One raver takes a swipe at the local live music scene, cover bands and Jazz Sundays

After two weeks of Mr Nice Guy, and with only three more stirs of the spoon left in my writing tenure here, we are well overdue for a rave.
Let's cut to the chase: it is my informed and considered opinion that a book entitled The Tauranga Live Music Scene in the 21st Century would sit snugly among the world's thinnest volumes, alongside such classics as American Military Successes in the Middle East and the NZRFU Guide to World Cup Dominance.
What we currently have by way of a live music scene is: a bunch of indistinguishable cover bands largely playing the same old crap; a few acoustic artists who struggle to find gigs beyond the tried and true; background music specialists who do little more than put CDs out of a job while the region's diners chew on.
Jam nights abound, where all and sundry have their 15 minutes of fame. In venue stakes, Brewers is still Brewers, The Colosseum has the odd ‘big name', but no longer showcases local music. Detroit carries the hopes of local hip hoppers and things on the traditional fringes are the same old, as punks, metallers and high school bands maintain their self-sufficient, though slightly illusory, micro-scenes.
What, then, constitutes a robust music scene?
To me, it's the sum culture and structures resulting from and feeding back into the efforts of disparate artists to create, perform and promote their music. A culture of doing creates gig, venue and audience opportunities, which in turn encourages artists to do rather than dream. It is not merely a passive backdrop against which local musicians cast their various shadows. It is something we jointly construct and shape.
Is it just a Tauranga problem? Apparently not. Friends and fellow artists from bigger cities lament the same paucity of gigs and lack of viable venues. The settings may be different but the song remains the same.
The thing I detest most in the local non-scene is the predominance of cover bands, which exist purely to regurgitate other people's art for money, by peddling others' songs for their own financial gain in a unique form of artistic prostitution. Each band plays much the same songs as the next, meaning you can walk The Strand and hear the same songs over and over. 'But we're just playing what they want to hear!” they cry. Rubbish.
'But we do it better than other bands!” they proudly claim. Who cares?
I say take a good hard look at yourselves, quit underestimating your audience and drag yourselves out of cruise mode by putting your art on the line for once.
Even among cover bands, I concede there are shades of grey. However, can there be a lower caste of musical untouchables than those, in all corners of the globe, who perpetuate the heinous aural atrocities we shall collectively label jazz Sundays? I don't understand how the most relentlessly challenging modern musical genre gets lumped together with the dullest day of the week. Why can't we have jumping jazz Saturdays, or mind-bending fusion Fridays? Why not fiery raga Sundays, or angsty alt-country Sundays instead? Sunday is bad enough without bad music. And whatever jazz may be, it is not weak renditions of Summertime or Stella By Starlight; it is not tired two-chord jams that make even Kenny G squirm, delivered with all the verve and vitality of a drunk slipping off his barstool. Speaking of drunks, when Dylan Thomas implored us to 'rage, rage against the dying of the light” perhaps he had the dwindling weekend in mind, as Monday loomed, and was foretelling the slow death of Sunday muzak.
Despite or perhaps because of all of the above, Tauranga already has the music scene it deserves: endless cover bands and bland jazzy Sundays providing the perfect beige aural wallpaper for God's Waiting Room. Walk towards the light. derrin@tauranga.co.nz