Newsletter Issue #545: 07 Nov 2021
It's That Time Already?!
No, not the Christmas countdown (pull yourselves together!!). If Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas makes it into the NZ top 40 this season I’m going to be very disappointed in all of you...
The final MNZ newsletter of 2021 will be next month!! And since our wonderful curator and life-giver Lisa Jones will be taking back over to write that one, this is the final Beth-curated newsletter you’ll get until February!! Thanks for your continued support, ongoing readership and mostly just for putting up with my barely-coherent rambling in the editorial section.
This month, in the interest of quality control, I thought it would be fun to getrealmeta and do a review of one of our reviews. I’ve chosen a review of Bediquette’s EP Not Now by Callum Wagstaff. Here goes...
Like any dignified art review, this one opens with a mysterious (and epic) summary of the EP in question.
I mean, if someone told you they’d just found an album that sounded like it was made of samples “ripped from a pirate alien distress beacon” - you’d listen to the album, right?
As if writing an academic essay, Wagstaff goes on to solidify his claim with evidence in the form of a track by track run down. I particularly like the description of the track Intention, which Wagstaff describes as “perfect for any slow motion scene in a suburban coming of age movie.”
The extensive vocabulary showcased throughout adds a studious edge to the review and, I would argue, further enhances its credibility. Phrases like “It’s a companion to rumination” and “belie a deeper preoccupation” are pleasant to read and descriptive in content.
Overall, the review is thoughtful and elegant with great attention to detail. The reviewer paints a creative picture in the readers mind, drawing on everyday experience with hints of a deeper musical knowledge in reference to artists like Pavement and Kurt Vile.
Thanks Callum for consenting to feature in the newsletter and an even bigger thanks for all the work that you and all of the other reviewers do for MNZ! We’d be nothing without ya!
Read the original review here.
...
For your scrolling pleasure this month we have the second edition of Background Noise – an insightful interview with Pippa Ryan-Kidd of Independent Music New Zealand. A Capital BS interview with Kelly Wright of Homegrown and links to the most recent episodes of The Distorted Transmission and It’s a Wrap (with Roger) that you do not want to miss!
And without further ado, I’ll catch you all next year!
xXx
MNZ: Capital BS 007: Kelly Wright of Homegrown
This month Beth caught up with Kelly Wright – head of Homegrown PR – about festivals, gender diversity and our NZ music family.
Homegrown 2021 - Wellington Waterfront
Photo credit: Brady Dyer
Could you give us a quick synopsis of Homegrown and what it means to you?
It means a lot to me in short. It was originally my husband's idea, he made it happen while I was midwife for 12 years. And then we sold it to two people who had been working with us for 18 years and I kept a bit for myself - my husbands out of it now. So yeah, it means a lot it, definitely feels like my baby. It was interesting right back at the start a lot of people didn’t think that an all-kiwi music line-up would work, including lots of the kiwi artists. Back then they were really just opening acts for internationals and otherwise just small pub stuff but not the big festival stages. So that was really interesting in terms of the resistance from the whole industry. Tiki Taane signed up first and then all the other artists were like “awh well, if Tiki’s doing it...” they got on board!
For me it’s just really important to showcase New Zealand music, to all lots of different genres there and tautoko the industry.
I guess you guys have been relatively lucky given that the whole premise of Homegrown is featuring NZ artists - but what have the effects of Covid-19 been on Homegrown?
Well, the first lockdown happened a week after we were due to run so we had built the whole festival and then were forced to take it down. So that was devastating on lots of fronts – financially and even just working towards something for a whole year and then it’s cancelled at that very last minute. Yeah it was huge for us, just surviving. Luckily, we were able to postpone and all the acts agreed to play the next year and also our fans – the audience all agreed to come back. Great to have that support from them. This year was great, the weather was even nice. It was great just to have it all done but even that was really nerve wracking because three weeks out Auckland went into a lockdown a lot of our acts are from Auckland. It was ridiculously stressful, it felt like we were playing Russian roulette a little bit.
The other thing is – since then, all the line-ups are kiwi line ups and so the competition to actually book artists is more and their prices have gone up because they are in such high demand. So that’s been an interesting addition to the equation. Great for the artists but yeah. Because we’re at the end of March we usually have quite a few bands finish their summer tour and then go overseas so we’ve always had that similar issue but now it’s the issue of them having lots of other festivals to play.
