The standard of our music scene!

Reinecke · 2013-06-19T14:47:59+00:00

A lot has changed, and we are no longer an exclusive music scene consisting of local artist and afrikaans niche markets. We have evolved, we see enough inte...

The standard of our music scene!

Psean

IceCreamMan wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
IceCreamMan wrote: tell you what , I am excited bout the potential of ZA music...2 new venues in my area opening up (or have opened) is the acoustic café just off beyers and the old cool runnings is reopening under a new name and will feature live music...
Which "old cool runnings"? Melville or Bloubosrand?
Bloubosrand one ...a new bunch of ppl are busy renovating etc etc to create another live venue event ....

Melville too... now running as Kingston on 4th "Reggae Lounge".

Lethe

I was there last weekend... same thing as 'the dungeon' used to be while it was Cool Runnings... Small, a little dingy, not the greatest sound, but I guess it's a place to jam. Too bad Melville is super scummy these days :/

Psean wrote:
IceCreamMan wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
IceCreamMan wrote: tell you what , I am excited bout the potential of ZA music...2 new venues in my area opening up (or have opened) is the acoustic café just off beyers and the old cool runnings is reopening under a new name and will feature live music...
Which "old cool runnings"? Melville or Bloubosrand?
Bloubosrand one ...a new bunch of ppl are busy renovating etc etc to create another live venue event ....
Melville too... now running as Kingston on 4th "Reggae Lounge".

Squonk

I still think our 'richest' period of music was in the 80's. This has been discussed before, South Africa was at the height of Apartheid, sanctions etc etc, and our local music scene exploded with many class acts and creativity.

But I am beginning to see some great artists emerge over the last couple of years, you might not hear them on the radio or see them on TV, but they are performing regularly and have a good following.

I also convinced that the music industry has changed and is changing, it's not what we experienced in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Our expectations need to change.

Back to the SA music scene - I was recently involved in "Marshall Music Acoustic Challenge" and it was refreshing to see artists in their late teens and early 20's performing original music and covering many different genre's. Just visiting Rumours in Weltevreden Park, you can see how much they are doing to promote local music, another venue is The Library at The Brazenhead in Sandton.

Their is huge talent and I am quite excited

kevjones

Unfortunately there is no recipe that you can write down for success. The charts are full of one hit wonders. Probably the most famous "Opus - Live is Life" as an example. I believe that all of these one hit wonder's have one thing in common. They "move" you, either physically or emotionally. Physically " Kenny Loggins - Footloose" example and emotionally " Mark Knopfler - If this is goodbye" example. When you start out gigging and playing your song list has a number of " have to have" songs in the list. This list will change. As you get better known you can start introducing home written stuff, the good home written stuff will get remembered the bad will kill you.

SA has a small market sure but if you "appeal" you will have conquered the first hurdle. I think sometimes we have such talented players but they forget who they are playing to. I recall my first gig's I had a beyond talented keyboard and guitar player with me. This chick would smoke a bit of weed and turn into some weird fairy playing exceptionally good stuff the problem was it was only exceptionally good to her and a few weeded out critics. Joe soap paying the bills wanted to hear cover hits. I watch some of our Jazz players and boy some are great but they have so little commercial appeal with probably less than 1% of the population able to identify with them.

I always get slightly annoyed when people ridicule the Parlortones. Sure if they dont appeal to your music taste then dont buy the album. The Parlortones have the right recipe. Their vocal sound is unique. The playing is simple and easy for beginner guitarists to emulate. Some of their lyrics are really good, their physical sound is well balanced and most times their timing is spot on. They also prove that SA mild rock bands can still make it big all over the world. I wish them the best of luck and I am sure they will inspire more SA bands to greater heights which can only be a good thing. Khan is a good guy by the way and they never hesitate to give back. I think if you take the time to listen to their music from a technical aspect you will find it is melodic, simple and nearly flawless in it's execution and replicated which tells me one thing, hours of dedication and practice.

Our music scene probably suffers more from a lack of management and promotion which often provides the direction unfortunately. Some things you can sell and some you cant. In SA Afrikaans and country still does well. And now I see 200 members reach for their prozacs. Man I wish I was born in Pretoria - have you seen the chicks there.

