Kia ora.
Quiz nights are booked, experimental shows are locked in, and an appreciation night for Robert Smith’s goth-rock act The Cure is in the diary. Show up at Darkroom on a random night and you could encounter almost anything. Tonight, the Lads on Tour cabaret show is happening; tomorrow it’s hardcore act Another Fucking Problem. “We are a metal bar, we are a queer night club, we are a jazz bar,” says co-owner Feather Shaw. “We are all those things to all those communities … we don’t mind if you only know a couple of chords or your instrument of choice is pots and pans.”
Anyone who visits Ōtautahi’s Darkroom says that welcoming spirit is what makes the Saint Asaph Street venue so special. Right now, it’s a successful formula. With shows often running four or more nights a week, as well as catering for art exhibitions and band rehearsals during the day, Darkroom is booked solid for the next six months. “If you want to come and play at Darkroom and you’re contacting me [now], you’d be looking at a Thursday in January,” says Shaw, who has run the venue with Nick Vassar for nearly seven years.
Darkroom opened in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes. One of its first owners went bankrupt, then it had to survive Covid. With little to no income for many months, it was an incredibly tough time for small venues around Aotearoa. As Ōtautahi’s cityscape evolves and more residential buildings go up, Darkroom is working with other venues, Independent Music Venues Aotearoa (IMVA) and the Christchurch City Council on draft Central City Noise plan changes called PC21. Over their seven years running the place, Shaw and Vassar have watched 11 other venues around the city close their doors.
But Darkroom will soon host an event that signifies another major challenge. On August 8, it will run a fundraising gig – for itself. “Darkroom has never been a money-maker of a venture but has plodded along making enough money to break even,” Shaw admits in press material for the show. “This year has been a bit different … we’ve been falling a bit short, especially through the quieter winter months.” Vassar’s band The Wendys are on the bill alongside local acts Paperwaves and Sentient Mud. The poster sardonically declares: “Help us buy butter.”
Upon seeing this, I reached out to ask Shaw to explain what running a small music venue is like in 2025. Are they feasible? Is it possible for them to work? Can they survive? She told me that, despite the constant challenges, it still feels like a privilege, like she and Vassar are the custodians for something special. “The creativity, community and kindness we get to see every single week is truly incredible,” she says. “I’m so inspired by the young femmes and thems I see getting on our stage. I’m so proud and protective of them.”
Even for a small venue that caps out at 100 people, there are ever-increasing bills to pay. What’s gone up? Everything. “Our costs are up across the board,” Shaw says. “There isn’t one bill or operational expense that has not gone up in the last 12 months.” Recently, Darkroom received a $3000 bill for APRA/OneMusic license fees and a $3000 insurance bill in the same month. “Our monthly income at the moment is just falling short of our monthly expenses,” she says. “At the end of the day, we’ve got bills to pay.”
Electricity is the big one. During winter, the costs of keeping Darkroom’s heat pumps running take their power bill to as much as $800 a month. “Our consumption is the same as it has been in previous winter months, but the cost has gone up,” Shaw says. “We have these freezing cold winter nights here in Christchurch when we can see the ice glistening on the car windscreens outside. On those nights, and there are many, we have to crank the heat pumps for hours to keep it cosy and warm.”
Darkroom’s situation isn’t unique, says Lucy Macrae, the co-chair of IMVA who says small venues across Aotearoa are feeling “intense” pressure. “Power bills, licensing fees, rent, insurance, staffing, even the cost of sound gear and maintenance, have all risen sharply in the past couple of years,” she says. She points to fluctuating audience numbers, the cost-of-living crisis and a shift away from drinking adding further strain. “Many of these spaces operate on the thinnest of margins but play a crucial role in supporting local music communities. Without them, emerging artists lose places to cut their teeth, and audiences lose access to grassroots live music.”
Unless something changes, Macrae predicts situations like the one Darkroom has found itself in will become more frequent. She should know: she also runs Double Whammy in Tāmaki Makaurau. “Until we have more sustainable funding streams and policy reforms that invest in venue infrastructure as part of artist and audience development, fundraisers like this will continue to be the norm,” she says. Macrae shares another prediction even more dire: “Worse, independent music venues will keep closing.”
The temptation could be to put their menu prices up or book bands that would bring in crowds that would buy more drinks. But Darkroom is by the people, for the people. No one’s looking to make millions out of the venture. Shaw and Vassar both have day jobs; Shaw recently celebrated buying a second-hand car from 2007. For them, success is building a community around their venue while keeping the lights on. “We want to still have space for those 18 to 25-year-olds, as well as for the weird stuff we love – the experimental artists playing pots and pans to an audience of five people.”
Shaw assures me Darkroom isn’t in dire straits just yet, but this fundraising show won’t be the thing that pulls them out of the red. Instead, she hopes the show – and this story – raises awareness for the the importance of small music venues around Aotearoa. “We can’t have stadium level superstars if we don’t have little spaces for folks to first play and learn in,” says Shaw. “We think Darkroom’s got some life left in her yet – if we can just get through this winter.”
Tickets to Darkroom’s fundraising gig are here; the venue’s regular schedule can be found here.
