Perfect Beat
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB
<p><em>Perfect Beat</em> first appeared in July 1992 and has been published by Equinox since 2009. <br />The journal's name derived from Afrika Bambaata and the Soul Sonic Force's 12-inch, 1983 single <em>Looking for the Perfect Beat</em>. As befits a journal originating in Australia, the journal remains focused on the popular music of the 'Pacific rim' and includes historical and contemporary studies with contributions invited from popular music studies, musicology, cultural studies and ethnomusicological perspectives. <a href="https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/about">Read more about this journal.</a></p>
Equinox Publishing Ltd.
en
Perfect Beat
1038-2909
<p>© Equinox Publishing Ltd.</p> <p>For information regarding our Open Access policy, <a title="Open access policy." href="Full%20details of our conditions related to copyright can be found by clicking here.">click here</a>.</p>
-
The impact of COVID-19 on music venues in regional South Australia
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19334
<p>As spaces of social, cultural and economic production, small regional music venues are an under-explored research area that can offer insights into changing music and performance practices, place-making, and the connections between urban and regional communities. Within the context of the COVID-19 crisis, the state of precarity in which such venues operate is emphasized and exacerbated. This article will present preliminary findings from our case study of a small, regional music venue in the mid-north of South Australia that has been heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated government restrictions. The pandemic has dramatically changed the way that live music is both performed and experienced, and a case study such as this offers an opportunity to discuss its impact on niche cultural and community spaces that are geographically and socially removed from the urban milieu and its policy settings. Preliminary findings suggest COVID-19 brought about both challenges (capacity restrictions and disruption of interstate travel for audiences and artists) as well as opportunities (strengthening the presence of rural voices in policy settings). The case study also highlights the need for further research on strategies for developing and sustaining regional touring pathways throughout South Australia. </p>
Riffs
live music
regional
venues
COVID-19
South Australia
regional music venues
COVID-19
South Australia
popular music studies
cultural sociology
cultural studies
Rosie Roberts
Sam Whiting
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
25
32
10.1558/prbt.19334
-
Making metal work
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23740
<p>This article explores lived experiences of heavy metal careers in Aotearoa/New Zealand as bands navigate shifting metal markets, and rapidly expanding digital landscapes for the music industry more generally. Drawing from interviews conducted with four established metal bands in Aotearoa—Blindfolded and Led to the Woods (Otautahi/Christchurch), Shepherds Reign (Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland), Stälker and Bulletbelt (both from Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington)—we explore whether metal musicians are able to make music into a viable career, and furthermore how the changing commercial and technological landscapes for metal might have also brought about differing ideas of the mainstream versus the underground, commerciality versus authenticity, and amateurism versus professionalism. Such binaries, these interviews show, continue to play a complex role in how musicians experience, or reject, metal as an entrepreneurial activity, where the coincidence of genre with geography, and metal’s long-held anti-commercial and anti-establishment discourses, influence career expectations and opportunities.</p>
Articles
heavy metal
new zealand
professional lives
music career
local scene
professional life
heavy metal
music careers
new zealand
local scenes
professional lives
Popular Music
Cultural and Media Studies
Catherine Hoad
Ian Moore
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
22
42
10.1558/prbt.23740
-
An annotated interview with Beastwars
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23746
<p>In 2021, we interviewed Matt Hyde of Wellington’s Beastwars for our ethnographic podcast Lingua Brutallica as part of a project exploring language in metal scenes outside of America and Europe. In this annotated interview, we edit, discuss and frame the content of the interview in relation to how Hyde’s comments shed light on important conflicts between personal, local and global understandings of what makes ‘metal’ lyrics and music. The interview covers, in Hyde’s own words, his approach to metal lyrics, and how he weaves his personal experiences and New Zealand’s unique landscape into images of pagan rituals, ancient battles, death, and other emblems of international ‘metal’ practices. This distinctive taste of New Zealand metal that results brings together the local and international scenes that devour it. Through breaking up the transcript with commentary on the sociolinguistic insights Hyde provides on understandings of language, metal and identity, we explore how Hyde aligns with, resists, and feels pressured by stereotypes of ‘metal language’, producing a guided tour of how a key figure in New Zealand metal has navigated the fluidity of ‘local’ and ‘global’ language practice in metal music throughout his 15 years in the scene.</p>
Articles
New Zealand
Metal
Sociolinguistics
Language
