YOUTUBE SAVES THE INDIE ROCK STAR

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New Paper
6 April 2009

YOUTUBE SAVES THE INDIE ROCK STAR

Local bands put music videos on web for wider reach

By Ho Lian-Yi

NO MTV? No problem.

For many bands, making a music video is a rite of passage. But for indie groups with little hope of mainstream airplay, there seemed little point - until video website YouTube came along.

While music copyright holders in Germany and the UK are tussling with YouTube over how much they should receive, more and more local indie bands are creating music videos, and putting them online.

In Singapore, it's not just relatively big names like Electrico who get to make music videos.

While most rely on self-funding, one businessman here is helping four local indie bands fulfil their music video dreams.

Mr Alvin Heng, 43, chief executive of WiMe, a company that makes Bluetooth audio devices and iPod accessories, believes such music videos can make an impact.

He decided to market his company by making music videos for four local indie bands - Peepshow, I am David Sparkle, The Karl Maka and The Great Spy Experiment.

The first, by Peepshow, features a love-sick sock. It was uploaded on Stomp and YouTube, and got more than 1,500 views on Stomp in less than a week.

Entertainment

'The most important reason people watch videos online is to be entertained... they don't want to watch an advertisement,' Mr Heng said.

The cost of making each video is about $10,000, though it can vary.

Mr Heng chose bands which are on the 'cutting edge of Singapore music'. He said: 'They are bands, which if I were to hear on American radio, I would think is top 40 material.'

He hired Mr Jeevan Nathan, 29, from Monochromatic Pictures, to direct.

Mr Jeevan said he made a video for West Grand Boulevard about four years ago and he did get indie bands approaching him. But there were funding problems with many of them.

'That there is funding coming in really helps the bands. They have a lot to gain from this - it's a free music video for them,' he said.

Peepshow vocalist Zaki, 27, a field engineer, said the music video for their new single Come Back To Me was the band's first.'We feel it's like something that is out of the box. Usually, you see the band just stand there, play instruments and sing. We wanted that fun element and to reflect the band's personality,' he said.

It was, he felt, another stepping stone for a local band to get itself noticed.

Jonathan Fong, one half of electronic duo The Karl Maka, said it's not about driving sales of their music, but creative expression.

'It's more about having fun, being able to contribute music with visuals that tell a story with the song,' he said.

But for some bands, it's serious business. Dance-rockers The Great Spy Experiment released their debut album, Flower Shop Riots, in September 2007.

But they completed their first music video, one of three they are working on, only recently. None of them have been released yet.

Mr Mike See, 31, the band's manager, said: 'Obviously, being indie, there's been quite a bit of challenge getting a video done.'

He said it took them months to save up for their first music video, as they had put all their funds into the production of the album.

The video cost a 'five-figure sum' to make. They wanted something high quality, as they are hoping for airplay from the likes of MTV and Channel V, 'which has regional implications'.

What about YouTube?

'For YouTube, if anything, the implication is far greater, because anyone can access YouTube,' he said.

Death metal band Absence Of The Sacred also took its time to put up a video online. Their self-financed video for Dawn Of A Dead Aeon, a single on their second album, was shot in three days in 2007. The slick, gothic video was on YouTube last week.

Mike Priest, 25, the band's vocalist, said the two people involved were not satisfied with their editing work at first. And one of them quit, adding to the delay.

He said: 'Most of the videos made by local bands lack depth and effort. There is no actual conceptualisation, mainly just them playing their songs or having a simple story board that appeals to the more simple of mind.'

It was, he said, 'typical MTV garbage the world could do without'.

Online, fast

Fortunately, most videos don't take a year to go online.

Local rockers Ugly In The Morning launched their second album For, Nikette Frehley at the Singapore Art Museum yesterday.

They uploaded the video for its first single Me, Not Humphrey At 23, last Christmas. The video, a satire on one-take scenes so popular on the indie film circuit, got more than 2,600 views.

David Baptista, 39, the guitarist, said: 'YouTube, in today's context, has a much greater reach than MTV does. It's a lot easier to spread it... I can just send you a link, and say go check it out.'

He said it cost the band less than $2,000 to make, because the director, Mr Kenny Png, the creative director of arts collective The Enigmatic Army, charged them only for material costs.

For Mr Png, 30, the pioneer of local music videos was Eric Khoo in the 1990s, for bands like The Oddfellows and Opposition Party. After that, it was only in the last three years that it picked up, possibly driven by technology.

He admits he doesn't know if these videos really help in terms of marketing or sales, but said they do help in branding, which is important for any band that wants to be heard.

'We're trying to be own content makers. We're taking the initiative back into our own hands,' he said.