A serious contender for New Zealand’s most definable musical movement, the ‘Dunedin sound’ has been left bloody and battered in the wake of Covid lockdowns and an unlucky slew of venue closures. But through concentrated efforts by a collective of local musos, a return to its glory days
Dunedin’s live music scene: The rise, fall, and rise again of the famed Dunedin sound
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Despite the storied history, the past three years have left the city’s musicians, punters, and venue owners battered and bruised in the wake of multiple closures and a changing culture around live music largely borne from Covid lockdowns.
On the side of a downtown independent record store, a graffiti tag reads: “Flying Nun? More like Dying Fun.”
In March this year, beloved music venue Dog With Two Tails closed after falling victim to business difficulties and noise complaints - to rub salt in the wound, a proper send-off was denied the venue after a car ploughed into its music space Bark!
Dog With Two Tails and Bark! booking agent Michael Morris said he felt it was a common misconception that the venue closed solely due to its noise complaints, of which he said there were only two.
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“There were a lot more factors at play ... Public apprehension to go out and about at that time, and Covid vaccine passes were really difficult to navigate as a business and a venue. All of that had a really harsh effect on what was essentially a small business,” he said.
The wave of venue closures in Dunedin was a multi-faceted situation, though it largely fell under the banner of Covid, he said.
“People are changing their threshold for the cost of entertainment. It’s hard to buy groceries, it’s even harder to kind of go out to have fun ... But there is still a hunger for it.”
Most recently, bar and music venue Dive, which was situated in the same building as the former Captain Cook Tavern, closed its doors after owner Michael McLeod was served with three separate eviction notices by his landlord.
The notices included one for allegations of tampering with a fire alarm, another for the name of the company signed on to the lease, and the final notice was for rent arrears - though McLeod said this was for the exact amount of a disputed water bill.
During the issues that faced Dog With Two Tails and Bark!, a collective of musos, punters, academics, and local leaders formed the collective Save Dunedin Live Music (SDLM) in 2021.
The collective has since been leading engagements with the music community, and formed a productive relationship with the Dunedin City Council (DCC) that has led to creation of the Ōtepoti Live Music Action Plan that was drafted in September this year.
SDLM spokesman David Bennett said their relationship began tenuously, largely stemming from DCC noise control responding to noise complaints at Dog With Two Tails, where Bennett was a sound engineer, on several occasions.
“I was like, ‘What are you talking about? It’s 10pm on a Friday night in the middle of the city, and this is a music venue. And we’re not even very loud,” he said.
At the time, Bennet felt the council had a “general lack of commitment to the music scene”.
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“Being a council that liked to bank so heavily on being a culture council at the time and, and also would really cash in on the Dunedin sound and the reputation of Dunedin as a music city in a lot in their advertising and their tourist stuff, we weren’t seeing any of that playing out in actual reality.”
The first order of business for the newly established SDLM was drafting a petition requesting changes from how council worked around noise complaints.
“We were basically asking [council] to define clear rules, and to basically give music venues a chance to actually survive in an environment where people can shut them down just because they’re annoyed at them,” said Bennet.
The petition drew over 1000 signatures, resulting in council forming a working group, and then-current mayor Aaron Hawkins giving the group $10,000 from the mayoral discretionary fund to fund a solution for the time being.
The Ōtepoti Live Music Action Plan was voted in nearly unanimously (with a sole dissident in Cr Lee Vandervis).
It proposed the creation of one or more “entertainment precincts” where live music and gigs would be prioritised over residential land use in certain areas, such as by the Octagon.
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Recommendations included an increase in acoustic insulation levels for the entertainment zones, and the development of a guide for both venue operators and new inner-city residents so they knew what to expect in the area they would be living in.
Council also proposed developing infrastructure for the Dunedin music scene to tackle the issue of a lack of grassroot and mid-sized live music venues, as well as rehearsal spaces.
Bennet said the recent council support has been great and lauded the regulatory changes, though recognised the next big fight was finding room for Dunedin music in the council budget.
“It’s really easy to say ‘yeah, yeah, music is important, it’s great, that’s fantastic, I’d vote for that’, but then when somebody says we need $3 million to fix Sammy’s (a since closed venue), all of a sudden it’s about not wanting to p**s off the ratepayers,” said Bennet.
Mid-2022, SDLM made national headlines when they staged a protest in the Octagon.
The protest was a result of the council approving an application that would see apartments built next to The Crown Hotel, one of the city’s sole remaining major music venues and a nursery for up-and-coming bands, while the action plan was still in its development stages.
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Bennet said he understood the need for more housing in a growing urban population, “but it needs to be done in a way that can coexist with venues that provide entertainment and music as part of the city”.
“The fact that they would give that consent to this developer without any pool in the midst of this whole thing that has been happening with the music thing scene, it was a gut punch and a half,” he said.
The Crown Hotel owner Jones Chin was of a more casual disposition regarding the construction of the apartments over the road.
“We don’t actually know what it will be like until the people are in there, if they complain,” he said.
“You have to wait and see what the outcome is. Between now and then I’ll probably have my windows double-glazed, and they’ll have to double-glaze their windows ... So we’ll see how much sound actually gets through.”
Chin’s family have been stalwarts of the Dunedin music scene since before the inception of the Dunedin sound.
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His family owned the famed venue Sammy’s until its closure in 2017, and his father owned the Sunset Strip on Rattray St that ran from the early to late 60s - and hosted the after party for the Rolling Stones when they played the Dunedin town hall in 1965 - and later opened Tai Ping Restaurant in the same building, which became Dunedin’s first cabaret.
During its operations, Sammy’s was a fixture of the live music circuit, though was purchased by DCC in 2017 and has remained closed since.
In 2022, a group of around 100 students discovered an unlocked access point to the building and put on an unauthorised one-off gig, which brought attention to council’s inaction with their ownership.
The Crown Hotel was bought by Chin with his brothers in 1989, and has since seen a revolving door of local and international acts.
“In the early days, it was all cover bands ... The bands used to get access to music off the boats that came from America. They used to buy the records, 45s off the crew, and sometimes amps and guitars as well, and they do covers off those singles.”
Having seen first-hand the ebbs and flows of the local music scene, Chin was aware of the changing culture around live acts and a slight reluctance for punters to attend concerts following Covid - but noted the music was still alive, and still good.
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“The bands have always been there.”
Despite the woes of the previous years, there has been opportunity for some - the sale of brewery New New New led to Mili Oxley Lobo and Baden Oxley, along with family members Ed and Michelle Lobo, taking ownership of the industrial-style building and repurposing it into a 500 capacity live music venue, Errick’s.
The venue held its unofficial opening on the second Friday of November, with its grand opening set to take place in early December.
“We just felt there was such a huge gap in the market in Dunedin, and especially seeing more and more and more businesses go under that are in this industry - just someone needed to do it,” said Oxley Lobo.
Her father Ed has taken the reins as the venues in-house production manager.
“He’s a huge part of Save Dunedin Live Music, he’s a musician himself - building a career in music is his ultimate dream,” said Oxley Lobo.
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The venue is currently at a capacity of 300, though with the space for 500 the owners are in the process of applying for consents.
“We are on the larger scale for a music venue, but what our aim is is to bring those touring bands into Dunedin, where they will be looking for three or four gigs to make it worth their while, which hopefully in turn will create more business for the smaller places, too,” she said.
“The support has been overwhelming - and the excitement as well ... Every single person we’ve talked to has said it’s exactly what Dunedin needs.”