Identity
New Zealand
Metal
Sociolinguistics
Language
Identity
Metal Studies
Sociolinguistics
Jessica Kruk
Wesley C Robertson
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
5
21
10.1558/prbt.23746
-
A sense of displacement
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23750
<p>Olde Throne is a solo black metal project created by Harrison McKenzie, a young musician from Christchurch. The main theme of his music production is Scottish and Irish history and mythology, more generally themes related to Celtic culture. After spending time in 2019 in Scotland, Harrison McKenzie became increasingly interested in the history and mythology of this land far from his native home. He felt a strong emotional connection to the past of Scottish people, in fact his surname is influenced by this ancestry. His passion for Norwegian black metal, developed in his teenage years, was linked to the search for his past, giving rise to Olde Throne’s musical proposal. This ‘Riffs’ article, developed from a textual and musical analysis and corroborated by an interview with the musician of Olde Throne, attempts to highlight how nostalgia for a past, more imagined than lived, conceals a sense of displacement that finds its way out through the aggressive and extremely emotive sounds of black metal, a musical category little practised in Christchurch. Europe, as the cradle of Scottish and Irish cultures and as an ideal place to play and experience black metal, takes shape imaginatively in the sonic and lyrical coordinates of Olde Throne’s music.</p>
Riffs
Black metal
Aotearoa
Displacement
Heritage
Emotions
Metal
New Zealand
Ethnomusicology
Metal Music Studies
Popular Music Studies
Giordano Calvi
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
70
80
10.1558/prbt.23750
-
Will you remember
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23752
<p>The official histories have mostly paved over punk in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and in particular, Neil Roberts’s action against the Whanganui Computer Centre in 1982. However, Neil Roberts Day, a community-led day of celebration and remembrance, flies in the face of this generalized forgetting. In this short ‘Riff’, I will begin to explore Neil Roberts Day commemorations through Pierre Nora’s concept of generational consciousness and the lieux des memoires, or sites of memory, and what this might mean for the punk and hardcore communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand.</p>
Riffs
Neil Roberts Day
punk community
lieux des memoires
generational consciousness
commemoration
ML159-3785 History and criticism
Community
Punk and Hardcore
Memory
Commemoration
Cultural History
Lauren Deacon
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
64
69
10.1558/prbt.23752
-
Immersion and metal music videos
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23754
<p class="Styletexte">Music videos are designed, filmed and edited to magnify the musical experience, and, when well-used, contribute to making artists stand out. With the evolution of media and technology, ‘localness’ can be broadcast worldwide, and folklore, culture and traditions are at the heart of many metal groups’ preoccupations. By making their culture a central part of their music, Alien Weaponry’s success has resulted in the Maori culture, history and legends achieving international recognition in the metal music world. ‘Kai Tangata’ and ‘Hatupatu’, the music videos directed by Alex Hargreaves, operate to further represent elements of Maori culture, by adding a visual dimension to Alien Weaponry’s use of te reo Maori, the Maori language. Using formal and comparative aesthetical analyses, reinforced by a theoretical approach, the use of immersion in this representation will be discussed. Firstly, the representation of the characters in the videos and their role in the narration will be analysed. Secondly, the affect and the dynamism brought by the rhythm and the structure of music and images will be examined. And finally, the representation of bodies, gestures and rituality will be analysed, as a representation of the Maori culture, meant for both Maori and non-Maori people.</p>
Articles
narration
music video
heavy metal
Maori Popular music
cinema
Maori and Polynesian music culture
Music video
Popular Music
heavy metal
narration
cinema studies
Film and Media Studies
Musicology
Elise Girard-Despraulex
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
43
63
10.1558/prbt.23754
-
Prickly Jim
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/23915
<p>Within this text, we discuss themes that cover the relationship between our personal visual art collaborations and how they relate to the heavy music scene and culture within Aotearoa. We provide background context to the origins of Prickly Jim, and display examples of the type of work we create. We explore the culture of the ‘moshpit’ in relation to our own personal experiences and the wider correspondence it has with our creative output. The pit becomes a perfect metaphor to describe the dichotomy between the aesthetics of metal and metal’s true heart. On the outside, the pit is choreographed violence, intimidating to the uninitiated. On the inside, there is a profound sense of community and belonging. Yes, we punch and shove each other, but it is in a way that could only be described as endearing.</p>
Visual Essay
Metal
Hardcore
Music
Visual Art
Graphic Art
Mixed Media
Visual art
Music
Metal
Hardcore
Horror
Collaboration
Visual art
Music
Digital media
Print media
Traditional media
Lydia Hill
Sam Stonnell
Copyright (c) 2023 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
81
86
