indie music: May 2010 Archives

This post is specifically about the Shanghai underground rock live circuit. However, it may still make you think about similar situations in your own city so there you go.

As usual, there are premises. Shanghai gigs tend to fall into three categories:

1) The audience is almost all locals who are often students or have lower incomes.

2) The audience is almost all international with a lifestyle that allows them greater flexibility.

3) A very rare crossover of the two.

There is an exception. Some bands have built a specific following that they can rely on to come to any given show.

For longer term scene/following building we would all hope that more and more younger locals get involved. Everyone knows this and talks about it. There's no need to expand on this here. So, after keeping an eye on things for a few years and being surprised at how this has not changed much at all ... I give you, the cut off point

<<ticket price 40 yuan and/or the main band running over 11.00 p.m.>>

This also translates into visible anxiety when the band the fans are there to check out have not taken the stage by 10.00 p.m.

This must be observed unless you are super famous and on TV or something. Of course, if you are not interested in long term building, it doesn't matter.

There may well be more than one post on demos. There are so many ways to do it.

At some point you may want to record your music and for a variety of reasons. In fact, these days there is little difference between the idea of a 'demo' and just a straight indie recording of your music. With either the internet, or by physical distribution at your shows, once your music is in the public domain - it is.

In this post i'm going to give an outline of how our band did a 'demo' and then let you hear it.

The traditional idea of a 'demo' recording carried an idea of legitimacy. The demo was a stepping stone for an unsigned band to try to get shows and to get signed to a label. A full budget recording done by a label was like 'the real thing'. But with modern technology you can achieve pretty good quality by yourself, or with self-financing. 

But also, with the indie philosophy and a sub-culture non-commercial approach, you do not necessarily need quality to be legitimate. Let's go on.

After another rehearsal this week it occurred to me that the post I did on how many words per session you should do when writing a book was based on the same premise as when you have band practices.

That is:

1) Taking time to work out exactly how much you are getting done and arriving at a time frame.

2) Then either adjusting your goals/expectations or your workload accordingly.

This gives you a definite plan and makes a huge difference to your chances of getting shit done. And, before we go further here are the premises:

You are not in a funded full time band. Your time is limited.

You are writing all original material. You are not in a bar-band or a jobbing musician.