Everything else you need to know.
He was a rare rock front man you could relate to, one who then went on to become a British national treasure. “He behaved remarkably like a member of the audience who’d been allowed on stage and couldn’t quite believe his luck: in an era of rarefied rock gods preening, here was a rock star whose every move suggested he was just like you,” writes Alex Petridis for The Guardian about the death of Ozzy Osbourne at the age of 76. He credits Osbourne’s Black Sabbath for the creation of heavy metal thanks to his howl, a “a desolate, unschooled wail”. Of all the tributes being penned about Osbourne, this is the best one.
Meanwhile, local promoter Barry Coburn remembers the time he brought Black Sabbath out to Aotearoa for a 1973 performance at the Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival. Coburn remembers one unusual request from Osbourne: “He said, ‘Listen, when we go onstage at midnight, we want to have a huge burning cross up on the hillside. When we come on stage suddenly this big cross burns up,’” he tells RNZ. Coburn made it happen using wire and petrol-soaked rags. “There’ll never be another Ozzy Osbourne,” he says. The full story is here.
Someone remembered us! Our first run of big gigs this summer has finally been confirmed with former-busker-turned-main-stage-balladeer Ed Sheeran hitting three Aotearoa stadiums in January: Auckland’s Go Media Stadium on January 16, Wellington’s Sky Stadium on January 21, and Christchurch’s Apollo Projects Stadium on January 24 as part of his global Loop Tour. There is lots of room between those shows to add more too; if you want tickets, pre-sales begin on Monday. It’s not Kendrick Lamar or Lady Gaga, but it’s something.
As we discussed earlier this week, winter is the most miserable time of the year to be a music fan in Aotearoa. Neil Finn is doing something about it with a new season of his livestreamed Infinity Sessions. For two weeks, some of the country’s biggest artists will perform at Finn’s Roundhead Studios to help “make us feel good about life” (something Finn calls “MUFGA”). Limited tickets are available if you want to go to the shows, otherwise sets by The Beths, Tom Scott, Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga and more will be livestreamed at 7.30pm each night. The line-up and ticket registry is here; for background, Finn spoke to The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire about this ridiculous idea becoming a “musical colossus”.
I’ve been banging on for months now about the long list of major artists that refuse to tour Aotearoa in favour of exclusive Australian shows. As it turns out, we’re not the only ones suffering this terrible trend. “Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, Charli XCX, Lady Gaga and Burna Boy have all overlooked Vancouver on their most recent tours,” reports the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Why Vancouver? That story suggests they’re suffering the same reasons as us, including a lack of larger venues and increasing travel costs.
However, instead of being a bad thing, Ben Howe says the absence of large-scale international acts is a good thing. “If fans don’t blow their entertainment budget on an epic rock night with Pearl Jam, then they’ll get sweaty with Wellington’s Dartz instead,” the industry veteran argues for The Spinoff. “When the borders were closed (but we could still attend events) during Covid, people tried different things; local live music thrived.” It’s an interesting stance backed up by Massey University research, but it’s deflated by the fact that major artists just aren’t coming here anymore.
Liz Pelly is the author who recently wrote the definitive book for our times, Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. Now, she’s visiting Aotearoa for a one-off conversation with local music journalist Martyn Pepperell that promises to “demystify and critique the forces shaping contemporary music listening and our global musical economy”. Big topic! She’ll appear at Tāmaki Makaurau’s Whammy Bar on August 26 and yes, she’ll sign your copy of her book. Tickets are $18; they’re available here.
Screw the Chromokopia tour: when Tyler the Creator arrives for his sold out August 18 show at Spark Arena he needs to play his new, surprise album Don’t Tap the Glass in full. It’s so good! It’s so much fun! ‘Tell Me What It Is’ is a genuine song of the year contender! It’s all I’ve listened to this week! Pitchfork calls it “a genuine embrace of his superstardom.” Stereogum agrees. “Each song feels like holding a cold can against the back of your neck — a cooling balm for a season and an era that feels like flames licking at our extremities.” Go listen now!
Thanks for spending your time with me today. Newsletters like this take care, energy and love. If you’d like to contribute to the work I’m doing here and support independent Aotearoa music journalism, the best way is to become a fully-fledged subscriber. Stay safe, listen to lots of music and we’ll talk again soon …
-Chris
Bonus beat.
Is there actually evidence that a person unable to see that huge international band instead goes to see the pots and pan bashing outsider artist at the Darkroom? That sounds like some wishful thinking... I'm 51, my first gig was a Cuban War Poets tape release at Ak Uni... I'm gonna opt for pots and pans at the Darkroom everytime. My sister, she'd probably do an Ed Sheeran or a Gaga... Now I love some 'mersh ...Taylor Swift, greatest narrative pen since Springsteen, but I just don't do huge crowds. Is there actual evidence that people regularly crossover between sub400venues and arenas? And not "would you" utopian surveys, but actual hard data. I'm dubious, but I'd love to be wrong. A buncha dead c. loving Gaga kinda ladies, they'd be a fun hang. But do they exist?
MUFGA 💞