Psean

Lethe wrote: I was there last weekend... same thing as 'the dungeon' used to be while it was Cool Runnings... Small, a little dingy, not the greatest sound, but I guess it's a place to jam. Too bad Melville is super scummy these days :/

That's what I'd expected - haven't been yet.

Lethe wrote: In terms of Rock or Metal, we do also have some really good bands like Hokum and Poverty Of Ideals who are quite interesting. But like Don said, it's a matter of preference.

I saw The Poverty of Ideals for the first time on Sunday. I was really impressed. We do have interesting bands!

peterleroux

X-rated Bob wrote:
kevjones wrote: ont forget Ronnie and Neil. I still rate Neil as one of the most "in time" drummer I have ever heard.
Neil Cloud drummed in Peter Frampton's band for a while.

...and now runs one of the biggest chair factories in the country. If you've sat in an office chair in the last 20 years, chances are it's from the Cloud factory

Reinecke

I don't have a problem with the talent we have, yes I personally know more than a hand full of awesomely world class musicians, yes! But most of our bands (and I'm not just talking about a specific genre) aren't that unique, and if they are, they lack in musical ability! There are a lot of awesome bands, yes, but now with our country recieving so many big acts, that is what we need to compete with!

All the problems stated are very true! For a while in jhb last year, me as a performer in an original band, didn't have anywhere new to play, in jhb! It was rumours, which is a very cool venue, and actually has a sound tech that is pretty flippen good! But that was is! Venues treat bands like shit, or they charge R50 at the door for a no name acts!

We played at a venue (won't mention which) last year, we did it as a favour, and because we're not exactly one of the big bands, and the deal was, that the band members gets a meal and a few drink for free! This was cool for us, coz we just wanted to play, and that's kindof a fair deal! When we got there, the owner told us no, their "policy" changed, and we would just have to play for free! After that, we just announced on facebook and msged all our friends and regular support, not to pitch! Resulting in their main act playing to the bar workers, needless to say, they closed down within a month of that!

kevjones

peterleroux wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote:
kevjones wrote: ont forget Ronnie and Neil. I still rate Neil as one of the most "in time" drummer I have ever heard.
Neil Cloud drummed in Peter Frampton's band for a while.
...and now runs one of the biggest chair factories in the country. If you've sat in an office chair in the last 20 years, chances are it's from the Cloud factory

Glad no one made the comment "Neil is the Chairman" ?

singemonkey

I've seen some really good bands in Cape Town recently. Bands that plaster a grin on your face from the get-go and keep it there throughout. I think there's something happening here at the moment. I don't expect any of these bands will become global successes, but things seem to be a lot better than they were a few years ago. That's really what you can hope for: that if you go to see live music you don't stand there checking the time.

There also seem to be more venues and more events.

Bob-Dubery

OK... This morning I've briefly paged through the June edition of (local) Rolling Stone. I might have missed some, but there are 5 articles of a full page or more on local musicians. There are nine CD reviews (including the latest Dan Patlansky). The calendar section lists gigs and festivals all over the place. There's a jazz festival in Port Shepstone today as well as a blues fest (Albert Frost is top of the bill) in Pretoria. Next week there is a jazz fest in Pretoria and the Innibos festival in Nelspruit.

The album reviews.... RS don't have a "local" section, they just chuck it all in together (Patlansky is sandwiched between Bon Jovi and Niger guitar player Bombino) and they don't patronise local acts by telling you repeatedly that they're local like that's the main thing they have going for them, so you have to figure it out and I may have missed some.

Bottom line: People in SA are writing music, releasing CDs, organising gigs, going to gigs etc.

We have a scene.

Kalcium

singemonkey wrote: I've seen some really good bands in Cape Town recently

You guys have Machineri! And Tailor...not fair :/

[deleted]

We have a scene.

It's official.

Hammeron

singemonkey wrote: I've seen some really good bands in Cape Town recently. Bands that plaster a grin on your face from the get-go and keep it there throughout. I think there's something happening here at the moment. I don't expect any of these bands will become global successes, but things seem to be a lot better than they were a few years ago. That's really what you can hope for: that if you go to see live music you don't stand there checking the time.

