tinycaster:

Skip the first 20 mins because you don’t care about Sinead O’Connor or any of the Wainrights. Everyone in the band gets a name drop except for me!

In interviews, I’m often asked why I don’t quit my job to become a musician. I find it difficult to answer, because I guess it kind of makes me feel like I’m selling out on the dream.

To an extent that’s true. I could try to make my work more suited to music. But the greater truth is my band doesn’t make any money. We’re selling physical copies of our latest album at what amounts to a loss. In fact, I’m pretty sure barely anyone’s band makes money. Most every good musician I know has a horrible dead end job or is whiling away time on some kind of benefit. Some do music teaching, but even that’s becoming a crowded market.

Today I saw a tweet about how it’s great so much new music is available for free download. But I find it difficult to see how an artist is going to get by on their art when it is devalued to $0. Some would say by building an audience through growing your digital audience and getting well known enough to do big corporate gigs and sell songs to publishers and advertisers. That’s great for some bands. But for bands like me and many others, publishers and advertisers are not a particularly viable option. They are safe choosers. Low budget alt-country/Americana is not an in-demand product when it comes to getting spots on the latest Watties ad.

So has anyone got any ideas on how local music can be self funding? My friend Jono says advertisers should promote New Zealand bands more, but I have a feeling the market won’t respond to his demands. Homebrew Crew seems to have it right with social media and grassroots stuff, but they are pretty uniquely talented at promotion. This morning I half listened to Billy Corgan talking about all this, but I could only half make out what he was saying because he’s Billy Corgan and, also, I had to work.

thesearethethingsinmyhead:

This one is for one of my best friends, Hayden. He has a brilliant band called Great North. You should listen to them and make them big. Otherwise he will have to start a Bruce Springsteen covers band and no one wants that. Listen to Great North here.

tonotonight:

The album is called Up Here For Dancing.

It is out March 26th on Bones and Woods

We are having a party on March 21 at D.O.C. Then touring in April.

More details to come.

Yes!

The Eastern are a blue collar touring band with a big collective heart. This song and video together are a kind of beautiful monument to their hometown, Lyttelton.

It has been a tumultuous year for Great North. In a shocking act of monogamy, three of our members got married - two to each other. It was also the year our drummer Olly left for Hawaii about five times. The last time he left was in October. We don’t know when he’ll be back. We also recorded the skeleton of an album that we hope to release and tour sometime in the first third of 2012. If someone wants to drum for us.

We really want to do is say thank you for all those who supported us this year. When we haven’t been spending Friday nights sewing wedding bunting together, we’ve had some great times. Thank you for bearing with our ever-changing line ups. Thank you to the 12 people in Paraparaumu who came out on the cold night and still were one of our most supportive crowds of the year. Thanks to everyone else who came to a show - at the Kings Arms, a cafe, a lounge, in Wellington, in Raglan, but mostly in the safe fluid-filled womb of the Wine Cellar. 

Christmas is coming soon and we wanted to do something to reward your patience. So Rach and I took a break from recording this week to put together this cover of Angels We Have Heard On High with a lot of help from our remarkable producer/cider, baked goods and tea lover, Dave Parker. I think he has done a great job making it sound wistfully festive, or festively wistful. It is available for free on our bandcamp page. Merry Christmas. Gloria. 

Great song.