Fixing Bangkok's live music scene

It’s Saturday night in Bangkok. The club is heaving with revellers half-cut on whisky.

The cover band strikes a familiar chord, the crowd’s ears perk up and by the second verse of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” the place is going ape as hundreds of drunks join together in what could very well be the world’s biggest squealing sing-along.

Welcome to Bangkok’s live music scene – well at least the lion’s share of it.

Sure, there’s plenty of fantastic live music on display in a city renowned for its nightlife -- from jazz to reggae to folk to death metal. And the musicians at venues like Saxophone and the Rock Pub -- or any of the hundreds of other bars and clubs across town -- can keep a tune with the best of them.

But most are talented but rather uninspiring cover bands that make their way from bar to bar, playing the same set they’ve been churning out for years. When it comes to live original music -- local or international -- Bangkok is certainly no rock hub.
Cultivating the scene
That’s not to say there is no decent live music out there. You just have to find it. A number of promoters continue to put on nights featuring good, original Thai and international bands at places like Club Culture and Overtone Music Cave.

The city also plays host to bigger arena shows, and headline acts Green Day, The Killers and Muse are all scheduled or rumoured to be coming to town in the coming months. But there’s plenty of room for improvement.If Bangkok is to attract more decent international acts on a regular basis it has to start by building its own indie music scene into something that can compete with the other nightlife options around the capital, says Paul Solomons, one of the founders of music promoters and record label Mind the Gap (MTG).

“There are so many things going on any given night, and that seems to breed a certain amount of apathy when it comes to live gigs. You can hold out to see somebody like The Strokes or something, but chances are they’ll never come, and they certainly won’t if we can’t actually build a regular gig circuit,” says Solomons.

MTG, as well as a few other promoters, has been working to cultivate just that. Shows like the musical explosion put on by New York experimental rock outfit the Battles at Club Culture in March and Canada’s Handsome Furs in September were like an amphetamine-laced morning coffee for the city’s languid live music scene.
Change of venue -- and more money -- required

Regarding local talent, MTG puts on a regular Wednesday night at The Tube, where indie bands, such as Abuse the Youth, play original songs. Other promoters are trying to do similar things across the city with indie, hardcore metal and other sounds, as well as taking Thai bands on tour around the country and region to spread the word that Bangkok is not a musical black hole.

Others say you can build the hottest underground scene in the region, but without a decent, mid-sized venue to play at it will be hard to turn it into anything more than that.

David McLean, the driving force behind the ambitious Bangkok 100 Rock festival – which included Oasis, Franz Ferdinand and Snow Patrol – brought British band Keane to town in 2006. The only semi-suitable venue he could secure was Impact Arena, and with only 4,000 tickets sold, the 15,000-seater venue felt decidedly bare.

“If you had a 2,500-capacity venue, you’d do really well. But because there’s nothing like that here, it is literally impossible to do something on a regular basis,” he said.

Another problem facing bigger shows is securing sponsors – something promoters in Singapore and Hong Kong don’t seem as troubled by.

“You can get bands to play here any time if you can pay them the money. It doesn’t matter if you have a vibrant music scene or whatever, if you can pay the guarantee, people will come to see them,” says McLean, who still thinks Bangkok is the best place in the region for an international rock festival, with its hard-edge image and tropical lures providing an easy sell to bands.

Fat Fest: Showcasing home-grown talent

Bangkok is already home to the annual Fat Festival, an indie extravaganza that is best place to see the Thai music scene up close and in one dose. This year’s festival is on November 7 and 8 from noon to midnight in Challenger Halls 2 and 3 at Impact in Muang Thong Thani.

“There you’ll see everything -- good, bad and ugly. They get maybe 50,000 people over the two days. Anybody who’s anybody, big, huge or small, in the indie scene, are gonna be there,” says Beady Williams, a co-founder of MTG.

While promoters and venues have their part, chasing the zombies from Bangkok’s music scene comes down to the musicians themselves.

“It would be great if a lot of Thai bands got together and made their own scene out of it ‘cos all kinds of things can happen from there. In Manchester, photographers and artists and all kinds of people sort of started through punk, through the music,” says Steve Diggle, guitarist and vocalist with punk pioneers the Buzzcocks, who are playing a show in Bangkok later this month.

“If that can happen in Bangkok, that means we could come more often as well.”

upcoming live music events

Fat Festival
Saturday & Sunday, November 7-8, 12pm-12am
Impact Arena Muang Thang Thani
Two-day tickets 299 baht
www.totalreservation.com

The Coronas
Thursday, November 12, 8pm
Overtone Music Cave, RCA
Tickets 400 baht with one drink
www.overtone.tv

Buzzcocks
Saturday, November 28, 10pm
Club Culture, 20+ only
Sri Ayudthaya Road, BTS: Phayathai
Tickets 650 baht in advance, 800 baht at the door
www.club-culture-bkk.com

Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown Tour
Tuesday, January  12, 8pm
Impact Arena Muang Thang Thani
Tickets 800-1,200 baht
www.thaiticketmajor.com