There also seem to be more venues and more events.

Why don't you expect them to become global successes?
Because they are South African? If you, of all people, think they are good then they are plenty good enough to go the whole hog.
90 % of commercial international acts that have 'made it' are, in my humble opinion, shite.
There are many many SA bands that are plenty good enough to become a great success, trouble is South Africans are good at putting themselves down.

DDR4LYF

Reinecke wrote:
The only metal band I've seen that can compete locally with international acts, is a band called Red Helen! The talent, the vibe and the technical aspect is there!

Red Helen FTW!

Malkav

Reinecke wrote: Artists world wide are doing something new, and that sets them apart! Artist like Bastile and Lana Del ray. newcomers that actually change the game up a bit!

Reinecke wrote: I don't have a problem with the talent we have, yes I personally know more than a hand full of awesomely world class musicians, yes! But most of our bands (and I'm not just talking about a specific genre) aren't that unique, and if they are, they lack in musical ability! There are a lot of awesome bands, yes, but now with our country recieving so many big acts, that is what we need to compete with!

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

The irony of complaining that tons of bands aren't unique and then claiming Lana Del Ray is...I'm practically in tears...

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

How can you slate so many of our local bands and then say that of all things?

FWIW I think there are tons of great local acts who just don't have the platform or marketing abilities they need to get themselves heard, also when the word "local" is tied to a band there's already a stigma that it's going to be crap - We're shooting most of these bands in the foot before even giving them a chance...

singemonkey

Hammeron wrote:
singemonkey wrote: I've seen some really good bands in Cape Town recently. Bands that plaster a grin on your face from the get-go and keep it there throughout. I think there's something happening here at the moment. I don't expect any of these bands will become global successes, but things seem to be a lot better than they were a few years ago. That's really what you can hope for: that if you go to see live music you don't stand there checking the time.

There also seem to be more venues and more events.
Why don't you expect them to become global successes?
Because they are South African? If you, of all people, think they are good then they are plenty good enough to go the whole hog.
90 % of commercial international acts that have 'made it' are, in my humble opinion, shite.
There are many many SA bands that are plenty good enough to become a great success, trouble is South Africans are good at putting themselves down.

Because American, British, and European cities are packed with bands that are really exciting - otherwise they don't get to keep playing. SA still allows mediocre bands to continue for years, and a bill full-to-the-brim with great acts is actually the exception. So these bands are good, but they're only as good as a lot of international acts that won't themselves make it. The rare exceptions among those international acts that are truly superb will benefit by being where the action is and pushed by the intense competition and commercial circling of the record companies. Our acts will have less competition, less pressure, and are very far from where any record A&R people are looking.

When people say "we have tons of world class acts" (in the rock scene), I'm always, "what are they seeing that I haven't seen?" Then they start listing bands and it's face-palm time. I don't think people are being very objective in their comparisons. So some of these new bands are exciting enough that they'd get a warm reception in a Boston bar. But are they exciting enough to beat out those other bands in Boston? Not likely. And even if a great band does emerge, there's no industry ear to hear it.

Being open to local music does not mean letting our biases run away with us so that every band that plays a good show becomes "world class." We should enjoy the bands that are good, but continue to push them to be great. I've seen lots of bands with great stage energy, but no songs that you remember even after having seen them five times. Or good songs and energy but a weak or shy vocalist. Or a great vocalist and guitarist with a poor rhythm section so that there's no groove. Or great songs and energy with insipid clichéd lyrics that ruin their otherwise great work ("Roses are reeeeed! Violets are bloooooo!....")

Sneaky-Pete

I wonder if this same conversation is going on in Australia right now...

Well...maybe 40 years ago...since then, the BeeGees, Olivia Newtron-Bomb, Keith Urban, AC/DC, Crowded House, Air Supply(?)....

The difference between them and us...the songs...songs people want to hear again...songs that people like to sing along with...

...it's always the songs.....a great song (given half a chance) will find its market...

Just saying....