Homegrown 2021
Photo Credit: Joel McDowell
In the past a lot of NZ music fest have been criticised for a lack of gender diversity – how have you addressed that at Homegrown?
Well we’ve been slammed as much as anyone. We’ve been around for 14 years and a lot has changed since then. When my husband was doing the line-up he was just very much ‘I don’t discriminate against anyone I just need the best bands for the flow of each stage’ type thing. Because we’ve got five stages, we have to make sure that the crowd’s even across all five. That was kind of just the rhetoric. Obviously, we’re all a bit more woke now and it is about the tautoko of female artists and gender diversity. Now, if there is a choice, or if it makes sense to really choose the bands that represent that gender diversity, we do. Quite often some of the bigger female artists are out of our price range now or unavailable. There’s APRA stats that say that in the industry only 24% of artists identify as female so that’s the pool we’re pulling from, already it’s only a quarter.
We are a really mainstream festival - we’ve tried different stages in the past to be a bit more alt or indie but that hasn’t really worked for us. There’s lots of artists like Aldous Harding, Tami Neilson and Nadia Reid that hopefully we could evolve a stage to include them a bit more.
Independent Music New Zealand (IMNZ) has been putting its stamp on the local music business section since it formed in 2002 by a collective of local labels. With 230+ members and the evolving success of events such as the Taite Music Prize and the Going
Global Music Summit, the organisation is very optimistic about its future and that of its member labels and distributors.
Gaby from Muzic.net.nz recently spoke to the Chairperson for IMNZ, Pippa Ryan-Kidd, about her personal path within the
music industry and all things IMNZ:
Can you please introduce us to the world of IMNZ; including its aim and ethos?
IMNZ’s Vision: "A thriving New Zealand independent music culture and industry".
IMNZ is a non-profit trade association providing collective benefits and exclusive opportunities to all our members to help grow their businesses. We stand for fairness and equality for all music and encourage open and transparent systems and industry in which creative innovation is at the centre.
WHAT WE DO:
Advocate. IMNZ aims to give independent New Zealand music a collaborative voice and representation, both nationally and internationally. We offer collective bargaining opportunities and a connection to global organisations including the Worldwide Independent Network, Merlin and our compatriot independent trade associations. Throughout the pandemic, we have been able to maintain our contacts with these organisations through online conferences, and use this network to:
Celebrate. IMNZ constantly recognises the amazing music created by our members which is at the heart of the organisation. We celebrate these through our annual Taite Music Prize, our weekly newsletter and independent charts as well as various showcases across the year.
Each yearn conjunction with the New Zealand Music Commission, we hold the Going Global Music Summit. We have been able to present a host of international speakers and knowledge sessions over the years, which have enabled many of our members to make international connections for their careers. Since the pandemic, we have taken some of this online with small knowledge-based sessions. We are currently working on an offering for this year, which involves a selected group of members (who officially applied and were accepted) showcasing through Bandcamp to international markets.
Educate. IMNZ offers educational opportunities to aid the development and growth of all our members. We aim to increase and share our knowledge and provide the necessary tools and connections to further their business.
We run the Going Local Knowledge Sessions around New Zealand every year - traditionally it has run in 4 towns each year, this year we increased it to 5 and next year we are looking to add in several other towns to the schedule.
Our continued operations based on these core values will help drive the success of our members, and ultimately serve our primary purpose of fostering the growth and development of New Zealand’s independent music industry.
What exactly do you do in your role as Chairperson of IMNZ?
It is largely Governance and leadership. IMNZ employs a General Manager - Dylan Pellett. Dylan manages all the events under Board Governance. As Chairperson, it is my role to ensure the Board, in conversation with the General Manager, all agree on our direction, planning and events. We need to ensure Dylan has the tools and the opportunities required, to carry out the agreed directives.
Can you tell us about IMNZ’s future plans?
Pre-pandemic, we organised 3 main events every year: The Taite Music Prize, The Going Global Music Summit and The Going Local Music Industry Sessions.