10.1558/prbt.23915
-
Editorial introduction
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/24369
Introduction
heavy metal
Aotearoa
punk
Hardcore
heavy metal
Punk and Hardcore
New Zealand
popular music
Catherine Hoad
Copyright (c) 2022 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2023-01-31
2023-01-31
1
4
10.1558/prbt.24369
-
Riffing on course redesign
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19236
<p>In this article, I riff on redesigning music education for online delivery from the perspective of an ethnomusicologist and teacher working as an educational developer during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. I explore how the affordances and limitations of remote learning and online technologies impacted the pedagogical approaches I use to design music courses in tertiary education. Issues such as the applicability of curriculum to students’ working life and active learning have become pertinent to teaching and learning scholarship over the last two decades. Over the last year, these issues were placed under further scrutiny, and calls have accelerated for re-examining strategies that build foundational skills and embrace more active learning design. For music teaching, this poses a unique opportunity to make courses more relevant to our students and create improved social outcomes for music education. However, adapting courses also presents a significant challenge in converting pedagogy to be sustainable in the current tertiary education sector. I reflect on educational developments that can enhance university music teaching through the benefits of technology and pedagogy that improve student learning.</p>
Riffs
online music teaching
music course design
music education
Online Learning
Music
Music
Education
Benjamin Phipps
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
63
68
10.1558/prbt.19236
-
I lost a gig ‘pero ok lang’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19260
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the entertainment industry globally, yet little is known about the experiences of migrant musicians during this crisis. Drawing from interviews with Filipino musicians in Australia, this article considers the pandemic’s impacts on this migrant group and the ways in which they demonstrate resilience through their social and cultural capital. Their physical and virtual networks as well as skills in music and other ventures allow them to respond to the precarity connected with their translocal experiences as migrant musicians and skilled labour migrants during the pandemic. Nonetheless, this resilience is dependent on individuals’ particular economic, social and personal circumstances. Recognizing the case of Filipino musicians in Australia leads to a rethinking of potential policy implications on particular struggles facing migrant musicians in Australia during the pandemic crisis.</p>
Riffs
capital
Filipino musicians
migrants
resilience
COVID-19
music
migration
diaspora
labour
capital
Cultural Sociology
Sociology of Work
Carljohnson Anacin
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
33
39
10.1558/prbt.19260
-
Seeking the live
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19268
<p>Onaji jikan, onaji kukan. Same time, same place. These are the words I wrote down in an interview this summer—ironically a Zoom interview that took place both at 9 am in Oxford and 5 pm in Osaka. Needless to say, this was not the fieldwork I planned when I began my PhD in 2018, although in some ways it feels fitting for a thesis on digital technologies and the ‘live’. Yet today I remain, like many of my peers, so far behind, so ‘late’, that catching up seems almost impossible. In this article, I reflect on the importance of shared time and place, not only in Japanese ‘live culture’, but also in my experience of the pandemic as a postgraduate student.</p>
Riffs
postgraduate research
fieldwork
COVID-19
digital technology
COVID-19 Pandemic
ethnomusicology
anthropology
popular music studies
music
Alice Rose
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
76
80
10.1558/prbt.19268
-
Standing in/out
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19293
<p>As the first country to experience the outbreak of COVID-19, China’s music industry reacted quickly to the change of the musical context. On 10 March 2020, China’s biggest music company Tencent Music Entertainment Group announced the launch of its music livestreaming concert brand—TME Live. It is understood that through its online live concerts, TME Live uses multi-scenario, innovative performance and digital audio-visual technology to create a panoramic environment for online musical performances, through which TME Live connects musicians and communities of fans. Through this model, Tencent Music Entertainment Group provides musicians with a full range of services, including customized performance styles and an immersive performing experience. Without the impact of Western dominated social media, China’s online music streaming platforms have developed their own biopolitical logics and characteristics in building up online music community and data connectivity. With the case study of TME Live, this article sets out to investigate how China’s major online music streaming platform survives, transforms and adapts in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
Riffs
platform
Tencent
TME Live
biopolitics
COVID-19
streaming
music industry
China
popular music
digital
technology
The emerging live streaming concert platform in China during the Pandemic
music industry
critical theory
media studies
Weida Wang
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
56
