Dagger Forum

I want to ask for experiences you guys have had with art scenes, ideally with local music scenes. I live in Western Australia where the music scene (I think) is quite unique: Talent is spread very thin, so there are only a handful of bands that are more recognisable than the obscurest Gerogerigegege noise you can dig up. The only visible path to exposure is Triple J, a government funded radio station with a program called Unearthed aimed at uncovering budding talent. If you get airtime on Unearthed, you are upgraded from slime to being nobody. After that, I have little knowledge, but it seems after that you can become socially accredited with the only visible live-music scene in Western Australia: I'll call them "The WA Scene" because there really are no others, and I can't think of a witty name for them.

To be in The WA Scene (artist or fan) you qualify at least 2/3rds of the following criteria:

Alcoholic and/or weed smoker/pill taker
Feminist
Lefty
Under the age of 30
University student
Emotionally volatile
Like or play hipster punk rock

(This could be more concise...)

The WA Scene does not have a name for itself, it just exists to itself and to outsiders oblivious. The closest they come to recognising themselves as a scene is when a band makes a hollow Thank You post on facebook mentioning the "beautiful people surrounding" them. It's really just suppressed nepotism, they don't seem to want to identify themselves as a scene as it would go against their inclusivity beliefs.

So anyway, onto my own experience: I'm a solo musician, niche amateur at best. I dreamed of being big for many years, but after so long I realised I'm happy doing it for myself and not suffer the soul-death of trying to get shows just to work with cunts. And I'm lazy. I have reached out to the 6 or 7 local bands I have any respect for, and half never reply. The other half that replied have alluded to working together and then never got back to me. The one gig manager I was set up with early on silently shitlisted me because I made a joke after she avoided answering a simple question I emailed to her 3 times ("What time am I okay to show up at?" I wanted to be at the gig as early as possible to set up).

There is a total illusion of community at every show I've been to. WA scene bands have at least 5x the audience of any band outside the scene (there are on average 10 people at a regular band - 50 at a WA scene band). There are usually groups of 6 or so friends that gather in a circle at the front of the stage - backs to the band, talking the whole time. Occasionally someone will dance ironically for about 20 seconds until a friend acknowledges their jape. When the band says something political (usually about women in the music industry) the crowd will erupt in applause and cheering, then return to ignoring the band after making themselves seen to be listening intently for a verse and half a chorus. The crowd is raucous in applause for some songs, and don't even notice the song has ended for others: It could be their best or worst song, randomly they just have no applause or reaction.

I have a handful of half-interesting encounters with WA Scene bands I've hung around with, if there's any interest at all in this I might share some. I don't have great insight into this kind of stuff - it would be nice to know a way to navigate this stuff so I can go out and try to get a gig again. Currently feel like I can't express a thought anywhere without potentially being doxed into alt-right twitter hell.

(Just noticed this is a "no politics" forum - Since I've brushed the topic I want to clarify what I want is to avoid the politics in music, because nobody I meet irl gives a fuck about the music itself)

I grew up in Western Washington and the only music scenes that existed were garage rock in the 60s in Tacoma (my town baby The Sonics 4 life), the obvious grunge of Seattle and riot grrrl of Olympia in the 90s, and then indie rock/K Record shit in the early 2000s in Olympia again. No scene exists there anymore. People try to claim that OH DUDE METAL IS TOTALLY EXPLODING IN SEATTLE but they aren't doing anything that other metal bands haven't already been doing. Honestly the idea of music happening in "scenes" which really means "collective of pioneers ripping each other off in a single geographic area" is an impossibility when sharing music is done most often through social media. Instead we have essentially musical cliques on the net. Footwork, ghettotech, vaporwave (which was actually dead as soon as it was alive, I could do a whole post on that), and like, people like Vaperror who basically make party chillwave all have their own presences, visual designs and culture. But it certainly ain't happening in one city anymore.

SpaceLions wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 26, 2019 4:57 am

Honestly the idea of music happening in "scenes" which really means "collective of pioneers ripping each other off in a single geographic area" is an impossibility when sharing music is done most often through social media. Instead we have essentially musical cliques on the net. Footwork, ghettotech, vaporwave (which was actually dead as soon as it was alive, I could do a whole post on that), and like, people like Vaperror who basically make party chillwave all have their own presences, visual designs and culture. But it certainly ain't happening in one city anymore.

Music communities only existing now as online cliques sounds about right... really bums me out. Every act here seems to leave a show as if they've failed their last sworn gamble at winning that non-existent prize at the end of creativity ("My name will finally be among the greats!"), or maybe that's just me projecting my own failures onto them. In my first two years of attending live gigs in pubs it was all bands I was seeing for the first time and I was usually one of 5 people there - I would commonly leave a show feeling so so so good. I always looked around for other excited people to talk to, but there were never any. It feels to me like such a wasted opportunity for people to get together and have fun - I don't drink, so my options are highly limited in a place like Australia where it's pre-requisite to all gatherings (I've only found good friends irl recently at Laser Tag - seems like sports are the best way to bond with anyone now). Maybe there's no good communities to be made in local music, the biopics of giant bands from the 80s are all illusion I fell for, and I'm just lonely

This guy on youtube I follow talks about how underground scenes disappeared. Good points tbh.

I live in a big city in America, and there's actually a decent country music scene here. It's a lot of hipsters who probably listen to ironically, or because it's the only genre that's guaranteed to be obscure to their "music nerd" friends. But there are a lot of talented folks playing the classics every week. As a lover of old school country, I'm really happy about the fact that there's a scene for it here.

HOWEVER, I have had a shit time with the ~punks~ in this city. I've followed my friends/coworkers to a lot of punk adjacent shows, where 35+ year old men covered in glitter have come up to me to try to start conversations about how great the young people of my generation are. The primary music scene does seem like a like a cesspool of posers and predators/pedophiles. But fuck, that's why I do the country shows instead.

containercore wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2019 12:55 am

This guy on youtube I follow talks about how underground scenes disappeared. Good points tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCoqAjrGOo8

Fuck man, lots of good points there on scenes and recording. Very hard for me to escape the "vanilla sausage" sound - the isolation of Western Australia is great for practice spaces to get loud in, but not for finding people to fill them. Thanks for sharing, re-lit my fire a little.

dandykaufman wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2019 2:58 am

I live in a big city in America, and there's actually a decent country music scene here. It's a lot of hipsters who probably listen to ironically, or because it's the only genre that's guaranteed to be obscure to their "music nerd" friends. But there are a lot of talented folks playing the classics every week. As a lover of old school country, I'm really happy about the fact that there's a scene for it here.

The two country shows I attended a few years ago were the same here, an unexpected amount of hipsters, even in the middle of nowhere.

Also, I despised covers for years and years until recent. Started hearing the argument of "everything good has already been done, originality is over" and went to karaoke a few times... I received more genuine excitement and praise doing karaoke than at any of my shows doing my own songs. I do approach my own songs with a very different energy (very selfish and egotistical) which has to be a big reason, but I think I need to lose my juvenile snobbishness about playing other people's stuff.