Gig Snobs, Music Critics & Venue Owners

[AdrianR]

Are the reason why EDM will fail.

Discuss.

[Sigma]

It won't fail.

[DJWhoQE]

It won't fail.

This.

[AdrianR]

I forgot this was a global forum ... You bloody world blokes!

Come to Melbourne, city of Emo's and Alternative Bands and say that!

[Sigma]

What do you mean by "fail" though?

[AdrianR]

Well, where I come from, going out to a night club is more of something you do because you owe it to someone.

We have so many horrible, horrible Dj's and promoters that to go for a night out for a lot of people is more about "showing support" to a bad Dj who is a mate of yours
than it is about shaking off the shackles of the week. Having said that, people here ONLY go to a select few places. They LITERALLY expect the night clubs to be filled FOR THEM (As patrons.)... As if, they expect promoters to pay for an audience to be in the night club so that by the time each individual arrives, there is a club full of people for them to relish in so that the next day they can post up photos of them self being "off their tits" on Facebook. No one wants to be the first person in the club. The result, no one enters and those who do rarely stay longer than for one drink.

Venues recognise this. So some venues are lucky, others are not. A lot fall under the 'are not' category and have people like me hustling up new gigs and nights for them. They'll have a different 'crew' every week until they find one that can guilt enough patrons through the door to show up.

Dj/ Promoter: "Come watch me play. I came for you. I need your support."

Friend: "Well Ok" (What choice do I have?)

So, the friend plods along, fine, first night is, well average. There's people, but the music is shit because the Dj's are shit for the most part. No demos have been handed to anyone a long the line and the venue doesn't care. The next month, the crowd is smaller.


Friend: "We came to see you last month. We have to see another friend this month"

And smaller and smaller and smaller.... Until again, the same clubs are doing the same things and the cycle repeats.

There is no room for legendary night clubs and Dj's or musicians anymore. Everyone is under so much pressure to deliver numbers that no one can enjoy themselves anymore. Even the party goers are under so much pressure to BE a number, that they can't enjoy themselves anymore because they are forever going out in support of a DJ or to support a social image or social duty rather than to relax. Going out may as well be work!

Night clubbing and parties have become corporate. They are no longer celebrations, they are business.

As for music critics, well, where I'm from, it's as if they LITERALLY seek out the bad quality music and favour it for personal gain. A lot are musicians themselves. So, they seek out the people with the most Facebook friends or comments on Sound Cloud and offer such encouragement on works which are CLEARLY rubbish, in the hope that being assosciated with someone so popular, will rub off on them. Then, when they are faced with something that is ACTUALLY good, they will slander it. Not criticise it, but SLANDER it. The only logical reason I can find for this is they are afraid that someone elses success will over shadow theirs.

Put it ALL together, along with clubs and bars closing at shit hours and less and less being given liquor liscences, you end up with a culture that is boring, dull, bitchy, political, corporate and basically, BUSINESS!

Getting drunk is social work. There is no celebration.

When I said EDM would fail I mean that it will not hold as much relevance in musical history as other genres like classical or rock have and will. We make disposable music because we live in a disposable culture. We don't build things to last. We build them so that when they break we have to buy new ones because some greedy fucking corporate cock sucker in a fancy chair knows he can make more money that way. Money. Always fucking $$$. Money is disposable aswell. It is the source of all evil. It is false security and everything it touches turns to SHIT! I would find greater honour in playing to a group of hobos now days, than I would playing at most of what has become of the Electronic Dance Music scene where I live.

[login]

The underground scene is still doing well, there are a lot of people who enjoy it, enough to feed the ecosystem.

[Sigma]

@AdrianR - Your post seems overly-cynical to me, particularly things like this: -

Even the party goers are under so much pressure to BE a number, that they can't enjoy themselves anymore because they are forever going out in support of a DJ or to support a social image or social duty rather than to relax. Going out may as well be work!

If people really did feel like that, they just wouldn't go out.

As for music critics, well, where I'm from, it's as if they LITERALLY seek out the bad quality music and favour it for personal gain. A lot are musicians themselves. So, they seek out the people with the most Facebook friends or comments on Sound Cloud and offer such encouragement on works which are CLEARLY rubbish, in the hope that being assosciated with someone so popular, will rub off on them. Then, when they are faced with something that is ACTUALLY good, they will slander it. Not criticise it, but SLANDER it.

But who are these critics and how much sway do they actually have? Link me to one of them.

[AdrianR]

Oh fuck off didn't my reply post? (Fuck off to the internet, not you sorry)

Login: As I said, it's a local problem. I've partied in America and from what I saw, it's so different! People seem to genuinely want to go out for a good time. Not to be seen
in social circles.

Sigma: People DON'T come out. That's the problem. Because things are the way they are, A LOT of people just won't come out and the ones who do, is more times than not only out of social obligation. To support a Dj friend of theres or to go to a birthday that deep down, they can not be bothered going to.

We have this, social snobbery here. It's so, poisonous and sickening.

As for the music critics I'm just being general. I cop a lot of "this music is crap... For the radio" .... Well, hello? You've clicked on "Club Music" to criticise. It's not for the radio, it's for CLUB Dj's. That's why it's so fucking long. To mix in and out of. I can live with that. But the worst is from the inside. It just seems that, Melbourne seems to clique up with people.

You know what it is? These shit cunts, have grouped up together because on their own, they don't have ANYTHING. So rather than scaling up from talent or experience they scale up from being involved in these cliques or crews. And it's so, bizzare to watch! .. It's so frustrating to see someone bag your work. Not because you are heart broken that someone hates it, but because you have years of experience that tells you that your work is CLEARLY, definitively MORE CLEARLY at a better, higher standard than the person whose giving you shit about it, whilst they have so many people who will tell them their work is fantastic and amazing, but when you go to hear it, is at best, a single loop, over a song that allready exists, usually a DANCE MUSIC SONG!!! (So that they can fucking map it and get their loop in beat), and it's a mash up? A un mastered, peice of shit mash up? Or a 2 minute, unmastered loop, that is always a "Unfinished work in progress", which sounds, exactly as it is!!! A FUCKING LOOP! not a song!, and it's not even a well made loop!

It's so frustrating to see what's possible out there, then to be in Melbourne and have to live with this, immature, fucking snob, alcaholic culture.

[Adzm00]

Sounds similar to the same problems a lot of venues/club nights face.

Once there is good music and a nice crowd of regulars, the night will get bigger and bigger.

Its just for a lot of people in the business its about money and nothing else.