Feature in the Christchurch Press. By Miho Tanaka

Talk to any one from Shihad to The Shocking Pinks, they’ll tell you what a great guy Blink is. That’s Blink, aka Ian Jorgensen, Wellington based rock photographer, and creator of the New Zealand indie music magazine A Low Hum. Talk to Blink, as I did last Saturday, at A Low Hum’s final “one show only, gig extravaganza” party, and you’ll find a guy with an infectious can-do attitude, and a boundless passion for New Zealand and it’s music.

On the production of A Low Hum Jorgensen jokingly says that it “sacrificed my personal life and financial well being,” but it had always been a labour of love. A Low Hum was first created in January 2003 because Jorgensen was coming across a lot of independent and emerging bands he thought were brilliant, but found that there wasn’t enough up to date in-depth information on them readily available. So in order to “fix that problem” Jorgensen began printing his own hand xeroxed hand stapled monthly nation wide ‘zine.

Once that was done, he figured that it was pointless to have people read about these bands if they couldn’t hear or see them perform live, so he “fixed that problem too” by upgrading the publication to “proper” magazine status, and creating a package which combined the magazine with a CD, an accompanying tour with some of the featured artists, with every issue; yes, every issue. Jorgensen’s innovative thinking and good discernment won A Low Hum the 2004 b.net award for Best Compilation. But there was another problem, these artists were also shooting good music videos that weren’t getting seen, and so you guessed it, he fixed this too by assembling and distributing New Zealand’s very first compilation DVD of music videos by independent and unsigned artists in a special edition of A Low Hum. This innovation put A Low Hum in the running for this year’s b.net award for Best DVD.

To list some of the magazine’s other achievements, in the 10 issues that was it was in production “proper”, A Low Hum hosted 71 shows across 13 different cities, released 86 songs and 24 music videos for unsigned and independent musicians. Even looking at Christchurch numbers alone, A Low Hum presented 22 different bands to this city. For many of the bands, it was the first time in they performed in the South.

Our very own doyen of the music scene Paul Kean believes that these numbers are “surely a record,” and The Press’ Live Scene columnist Matt Davey admits that through the A Low Hum tours he “saw a lot of new and unheard of bands.”

Similarly, Jamey Holloway from The Undercurrents also comments that A Low Hum enabled his band to “see live bands that otherwise wouldn’t have toured.” A Low Hum described The Undercurrents as “sublime”, and it took them on the South Island half of it’s tour #2. Holloway recalls that the event had “a really good galvanising effect” which brought together bands from different music circles.

Ex-pat Christchurcheans degrees.K were flown in from Melbourne to head line tour #4, because Jorgensen in his own words has “always been a huge fan.” For lead singer Gene Vincent, A Low Hum provided “a genuine outlet for bands to have their music heard the way they intended it to be heard.”

Local singer songwriter Flip Grater was spotted by Jorgensen when she performed on last year’s 24 hour live TV show National Anthem, and as soon as he heard her sing he was “smitten with her enchanting voice.” So he included her on CD #5, and featured her on the accompanying magazine, which to Grater was her first live magazine interview, and first inclusion in a compilation CD. For FLip, who is also a broadcaster on RDU, A Low Hum “has been an extremely valuable music resource,” and a magazine which she is thankful for “offering exposure to bands and individuals that don’t often enjoy media attention.”

All musicians I talked to, both from here, and those I met in Wellington were disappointed that A Low Hum had stopped production, but those who know him well, know to just look forward in seeing what Jorgensen will come up with next. And Jorgensen already has his eyes on the next problem which is the way North Island venues treat touring bands. To solve the problem of venues, Jorgensen is already planning another tour, but this time for the purpose of researching venues across the country, and talking to venue owners to get their side of the story and to see how improvements could be made. Then with his research he plans to publish a guide book in October for bands and punters after a good venue in a new city. “I haven’t learnt my lesson from A Low Hum,” laughs Jorgensen, on the strains of publishing “but I just like fixing things.”

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