Bit of a tempest in a teacup over the Otago University Students Association's decision to sell their radio station if they can and shut it down if they can't.
In an extraordinary act of "I'll hold my breath until I turn blue if you don't ..." vengence the manager of the said station took it off the air last Saturday and will keep it off the air for a week.
And guess what - no student radio available in Dunedin in this week and yet the world is still turning. How many citizens of that great metropolis even noticed I wonder?
Various artists have been enlisted to support Sean Norling, the manager of said enterprise, who believes his station is crucial, crucial you understand to get visiting artists to come to Dunedin. Balderdash what is crucial to performers performing in Dunedin or anywhere else for that matter is that people buy enough tickets to cover the costs and to hopefully provide some remuneration for the performers on top of that.
Graeme Downes, of the The Verlaines, enlisted to support this noble cause, reckons
It's "fact of life" that most people don't give a toss about the music that wanna be professional musicians dish up and mostly this is because it is mostly not that good to put it bluntly.
The very very few who do make the grade and have long and successful careers are those who pay their dues in the early days, figure out what works with audiences and what doesn't and modify then fine tune their performances accordingly.
And probably most importantly they don't take themselves too seriously.
In an extraordinary act of "I'll hold my breath until I turn blue if you don't ..." vengence the manager of the said station took it off the air last Saturday and will keep it off the air for a week.
And guess what - no student radio available in Dunedin in this week and yet the world is still turning. How many citizens of that great metropolis even noticed I wonder?
Various artists have been enlisted to support Sean Norling, the manager of said enterprise, who believes his station is crucial, crucial you understand to get visiting artists to come to Dunedin. Balderdash what is crucial to performers performing in Dunedin or anywhere else for that matter is that people buy enough tickets to cover the costs and to hopefully provide some remuneration for the performers on top of that.
Graeme Downes, of the The Verlaines, enlisted to support this noble cause, reckons
"It is a fact of life in a small country like NZ that it is hard to make a living solely from writing and performing music."Yes indeed but this is far from being unique to New Zealand. In Nashville there are literally thousands of would be stars, waiting tables, pumping gas and so forth.
It's "fact of life" that most people don't give a toss about the music that wanna be professional musicians dish up and mostly this is because it is mostly not that good to put it bluntly.
The very very few who do make the grade and have long and successful careers are those who pay their dues in the early days, figure out what works with audiences and what doesn't and modify then fine tune their performances accordingly.
And probably most importantly they don't take themselves too seriously.
Yes, it's the "artists" who want the station to keep going to help them out.
ReplyDeleteBut funny how there's no word from the students themselves. That is, those who pay for the station through their compulsory levies yet chose not to listen to it because it's a very poor offering in a very crowded radio market.