village flamenco. You only get to know songs by hearing them, but nobody streams web radio while cooking dinner. NO. We listen to the radio. Or, more accurately, we don't listen to radio. I don't listen to radio.
Because there's no place for me in this country. No place for a guy who doesn't feel like he's African, but doesn't feel like he's fucking American, British or even some quasi-'global' world child. So now what do we do? I don't know. Yet. But sooner or later we're gonna have to start creating things on our own terms. Our own, outsourced-office-day-job, R100-a-week-is-too-much-for-live-music terms. We're gonna have to figure out a way to a: get our own, underground stuff played on the radio, b: get more gigs sponsored by top-end brands and drop the price altogether and c: create a demand for music with soul, not the sausage-factory shit-pop that gets forced on us. Did you know they have formulas for radio play? Stuff like the opening lyrics to a song must be in the first 30 seconds, the chorus in the first minute, the song no longer than 4.45, etc. Would you even know the soul of music when you heard it? Do you listen or consume? Either one's fine, there's no right or wrong. But I guarantee you that in the back streets of this city's suburbs, there is a force of musicians and creatives struggling to find their outlet.
And that's fine. If that's the way it is, so be it. It's just that I can't give up on this because a: I am a musician when I'm not bitching, and b: I sense that there's a hunger for it that is simply outweighed by apathy. If some madman were to go running down Long Street campaigning for change in South African radio, he'd be alone.
So turn on the radio and hear why the local scene is, for the most part, nothing worth writing home about. Or on your home page about. The shit that gets played. I'm not suggesting we reverse the cultural imperialism, thank you 'media degree' for that bullshit phrase. What I mean is thank God for American and European music, because the majority of it is well produced, marketed more strongly and through listening to it, you're silently making friends and building conversation fodder with people thousands of kilometres away (which is weird, when you think about it.) I'm just suggesting that in the shadow of the beast, those of us with something real and passionate to offer have SOME fucking outlet for our creative efforts! Where am I supposed to get exposure in this place? The Internet is cluttered, and you notice that so few people actually use it when you open your eyes. I hand out CDs of my music to everyone, not because I'm trying to get noticed, but because I need to get this shit off my chest! Man. I got played in a Israeli podcast a year ago, and it made me wanna keep making music forever. Just the idea that what I have is of creative value to someone is enough, and you can shove the royalties back up SABC's ass, or better yet, give them to me so I can afford to sit in this office chair and keep saying this kinda shit. I dunno about you, but I have a soul.
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Comments
04/05/08
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Spark
Dude, there a like.. No less than a billion "musicians" on the planet and counting.. And I think sometimes that this world doesn't need another song.. but if you feel your work is righteous.. then why not.
You're not another soldier and your not another thug on the street selling crack.. so Love it or Leave it.
Set some goals and value your accomplishments. Open a can or worms. Do the opposite.
If you're going to be an artist.. get used to feeling disconnected, and get used to having your "scene" or genre instantly evaporate because the press and all the people who jumped on your bandwagon, get up leave and move onto the next thing.
Two can play at that game.
Your soul isn't at stake here.
04/05/08
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Spark
Radio is a business. Not a creative outlet. They want to sell advertising and pad it with songs and broadcast it to people who have no concern for the "Art" they just want to rock out.
04/05/08
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Spark
As the radio would say....
LESS TALK = MORE ROCK
04/06/08
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flies
that's quite a lot of rant there.
all i can say is, keep doin your thing. I'm afraid i'm quite ignorant of the situation in south africa, so the best i can do is offer platitudes.
04/06/08
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yghartsyrt
relax dude.
it's just fucking music.
no soul no nothing. jst mathematics, noises and intervals of rhythm and frequencies.
yes, it might feel alienating when you don't have some people at your place, who are doing the same. but so what? that's the good point about the internet. get new friends, enjoy the chats late at night or early in the morning just becaus e the other one is living on th eother side of the world.
04/06/08
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pravda23
sometimes you just gotta cut loose. thanks for the kind words. keep going.
04/06/08
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monty
the radio is something i put on when im doing housework.
background noise when i can be bothered digging out a CD.
i wouldnt stress about it.
04/06/08
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monty
*cant be bothered
04/06/08
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jarvis
do you want to make music or do you want to get attention for making music? they are 2 different things.
also, you really think american/european radio music is good? this may be part of the problem. bad music influencing others to make bad music. people with creativity will be creative regardless of what is around them, people who want attention will do what is getting others attention.
04/06/08
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ricemutt
dude, dont' relax. Fight the good fight. Shit. I'm with you. I'm starting to get out there, and I feel fucking burned and I've barely even gotten started. I mean sure, I'm going to give it my best, and do what I can--that's what I"m doing. But I've already met enough closed-face hipsters who can't make eye contact and poor soulless bastards singing about how their washing machine is broken (well, they're singing about girlfriends or whatever bullshit, but it means pretty much the same to me). I played a show in a record store last week, and sure--there was hardly anyone there. But I was playing balls-out noise music and people were just flipping through the elvis costello and styx records and pretending nothing was happening. I would have preferred someone to yell at me that I suck... at least it would have been a real reaction. How can people be so numb? People are numb as fuck.
Yeah it's hard finding someone out there who has their heart in it, wants to spread some love, joy, and has the energy, is sincere, wants things to happen. Keep up the good fight. Don't relax. Say "fuck it's all good." Outrage is necessary. You have to fight, care, be energetic, be angry! Whatever. I'm tired of complacency. I think being pissed is a good sign of recognition that things are fucking stupid and people are numb as wooly mammoths buried in the tundra. It's time to get to work!
04/06/08
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Spark
Amen to cutting loose. Let it out.
04/06/08
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xik
That post is way too long, thats probably why nobody listens.
04/07/08
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eevvrr
you lost me at "south africa music is shit"
04/07/08
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morgberg
People copying people is what makes music scenes stagnate in any part of the world. Not everyone can live in Ln Ny To, thank god, and if you visit those cities you realize that they mostly suck as well.
How about collaborations or getting away from expectations, or fitting in, or rocking out and having everyone understand, it's unrealistic in any location.
find some homeless person banging on a can and record it and put it on the net.
04/07/08
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thehydrax
Good luck with all that....
don't make a big deal about it. don't be anything... Just be, and go ahead and do your thing. that is enough.
no aspirations = no bitter disappointments. so people tune out when they tune in...for most of us music is just another distraction in the end, like tv, mindlessly munching on doritos or whatever else people do. they consume and move on to the next distraction. it's not worth getting worked up over.
Make a site put the music there and if even one person thinks it's amazing then...job done
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