62
10.1558/prbt.19293
-
Hitchhiker’s guide to reality
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19305
<p>In this article we explore a collaborative interdisciplinary Theatre and Music production as part of two undergraduate courses at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, during COVID-19. Tertiary intuitions all over the world are currently being forced to adapt in radical response to the pandemic. The specific conditions of the authors’ experience prompted this collaboration where both teaching and learning occurred in an unstable, unpredictable and unprecedented environment. Experiences during the semester and the outcomes of the project were rich, multifaceted, and exceeded expectations. This included several weeks of intensive collaborative rehearsal and creative development, university-facing performances, and a public-facing performance at a NightQuarter event which had over 4,500 attendees. This article unpacks the ideas of Project-Based Learning (Bell 2010) and interdisciplinary collaboration, in order to understand the impact on teaching and learning and the potential of this model.</p>
Riffs
theatre
music
interdisciplinary
COVID
project-based learning
interdisciplinary
creative
collaboration
project-based learning
teaching and learning
COVID-19
pedagogy
music
theatre
performance
music
theatre
performance
Briony Luttrell
Hannah Joyce Banks
Andy Ward
Lachlan Goold
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
69
75
10.1558/prbt.19305
-
Virtual shakuhachi with dai-shihan Michael Chikuzen Gould
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19346
<p>Virtual learning environments have become commonplace in the midst of COVID-19. Although it was not unheard of, taking Skype lessons on a musical instrument was considered to be unusual ten-plus years ago. This article will briefly discuss the ways in which the pandemic has affected those who study shakuhachi online with dai-shihan (grandmaster) Michael Chikuzen Gould. While individuals and institutions continue to figure out how to navigate this new cyber context, virtual shakuhachi lessons with Sensei Gould continue as scheduled and remain unaffected as in-person workshops and intensives are cancelled until further notice.</p>
Riffs
shakuhachi
virtual learning
pedagogy
Japanese music
ethnomusicology
musicology
Sarah Renata Strothers
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
81
86
10.1558/prbt.19346
-
Being a DJ in a time of zero social huddling
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19347
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread disruptions in music industries globally, resulting in rapid cancellations of music festivals, concerts and club nights, and closure of international borders. The consequences of this pandemic have been especially dire for musicians, DJs and event promoters whose livelihoods and financial viability were tied largely to live performances. Within the independent music scenes in India, artists and event organizers rushed to social media and livestreaming platforms in their attempts to salvage brand visibility and explore monetization opportunities as drastic impositions of nationwide lockdowns came into effect. In a densely populated developing country rife with anxieties over exponential rates of COVID-19 infections, independent musicians in India have sought creative approaches to maintain visibility through digital platforms. Drawing on methods influenced by online ethnography, this article presents a discussion of how four professional Indian DJs explore and interrogate the affordances of various social media and livestreaming platforms in their efforts to remain artistically visible in the absence of state-initiated financial support and socially huddled dance-floors. The article offers insights into the triumphs, and trials and tribulations, experienced by independent musicians as they explore the material affordances of digital platforms at this critical moment in history.</p>
Riffs
livestreaming
social media
affordances
DJ culture
COVID-19
India
DJ Culture
Media and Music studies
Pradip Sarkar
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
47
55
10.1558/prbt.19347
-
‘It Was COVID-19’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19348
<p>In this article I interview musician and songwriter Keir Nuttall about his experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nuttall reflects on a number of key professional and personal issues that have affected his work and everyday life, starting with a discussion of his parody song ‘It Was COVID-19’, based on the song ‘I Was Only 19’ by Redgum. Nuttall discusses the role that the song played in coming to terms with the pandemic, and the reaction from the song’s original writer John Schumann. Nuttall reflects on how cancelled performances and opportunities have impacted his life as a creative professional, including cancelled tours and the postponed Broadway development of Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical, the musical that he wrote with his wife and creative partner Kate Miller-Heidke. Finally, Nuttall discusses how the lockdown in Melbourne and enforced periods of interstate quarantine have affected his creativity, his family life, the impacts on the broader music industry, and some of the rewarding personal and musical experiences that have also arisen at this time.</p>
Riffs
popular music
COVID-19
pandemic
Australia
parody
career
Popular music
pandemic
music industry
Australia
songwriting
Popular music studies
Gavin Carfoot
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
40
46
10.1558/prbt.19348
-
Pre-existing conditions
