I had not travelled to Dunedin expecting to engage with a vibrant live music scene; rather, I was there to root around the remnants of a dead one. I did, nonetheless, make a few passing attempts to find out what the present sounded like. My research could hardly be called exhaustive, but there did seem to be a paucity of musical activity at the time of my stay. I ended up dragging myself to a relative few gigs and I can't say the presence of a thriving musical culture was felt at any of them. But the first experience may have soured the rest.
The venue was the Inch Bar, conveniently located an the bottom of the hill I was staying on. I turned up an hour prematurely, as I'm wont to do, and sat in the band-room listening to a cycle of '60s pop on the PA. Two nursed pints later and the beer-keg stools were filled for the show. The opener was a young woman who sang competently over an occasionally fumbled guitar accompaniment. At the insistence of friends she closed with a couple of her comedy numbers. My joy was incandescent.
Actually, she proved to be the highlight of the evening, if you discount the radio and the bar's ambient noise. The headliner, as it were, was a three-piece outfit whose signature song, 'Funk It!', detailed the singer's predilection for righteous funking. I should clarify that it was their signature song in the sense that terribleness was their signature and it presented them at their most terrible. Or perhaps I'm being unfair. I mean, they were functional. They were in key. The tempos were adhered to. And their friends—or the crowd minus me—bopped along supportively. But holy hell. The only mercy was that the thing was free. Of the handful of songs I stayed for, at least half were covers, betraying a warranted lack of faith in their original material. Juxtaposing tunes about funking with a rendition of 'So Real' would be enough to make the latter's composer roll in his ocean grave. A weak-willed critic, I opted to walk dipsily uphill in the rain instead of enduring another note.
The second gig was one I actually paid for, the band being enough of a known entity to command a $10 cover. Preliminary YouTube research convinced me Auckland's Dictaphone Blues were decent enough to justify the expense—crisply melodic indie pop with a varyingly successful sense of humour, though they were often poorly serviced by their video clips. The location was a bar in Otago University that was strangely absent of life for a Friday night. I was the first there at doors and remained the only patron for at least an hour. The opening act was passable, though I forgot there was one until I got around to writing this sentence. By the time Dictaphone Blues emerged the crowd had swollen to 10, maybe 15 people, most of whom sat or leaned around the perimeter. Though the band put in a creditable effort, they can be forgiven for not generating much energy from an empty room.
The next excursion wasn't exactly an attempt to locate a new Dunedin Sound. At the recommendation of my housemate, I headed down to Dundas Street one night to check out the Dunedin (nay Edinburgh) Folk Club. The attendees, all of whom had a couple of generations on me, were gathered on plastic chairs in a temporarily repurposed church. The event was split between local amateurs and a nomadic folk group called The Bollands. Tea, coffee and homemade cakes were available from a side room during the break—rock and roll. I bristle at elements of the folk ethos but there was an undeniable charm to the proceedings, thanks especially to the night's affable host, who had to do double duty as the sound man due to an unforeseen absence. The main act was solid, though I can already feel them evaporating from my memory. Before I left I was thanked by an elderly lady for bringing down the median age a shade.
"Is it as bad as it seems?" I asked, my nerves making the question blunter than I had intended. It was posed to a panel that included, among others, Graeme Downes and Francisca Griffin, of The Verlaines and Look Blue Go Purple respectively. I was referring to the current music scene, rather boldly considering I had scarcely seen any of it. Abby Wolfe, a young artist based in Auckland, countered by enthusing about the diverse music coming out of Dunedin, and the rest of the panel politely agreed. Closer to my corner, in fact the other end of my row, a former resident commented on the fact that there were no longer any venues you could trust for good new music. I met him and his wife at a nearby bar shortly after the discussion and he said he had formed a similar assessment to mine, having lived in Dunedin during Flying Nun's heyday.
Later that evening Flying Nun alumni traded sets in the seniors' centre to a well-mixed crowd. Francisca Griffin appeared to have acquired her rhythm section from a shady bus shelter, but they gave the material a kick that was lacking from most of the other performances. For his set, Graeme Downes played guitar only, outsourcing the vocal duties to a local singer named Molly Divine. This would be forgivable if he had not opted to perform to a sterile backing track. Maybe it was the speakers but the instrumental flourishes had all the grandeur of a Midi symphony. Sporting a slept-in suit and wild greying hair, The Verlaines' mastermind attacked his complicated chord progressions with proud vigour, but there was something faintly embarrassing about the whole affair. I caught The Verlaines a few years back on an Australian tour, and they were similarly problematic, though at that time the issue was grating lead guitar parts. So yes, The Verlaines have a live problem. Like a tonic after poison The Chills' Martin Phillipps closed the night with an on-point solo performance that even made something of the Tears For Fears-via-Gary Jules track I thought I never wanted to hear again. After the show, Francisca Griffin rather kindly introduced herself to me to provide some tips about how to find local gigs, though I was flying out the next morning.
I by no means possess enough information to make any sort of assessment on Dunedin's current music scene; this is merely a series of stray observations and opinions. The most interesting groups I was aware of, courtesy of my brother, were not in town, and I'm sure there was plenty of other things that sailed right by my notice. No matter; on the next leg I will be an outdoorsman.