A LOW HUM

From Zine to Magazine (Selling Out)

(Follows on from The A Low Hum Zines)

Getting back from the first official A Low Hum tour in October 2003, which from a magazine perspective was a total failure, had me pretty deflated. I was right back at step one as far as I was concerned. I’d made all these promises and I couldn’t work out how to come through.

The cold hard lessons learnt at the copy centrehad convinced me that I was well and truly over ‘zines. Trying to publish 1000 zines was simply a false economy and even though I had this fancy ass machine that would copy me 100 CDrs at a time, doing 1000 CDrs was also a total farce. I felt like a total rookie ad didn’t know what to do. I just went back to what I knew, taking photos.

Late 2003, two of my favourite bands were touring NZ together. Die! Die! Die! and The Mint Chicks were embarking on a really ambitious tour of New Zealand. I already had a great deal of respect for the Die Die Die boys. Andrew and Mikey had spent by that time a fair amount of time crashing out at my place in Wellington and I’d watched Andrew organise several tours.

Though I’d already done the Degrees K/Ejector A Low Hum tour, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I decided to tag along with the guys on their tour, primarly as a documentary photographer, but going on this tour would reinforce how I wanted to keep on touring. I went to all their North Island shows, I think Auckland, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Wanganui and Wellington for sure, maybe one or two others.

It was really interesting being on this tour as a spectator, and holy crap, I have a ton of stories to this day from that tour.  While the tour inspired me even more to do it, I still couldn’t work out how to not only recoup the costs of a tour but also the costs of 1000 magazines and CDs as well, when hardly any bands could even tour and break even without those insane overheads I would have.  I was still at square one.

Back home and depressed I went back to what I did best, spouting shit like I knew it all on the internet.

For Big Day Out 2004, Jack Daniels decided to start an online competition to find a band to open Big Day Out. This was purely a voting competition and bands were encouraged to drum up as many votes as possible. Me being the kind of ranter I was, was wanking all over nzmusic.com about what a scam of a competition it was and how any band could win as long as they got enough votes. Putting my money where my mouth was (my other habit) I invented a fictious band called “The Fantastical Blink Band”. I entered the comp and told everybody on nzmusic.com to vote for me. Well, sure enough, the power of geeks on the internet won out and within days I was leading hundreds of other (real) bands in the number one spot.

Part of the competition was for the top four bands in each city to play a show in their town for punters to come and vote for. Jack Daniels NZ had been paying attention to the forums (at that stage the only music forums in NZ) and were well aware of the vitriol I had been spouting and called me up to play in the Wellington leg of the shows. Michael Dance who spoke to me asked (while laughing) if I wanted to play. I paused for a few secs, then replied.. “yip”.  He paused and said “you sure?”.

Now, I’m a pretty commited guy when it comes to a gag, and I thought a show would at least be a funny story, so I asked Luke Rowell (Disasteradio) if he would mind being “The Fantastical Blink Band” for an evening. I knew with his famous bad habit of saying yes to everything would have him on board. We had a laugh, and i forgot about it.

A few days later I was over at Indigo bar where Brendan Moran (Hasselhoff Exp./Subliminals) was working. Me, him and Nato (Paselode/Beast Wars) were talking about the whole saga and I told them about the show. They laughed and immediately Brendan said he’d play in the band, Nato said he would as well. I was taken aback. Pip (Ladyhawke) happend to talk up the stairs and heard about it and chipped in that she’d love to as well. Infact, word got out around town and a ton of people wanted in. Easier said then done with only 3-4 days and a 20 minute set to get together, I quickly called up Nik Brinkman. I told him to write 3 songs that sounded like Trans Am meets Depeche Mode meets Die Die Die. He wrote and recorded them that night and gave me discs the next day. I had a band! (also included second drummer Gus, and Luke Benge from the Inkling). We had a 1 hour practise learning the starting of each song and basic structure and that was that.

The show was a ton of fun, and I’m so glad that everybody was such good sports about it. We got together for a reunion show a year later, i put one of the live recordings “Summer” and two of the joke songs I had on a website I built to further build the original hoax on a little myspace page…until now had been pretty much secret.. but fuck it, http://www.myspace.com/thefantasticalblinkband have a listen and a laugh at my poor attempt to channel Ian Curtis instead sounding like a whining american emo singer.

Anyway. What this travesty in pop music lead to was the birth of A Low Hum phase two.

A week after the FBB show in Wellington I bowed out of the competition. I felt the punchline had been made, I’d made my point to the competition holders and I didn’t want to be an egg and actually take away a prize from someone who might acually want it cause we were smarmy pricks. To my surprise Jack Daniels had been doing some research on me, when I emailed them to pull out, they congratulated me on coming through with the show and invited me to meet up with them when I was next in Auckland (which happened to be that years BDO).

In January when up in AK for BDO I met with Michael Dance From Glengary Hancocks (NZ Distributor of Jack Daniels), probably the most awesome dude in marketing and we sat down to talk about the flaws of their comp and how they could improve it in future. Holy shit, this was a revelatory moment for me. Being a bitch can actually lead to something. I helped JD implement a bunch of changes which would see their comp becoming fairer and more respected over the next few years. Anyway, during the chat, Michael mentioned to me that he’d read all about my zines and what I was trying to do. He asked me what I wanted to do, and why I wasn’t doing it. I told him of my idea of making a proper magazine, CD and touring bands monthly. He mentioned to me that JD were looking to get more behind “grass roots” music in NZ and that this could be something they might be keen on supporting.

I was taken aback. I had never figured on getting corporate support.  I’d been a bit of a tool/bitch over the past few years and didn’t expect any help.  Michael arranged a meeting a few weeks later with his bosses. I flew up to AK and was set for a meeting at 3pm. At 2pm I was down on the Beach eating some fish and chips when Michael asked if there was anychance I could come in straight away. I didn’t even have time to put on nicer clothes or even shoes. I walked into a board room full of suited old men and this hairy, messy bastard with nothing but 7 xeroxed zines in his hands pitched this grand idea.

I never thought they’d give me sponsorship.  Even though the pissy amount of money (for a coroprate) they gave me was only a drop in the $100k ocean I’d worked out the costs of that year being. I figured (wrongly) I’d probably find some money from somewhere else on the way. Being sponsored by JD was just the kick in the pants I needed. It was tough, on the one hand I felt like a total sell out, I mean, I literally had sold out. I didn’t drink. I hated the alcohol industries domination over the live music scene and its not like I ever would have endorsed them without being paid. So yes. I sold out bigtime. However, the terms they gave me were simply too good to turn down, for simply one ad on the back page of the magazine each month, logo on the posters and very limited signage at shows and occasionally drink specials they gave me $2,500 per month.

I was very clear to them, that the shows wouldn’t be “all about JD”, and I think I was succesful in that. Though, the money from JD didn’t  even cover the $4500 it cost me to print the 1000 magazine and CDs each month so not only did the tour have to break even, it had to make money….which well, is VERY difficult to do, espeically back in 2004, espescially when I promised JD that I would be printing and getting pasted COLOUR posters. Also, scary for 2004.

Of the maybe 300 odd shows I did with the support of JD, representatives from JD only ever came along to one of them, and they were so drunk, they barely knew what was going on. Best sponsors ever! Ask me if I’d do it again, yes, I would. I sold out for sure, but I like to think that rather then some people who sell out and it be for themselves, I used that money on creating something very solid that supported a ton of bands in the process.