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19379
<p>Prior to 2020, while the music industries in the Australian state of Victoria were gaining in strength and were world-renowned in many respects, they were also characterized as a sector that runs largely on luck and public good will, where many places that had previously offered some security were eroding. This luck ran out in a spectacular fashion with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. This research, based on surveys and interviews conducted during the extended Victorian lockdown, describes the experiences and responses of music workers across the sector to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mark Banks’s concept of ‘creative justice’ is used to examine how the precarious nature of much music-related work prior to COVID-19 created a situation where workers were acutely vulnerable to a crisis of this nature, and where the harms they experienced during this time were compounded by how precarity positions them both financially and discursively. The understanding of precarity as a pre-existing problem in the industry discussed here makes it clear that although the pandemic was experienced as an unprecedented and unique event, the impact that it had on many in the music industries represented an exacerbation and continuation of already-existing issues. Suggestions from participants about how they can be supported in a rebuilding music sector show that questions of justice are forefront in their minds, and should be considered in decisions around rebuilding to prevent talent loss and maintain a diverse music scene.</p>
Articles
COVID-19
Music industries
creative justice
precarity
COVID-19
Precarity
music industries
Sociology
Cultural studies
Catherine Strong
Fabian Cannizzo
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
10
24
10.1558/prbt.19379
-
Editorial introduction
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/20414
Introduction
Popular Music
Covid-19
Pandemic
Music Industry
Live Music
Popular Muisc
Covid-19
Pandemic
Popular Music Studies
Ethnomusicology
Oli Wilson
Shelley Brunt
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-08-28
2021-08-28
5
9
10.1558/prbt.20414
-
K-pop beyond the lockdown
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19303
<p>In the year of a global pandemic that brought activity to a halt for musicians around the globe, the K-pop industry proved to be an illuminating case study in how to remain vibrant despite being distanced. As a music that thrives on the Internet with its highly visual nature, K-pop has been well positioned to maintain lively audiences through diverse and innovative content amidst the lockdown environment. Indeed, high-profile group BTS flourished in the time of COVID-19, garnering the Guinness record for most viewers of a music concert live stream. At the heart of this success is an engagement with fans that continues to drive BTS’s, and K-pop’s, rise to mainstream visibility, revealing a participatory nature that remains its strength. This essay reflects on K-pop fandom at the intersection of social media activity intensified in the COVID-19 era, focusing on the case of BTS and the group’s success in building community online.</p>
Riffs
K-pop
Korea
fandom
BTS
Popular Music
Music
Hae Joo Kim
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
96
102
10.1558/prbt.19303
-
Creative collaboration in the cloud
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19304
<p>This article details online education design at an Australian university undergraduate music program. The author reviews the rapid development of online learning activities relating to music performance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic enforced lockdown. The lockdown imposed serious challenges for music educators, the overarching one being how to engage students via a screen rather than in a rehearsal room. As the unit designer/assessor, the author utilized specific cloud-based audio software networking tools that are accessible to students (Audiomovers, Splice Studio) to devise learning activities that encouraged creative interactive learning. The author details the advantages and disadvantages of each learning activity. As a substitute for face-to-face interaction, online learning has substantial limitations in relation to music education. Student engagement with accessible online audio tools can enhance skills and knowledge development and interactive learning, thus maximizing student satisfaction and collaborative learning outcomes.</p>
Riffs
music education
audiotechnology
online learning
COVID-19
music
online music
musiceducation
covid-19
splicestudio
audiomovers
audiotechnology
music education
audio technology
Barry Hill
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
173
181
10.1558/prbt.19304
-
The embodiment of ‘Chinese strength’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19331
<p>This article examines how Chinese songs have incorporated collectivism-oriented cultural values since the outbreak of COVID-19. Such songs are composed to express emotions and cultural values during the global crisis. They are also cultural symbols, sharing not only music but also cultural spirit. This article takes lyrics in Chinese songs, published from February to April 2020, as symbolic texts to analyse the cultural values behind music composing and expression. We identify keywords in song lyrics such as Yi Qing [epidemic], Kang Yi [anti-epidemic] and Xin Guan [COVID-19] via a representative music platform (NetEase Cloud Music) in China. The results show that these lyrics emphasize different levels of collectivism, including eulogizing the nation, advocating unity, and praising national heroes.</p>
