Hello everybody on HIVE, and especially the Music Community. My name is Jasper and I'm writing to you from Cape Town in South Africa!!
This is me...
Just under a year ago I wrote this piece, where I was worried about the future of the Barleycorn Music Club, a non-profit organization that puts on a 3 act gig every Monday to promote live original music in Cape Town...
Since then, the Barleycorn has managed to change venues. I got to go and play a solo set at their new venue last week...
Firstly, I was proud of the way I played and sang. Secondly, the sound quality was good. Thirdly, the thirty or so people who were in the audience really listened and were kind, quiet and supportive. However, almost all of them looked like they were probably there, and at least teenagers at the time, when the club was started in 1975! Yes, definitely most of them were over 60 years old!
I spoke to one of the newer committee members. He said the audiences had been erratic lately... sometimes 30 people even when some established good artists are playing, and sometimes a lot more when the artists aren't that well known.
Now, I used to be on the Barleycorn committee myself when I was a student and had the time, and I care about the future of the Barleycorn, and live original music in Cape Town, but I am starting to get the feeling that the Barleycorn Music Club as a concept is in a death spiral... so I reached out to other people that I know organize gigs in South Africa to get their take...
One of them, who has been on the Barleycorn Committee more recently than me, said he left the club when he realized it was doomed and that he could do better organizing little gigs on his own... He thinks the Barleycorn Music Club hasn't really worked or added the same value since social media took over in about 2010...
Another person told me that the entire music industry is suffering in South Africa. Famous established artists are having to travel from town to town to make ends meet, and it is making people fussy. People will be able to check their phones and only spend their money on gigs that they know will be having an impact, and definitely will not spend money taking a chance on unknown artists...
I know the Barleycorn Committee members quite personally. I know them to be stubborn about what they do, and resistant to the idea of any real change. However, I figured I would at least collect a few ideas together, and I wrote them the following email:
Hi Andy.
Firstly, I would like to start by giving huge respect and love to the Barleycorn, and what it has selflessly done to promote and advance local original music for the last 49 years, and the value it has added to my life.
I thoroughly enjoyed my set two weeks ago. However, I hear your own concerns about the audience numbers being very erratic lately. For my own part, I noticed that the average audience age two weeks ago was maybe 60? Old enough to be getting sleepy towards the end despite Alec's brilliant and rousing performance...
So how do we get younger people to come to the Barleycorn, so that it can continue for another 50 years? I’ve chatted to a couple of other people who know and love the Barleycorn well, and the perceptions have ranged from:
· “The Barleycorn will be fine” optimism, to:
· “The Barleycorn was a brilliant institution up until about 2010, the age of social media… and now it just doesn’t work as a concept anymore and will not survive much longer. There's nothing we can do to save it...” pessimism.
For my part, I lean a bit to the pessimistic side. Today’s young people with their social media addiction have very short attention spans – the majority of them simply won’t enjoy trying to connect to another person’s soul through their song-writing efforts.
However, there must be some other outliers like me out there who write their own songs and want to make connections, and we should be trying to find them… Currently, they are not all using the Barleycorn anymore.
So, with that said, here are my thoughts – they will be blunt:
Venue
The Barn at Kelvin had the more appropriate vibe to match what a Barleycorn punter wants.
The Terrace is too fancy (stuffy), and the attempts to serve a cheaper Barleycorn menu that Barleycorn punters can afford then really feels misplaced, and like the Barleycorn evening is an after-thought. The venue should feel relaxed and geared towards live music.
With that said, I would not expect most young people to want to come to Kelvin Grove. Its history and glory days are in the past... For some of the more woke... its history of colonialism and racism (not even Jewish people were allowed) means that many people won’t feel relaxed coming there.
Monday Night
Young people with jobs don’t want to have a late Monday night. The classic Barleycorn reasoning is that you don’t want to take away from other venues that promote music. That is loser talk. There are only so many acts that can play similar original music at Alma Café or Cottage Club on the weekend, and most other venues are for cover artists. The Barleycorn is trying to do something special and different and is not in direct competition with anything else.
I would suggest Sunday evening, probably 5-8pm?
Non-Profit
One of the main reasons that the Barleycorn doesn’t get huge audiences is because nobody is incentivised to market the evening…
The Barleycorn should be run like a mini-business – (it would then adapt or die.)
Perhaps:
· The first however-many tickets (20?) are kept aside to pay the sound engineer.
· The next however-many tickets (20?) are kept aside for equipment maintenance or replacing/songwriter prizes, etc.
· There should be a questionnaire at the door: Who are you coming to see?:
o “Actually, this host always puts on good shows” / the Barleycorn in general
o Act 1
o Act 2
o Act 3, and then:
· Ticket sales after the first (40?) mentioned above should either go to the Host or the act that the audience at the door says that they are coming to see… or some combination. Make it a marketing competition between Host and the acts so that if they can get over 40 tickets, somebody actually gets some reward for it.
Musician Quality
One of the best things about Barleycorn is that anyone is welcome to ask to come and play.
However, when that person turns out to be fairly bad and then has free reign for 6-7 songs… this is the kind of torture that is going to stop people who have come for the first time to support their friend, from ever coming back…
I would propose new musicians should only get two songs during the first set, as an audition to be invited back properly.
The evening should then be:
· Between 1 and 3 new acts playing 2 songs each to audition to be invited back.
· Good but not established artist
· Excellent, popular artist
The benefits would be:
· Most audiences can be tolerant, supportive and sympathetic to 2 songs of poor quality, and it won’t ruin the evening…
· Beginners tend to bring support along. Three beginners in one evening could bring a significant amount of people along.
Theme for the Evening
It’s fun to watch musicians react to a challenge. Perhaps it would make the evening more exciting and fun if each act were challenged to cover a certain artist or a song about a certain theme…
Young Committee Members
Of young people, only college students really have the time to help on the Barleycorn Committee. Once we start jobs and families, we probably can’t help out often enough until we retire and our kids are fully grown.
Barleycorn should form a relationship with UCT and other colleges… Are there music clubs, etc…
Connections
We come to Barleycorn, we play, we go home. It’s all over until next time…
The Barleycorn would be more impactful if it tried to facilitate connections between different artists, songwriting schools, recording studios, small radio stations, etc… so people could learn from each other about what actually works…
Other Venues
I’d imagine that places like The Alma Café, Cottage Club, The Courtyard in McGregor (Steve Van) are all struggling with audiences, but might all have suggestions about how they keep their head above water, marketing and otherwise.
They may have many other better ideas than me. Perhaps visit more trendy venues in town as well and try have a chat or even just get them to suggest acts they’re noticing?
I hope this helps.
I really hope the Barleycorn lasts forever in some form that continues to promote original musicians...
Best regards,
Jasper
So that's what I sent. I've already got a response from the Chairman that was polite, but was obviously implying that they were going to ignore all of it, but at least I tried.
I do think there is a good chance that if I check in with you in 10 years, the Barleycorn Music Club will be gone, and so will the other three or four places in Cape Town where it is possible to sing live original music with good sound to an audience that actually cares... and that's really sad.
