Eternal Soundcheck: Year One

EVERETT TRUE speaks to 'Eternal Soundcheck' curator Matt Kennedy about his visual documentation of Brisbane's thriving DIY underground scene, in advance of a special "best of" one-year anniversary screening this Thursday (September 16).

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] It's odd. All these folk working in the Australian music industry always go on about yr Sonic Youth and yr Nirvana and yr Pavement and yr PJ Harvey, but do they seriously think any of them got their first big break playing music industry conventions? Or that they were funded by their local government? There's been plenty of talk up here for a few years now about how Brisbane's going to be the next big city with regards music, but unless I miss my guess, if this does happen it sure won't be because of what's happening at a corporate level. The bands being sponsored and promoted thus in Brisbane are the same bands you can find anywhere. These are NEVER the bands that break cultural movements.

If Brisbane's going to break through it's going to be because of catalytic agents like Matt Kennedy's Eternal Soundcheck blog

Eternal Soundcheck's premise is simple: document the shows that Matt regularly attends (and plays at, as part of the frenetic three-piece Kitchen's Floor) at rough-n-ready communal venues like Burst City and The Lofly Hangar that had previously gone unmentioned - shows that understand choice of venue is at least as important as choice of mixing desk or publicity agent. Shows rooted in a love for the DIY principles that have guided pretty much all of the great Australian and American bands of the past two decades. Shows featuring bands like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Royal Headache, The Deadnotes, Sky Needle, Blank Realm, Scraps and Slug Guts; many of which will be screening this Thursday at The Tribal Theatre as part of Eternal Souncheck’s first anniversary. This is where cultural change comes from – if it comes at all.

“The sorts of bands I like are the damaged ones, the fucked-up ones that burst with imagination and honest creativity while being unappreciated by 99.9 percent of society.”

Why did you start Eternal Soundcheck? Did you have a specific intention behind it? Did you know you were going to be documenting live music via video?
I had been going to shows and playing in bands for a few years and decided to start filming what I was seeing as a small attempt to try to bring more attention to the bands/venues/people I thought deserved it. I go to as many shows as I can and it's kind of become an obsession to me now to make sure as much of it is filmed as possible, just to have something available in the future to prove it all existed. Eternal Soundcheck is a long-term project, it's something that I will keep doing as long as I have a working video camera and the ability to go to shows.

Is there a particular aesthetic behind the blog? What attracts you to the type of music you document? How random are your choices? Do you have any particular favourites?
Most of the bands I focus on are the ones that get very little recognition for what they do. Brisbane bands like Scraps and Blank Realm have been around for years and are absolutely world class yet their biggest shows will be to only 50 or so people. The sorts of bands I like are the damaged ones, the fucked-up ones that burst with imagination and honest creativity while being unappreciated by 99.9 percent of society. Music like this is definitely worth documenting in as many ways as possible, it's completely unique to its time and place and is one of both the highest and lowest forms of human expression.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]

Do you think there's something that sets Brisbane apart from other cities? Yes? No? If so, what? If not, why? What sort of venues do you yourself prefer? What sort of approach to playing live music? What's the attraction of live music for you? Is alcohol involved?
I prefer shows that are held outside of the sanitised realm of bigger venues. I like the ones where at the end of the night you're covered in shit, your ears are ringing and everything looks blurry but everything leading up to that miserable moment was done without compromise. One thing that Brisbane is great for is that the inner-city is still full of big old houses that are the perfect places to hold shows, which is something that's not as easily available in Sydney and Melbourne.

[Brisbane sound artist] Joel Stern claims: "Over the past 12 months the Eternal Soundcheck blog has emerged as a key source of video documentation for the Brisbane and Australian musical underground" - would you agree with this statement, modesty notwithstanding?
I've spent a lot of time on this hobby over the last year and I'd like to think I've done something to help capture what's happening in Australian music right now, I've ended up with hundreds of hours of footage from all over the place so that's got to count for something. If any of it will be watchable in 10 or 20 years though, I have no idea.

[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.]

Do you see your video documentary as running in parallel with your band Kitchen's Floor? Are there shared values? What defines the "underground" for you?
I make sure my band and the bands I play with are well filmed so yeah, a lot of it revolves around Kitchen's Floor in some way, most of the interstate footage is shot while on tour. I see the 'underground' as a nice word to describe something that's extremely small and overlooked. Most shows I go to have on average around 30 people in attendance, this stuff isn't easily accessible and it might seem intimidating to some people so I just try to hype it up in my own little way without sounding too stupid.

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Eternal Soundcheck will celebrate its one-year anniversary at The Tribal Theatre in Brisbane on Thursday, September 16, 8pm. Live sets from Knee Chin and Gerald Kearney And The Gerald Kearneys.

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