Riffs
COVID-19
Lyrics
Epidemic Songs
Cultural Collectivism
Popular music in the COVID-19
Cultural Studies
Popular Music Studies
Wenyu Zhong
Mengyu Luo
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
118
122
10.1558/prbt.19331
-
Precarious scenes
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19335
<p>This article examines how the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill protests in Hong Kong, and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, has affected the indie music scene on a local level. It also explores the many ways that artists, bands and venue owners have sustained music activities and reflects on the impact that the pandemic has had on the author’s own research as a postgraduate student. The author discusses the changes that he has had to make following gig cancellations. The article concludes by considering how the pandemic has foregrounded performances of precarity in the scene’s activities, long before any pandemic or even protest movement occurred.</p>
Riffs
Hong Kong
Indie Scene
Precarity
Protest
Pandemic
marginalization
Hong Kong
Indie
Scenes
Protests
Protest
Precarity
Anti-ELAB
COVID-19
Pandemic
Music
marginalization
Ethnomusicology
Hong Kong Studies
Jonathan Chan
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
135
143
10.1558/prbt.19335
-
Jealous corona
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19342
<p>In March 2020, a music video produced in collaboration with the Vietnamese Ministry of Health, ‘Jealous Corona’ (Ghen Cô Vy), otherwise known as the ‘Handwashing Song’, was picked up by international media outlets including John Oliver, ABC, The Guardian and NME. The video has since received over 72 million views on YouTube, and TikTok users have posted over 33,000 personalized video responses (as of 10 February 2021). With his fieldwork plans cancelled due to restrictions on international travel, Lonán Ó Briain discusses his experience of becoming immersed into Vietnamese social media and following the TikTok phenomenon associated with ‘Jealous Corona’ online. He describes the premise behind the original production, analyses the music, lyrics and video, and then considers how young people actively engaged with the music video, became invested in its public health message and encouraged the government to rethink how musical propaganda works in contemporary Vietnam.</p>
Riffs
music video
Vietnam
social media
propaganda
public health
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook
music
media
popular culture
cultural propaganda
online ethnography
ethnomusicology
media studies
popular music studies
Asian studies
Lonán Ó Briain
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
111
117
10.1558/prbt.19342
-
The role of communication technologies between choreographer and composer during Aotearoa/New Zealand’s COVID-19 response
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19343
<p>This article demonstrates how rapidly creatives can amend their creative processes to account for imposed limitations, particularly in the context of COVID-19. It documents a gradual shift in the way that in-person collaboration is valued. The use of communication technologies between composer and choreographer are compared through examples of the authors’ own work both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This allows for observations to be made as to how interpersonal, domestic and international creative processes may develop in the future global ‘new normal’. Aotearoa/New Zealand’s current quasi-post-pandemic status allows for predictions to be made about what this collaborative relationship may look like for the rest of the world post-COVID.</p>
Riffs
dance
composition
communication technologies
COVID-19
pandemic
dance
composition
communications
musicology
dance studies
Jesse Austin-Stewart
Jason Wright
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
103
110
10.1558/prbt.19343
-
The Jazz Social
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19344
<p>The Jazz Social was an online virtual jazz club which started during the first shutdowns for COVID in Australia from April to July 2020, now archived as ten videos on The Jazz Social YouTube channel. It was designed as an opportunity for musicians to perform and make up lost income when gigs disappeared overnight. The venture was arguably successful for a virtual jazz club: it employed 47 musicians, paying on average $116AUD for each performance; and each gig reached an average of 340 people, a considerably larger audience than a typical face-to-face jazz performance would attract. The Jazz Social gigs also brought together geographically diverse musicians and provided a platform for them to share music and discuss their experiences. With an understanding that Australia is entering a ‘new COVID normal environment’ which may have ongoing implications for face-to-face performance practice, this article reflects on what The Jazz Social has revealed about the nature of jazz performance, collaboration, community, virtuality, and the limitations and affordances of new technologies in producing knowledge through improvisation.</p>
Riffs
collaboration
Jazz
improvisation
performance
Jazz
Improvisation
Performance
virtuality
collaboration
music
Leigh Carriage
Toby Wren
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
159
164
10.1558/prbt.19344
-
‘It was hard before and it’s even harder now’
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19345
