As threatened last week I am actually on holiday.

Yes, this column comes to you with an impressive total of 5227 air miles, being written from my current headquarters at a secret poolside location in Singapore.
And, with that in mind – and the vague notion that it might please my accountant come tax time – I thought it might be interesting to compare the music world here (Singers) with that in New Zealand. After all, both countries have roughly the same population. The difference is that Singapore's four million live on an island that is smaller than Lake Taupo. As a result it can sometimes seem a little crowded…
Another difference is that Singapore, a country known for cleanliness and conformity, doesn't really have much of a music scene.
Occasional international acts tour. Oasis last month, Rod Stewart and Duffy the month before. A couple a month seems to be it. On the local front it is far more depressing.
There is a music scene – you can read the listings in Time Out. There is a single page and of that at least three-quarters is easy listening jazz, played either in hotels lobbies or bars. There is one place advertising 'indie rock” and the odd dozen that mention rock/R&B covers bands, about 50 gigs in total each week.
What with the necessity to sit in the sun sipping tropical cocktails with extravagant fruit garnishes (note to accountant – since I've written about them can I claim them as research?) I clearly couldn't check out the entire scene. One Time Out listing interested me. Sunday night 9.30pm, blues jam at The Crazy Elephant. That would be my peephole into the Singapore music world.
And sure enough, come Sunday night I'm sitting outside said bar, on the bank of the river in an area called Clarke Quay. It's much like the Viaduct Basin in Auckland except much cooler looking, swelteringly humid and – even at 10.00pm on a Sunday – busy with people. There are restaurants of all stripes, and bars. The Crazy Elephant manages to be even tackier than the nearby Hooters, largely due to big video screens projecting obscene jokes with a level of sophistication that would make a thirteen year old blanch with embarrassment. Perhaps it is run by Australians.
The house band kick things off, led by Johnny Chee, a really very good guitar player, a bit blues but with more than a hint of rock sound and style. The drummer is a friendly Texan, Mark Botman, who by day runs a drumming school and plays here five nights a week. But main attraction is singer Jeanne French, an impressive fifty-something American who belts out tunes from Koko Taylor and others, her debt to Janis Joplin confirmed by a note perfect take on 'Bobby McGee”. They play a set, then the jamming starts, running though till 1.00am, say fifteen musicians in all.
Some young guys play, a nicely multicultural mix of Euro-Indian-Chinese Singaporeans, blues very much in the modern rock vein. It's exactly what you might hear at the BOP Blues Club. Afterwards I talk to them and they bemoan the fact that they can't get a gig – this is the only blues bar in Singapore and Johnny has the residency, so they have to content themselves with once a week jamming here for half an hour.
I ask Jeanne if she ever sings her own tunes here in Singapore and she says nobody wants to hear them. There is active resistance to original music amongst audiences so on the odd occasion she breaks one out she announces it as being by someone famous. She divides her time between playing in the States, in Holland, and here, and saves the originals for other places.
Between them all they confirm what I concluded – there is in fact not a single venue in Singapore offering or open to original music. Even that indie rock bar is strictly covers. People don't want to hear original music; all agree it's not in the 'national character”.
Ironically, the government has just introduced an initiative to encourage creativity (not a valued characteristic until now). It will be interesting to see how it works out. But, looking at the state of music here and comparing it to New Zealand, we - in the words of Fred Dagg – don't know how lucky we are…