Going forward, we aim to continue these as in person events where restrictions allow, and if not, then continue to offer our members a version in the most suitable way possible at the time.
What other jobs or positions are you involved in within the New Zealand music industry?
I work with Tami Neilson as management, and provide Project Management for several other artists - the most recent being Troy Kingi, Delaney Davidson and Proteins Of Magic.
As a female, have you encountered any specific difficulties within the industry? And if so, do you have any words of wisdom for other females who are also involved in the music industry?
No, not within the music industry, just business in general.
The best thing you can do to become confident within your own self, is knowledge. Arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can, to help you feel confident in standing up to speak on whatever you choose to, whenever you need to, to whoever you need to.
That I not saying it is easy, but it is a good tool.
Work well in teams, help people along the way as you would like to be helped yourself, lift up those you work alongside and you will gain respect from this.
In the music industry, there will never be any situation where you cannot have a co-person with you - recording, rehearsing, writing, legal and more. If someone tells you cannot have a co-person with you, then, they are not someone you ever need to work with.
Soundcheck Aotearoa has done a lot of good work in educating the industry on how to speak out about unacceptable behaviour, and on the other side, how to accept disclosures. If you need to discuss a situation,
there are many people out there in the industry now, that you can talk to - both women and men. If you don’t find a god listener the first time - try someone else. There isn’t any reason now to sit on unacceptable behaviour.
I’ve been working for Muzic.net.nz for 2 years, however it has a 20+ year history. What are some of your views on Muzic.net.nz and other NZ music media outlets?
We have such a small music media landscape here in NZ, and the outlets, platforms, publications that we do have, do an amazing job to create a space for our musicians to be heard. Everyone is approachable and enthusiastic about New Zealand Music, doing what they can to help promote music and shows. Many of these journalists do it for the love of it,
And in our desire to sell music and tickets, we often forget to say thank you!
Thanks to Muzic.net.nz, I have seen many biographies for artists that boast awesome review quotes for their music!
Many thanks to Pippa for answering our questions.
Delving into the depths of NZ heavier music, The Distorted Transmission is hosted by Will Stairmand (Primacy, Remote). October was another incredibly busy month for Will - you can watch all the latest interviews at the below links:
BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS
Next week interviews from Black Alpine (Wednesday 10 November) and Pervertor (Sunday 14 November) will be unleashed on the world! Keep an eye on The Distorted Transmission's Facebook page here for all the latest.
Muzic.net.nz resident music connoisseur Roger Bowie continued his fantastic interview series during October, you can watch his latest interviews at the below links:
Today we check out some of our classic episodes from the past few years.
On episode #20 we talked to Supergroove frontman Karl Steven. We discussed his current work writing music for movie soundtracks, the beginnings, endings and re-beginnings of Supergroove and Karl gives us a very clear and shocking example of how record contracts really work.
On episode #69 we spoke to US guitarist Mark Lettieri. Mark has played guitar for a long list of great artists including Snarky Puppy, Erykah Badu, Nelly, David Crosby, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Adam Levine and even comedian Dave Chappelle. On this episode we talk about Mark's approach to playing and the on going challenge of balancing his career and personal life. Lovely guy, great chat!
Listen to our episodes on our website, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Player.FM, TuneIn
and all other good podcast apps!
DON’T GIVE UP YOUR DAY JOB - THE PODCAST
www.dontgiveupyourdayjob.co.nz
New Artist Pages
The following new artist pages have been added to Muzic.net.nz during the past month:
New Reviews and Interviews
Check out our latest reviews and interviews at the below links:
Have a look at our latest photo galleries at the below links:
Artist Galleries
Feature Galleries
Please note - due to COVID, the gig dates on these features cannot be guaranteed.
Please refer to the band/musician official website or relevant ticketing agency for further information.
The final issue for 2021 is going out on Sunday 5 December!
If you are a NZ musician and you would like to promote your music,
we would love to feature you in one of our 2022 newsletters.
You can choose the date which suits you.
We can also feature record labels, venues, music stores, music websites...
anything that has something to do with NZ music
Email [email protected] for more info.
Muzic.net.nz newsletters are currently sent out to over 8730 members!
With this number growing every day, featuring in our newsletter is an excellent promotional tool.
Access our newsletter archives here
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