<p style="margin: 0cm; margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: 200%;">This article offers reflections on the impact of COVID-19 on the arts and entertainment industries in Australia, with a specific focus on the music industry. The pandemic has placed added financial and psychological strain on the industry’s workers and performing artists, many of whom were already struggling emotionally with financial instability and job insecurity prior to the pandemic. The federal government’s inadequate financial support for arts workers, and its failure to protect Australia’s cultural and economic assets of live music and entertainment during the pandemic, are discussed. There is a need for a COVID-19 recovery plan that addresses the impacts of the pandemic and pre-existing issues of financial instability as well as the federal government’s undervaluing and underfunding of arts industries in Australia. The article is written from the perspective of the authors’ personal experiences as creative practitioners and researchers in the creative industries, and is based on media articles and research reports published prior to and during the pandemic (2018–2021). </p>
Riffs
live music
arts and entertainment
popular music
creative industries
music industry
COVID-19
mental health
popular music
mental health
creative industries
popular music studies
cultural studies
sociology
Kat Nelligan
Pariece Nelligan
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
144
158
10.1558/prbt.19345
-
The social media strategies of punk and metal bands on Instagram during the COVID-19 closures of live music venues in Melbourne
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19369
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic caused the closures of live music venues in Melbourne, Australia between March and November 2020. During this period, punk band Clowns and metal band Ocean Grove used the social media platform Instagram to engage their audiences and maintain their standing within their scene despite not being able to engage in regular activities such as live performance. This article analyses the strategies used by the bands, including fan engagement and dialogue, nostalgia for pre-pandemic times, and promotion and fundraising. When used in combination, these categories enabled the bands to solicit conversation from their fans, foster unity by reminiscing about previous successes, and promote merchandise and support organizations which mitigated the loss of income across the industry.</p>
Riffs
Melbourne
Australian music
Live music
COVID-19
Social media
Instagram
Social media
Melbourne
Live music
Coronavirus
Instagram
COVID-19
Popular music studies
Al Marsden
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
165
172
10.1558/prbt.19369
-
Pandemic pedagogy and facilitating connection
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19396
<p>The shift to online teaching during the global pandemic has been extremely challenging for educators and students alike. In this article, the author shares some of her own experiences with designing an asynchronous Musics of Asia course for undergraduates at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Although she has taught Musics of Asia many times before in person, teaching the same course asynchronously is an entirely new course preparation. One of the challenges of an asynchronous format is the facilitation of student connection. Some of the pedagogical strategies with trying to create meaningful interactions with students are discussed. Rather than assigning a traditional final term paper, the author chose to design a Final Oral History Project. Students were paired into groups and had to set up and conduct an oral history interview with one of the guest lecturers for the course. The guest lecturers—all highly esteemed musicians with long professional careers in music performance—were born in the following countries: China, India, Mongolia, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. The results of the final project, and some of the strategies for cultivating connections in online, asynchronous teaching, are discussed.</p>
Riffs
asynchronous learning
connection
pandemic
oral history
Pandemic pedagogy
Asian musicians
ethnomusicology
oral history
Ethnomusicology
Oral History
Asian Studies
Katherine In-Young Lee
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
182
188
10.1558/prbt.19396
-
Hearing the inaudible
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/19421
<p>This article considers multiple ways in which, one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hong Kong experimental music scene has been impacted by the global health crisis and the social restrictions it has imposed on its actors. Using insights from three active local experimental music musicians and event organizers, it argues that three main tendencies are currently at play in the scene: adaptation, internationalization and extinction. It concludes that while the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed some actors the possibility to break down the relative isolation characteristic of the Hong Kong experimental music landscape, it appears to largely compound pre-existing structural issues within the scene.</p>
Riffs
experimental music
COVID-19
Hong Kong studies
popular music
live music
Covid-19
Hong Kong Studies
Independent Music
Popular Music Studies
Cultural Studies
East Asian Studies
François Mouillot
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
123
134
10.1558/prbt.19421
-
Editorial introduction
https://journal.equinoxpub.com/PB/article/view/21557
Introduction
COVID
coronavirus
pandemic
music
Asia-Pacific
Music
Music
Shelley Brunt
Oli Wilson
Copyright (c) 2021 Equinox Publishing Ltd.
2021-12-21
2021-12-21
91
95
10.1558/prbt.21557