There is something seriously lacking in Dunedin. And no, it’s not just the scarcity of our venues. Something is miss-ing, if you will.
Since the 1980s, the Dunedin Sound has been dominated by male voices. Right now the genre is still defined by surf-rock or alternative-indie sounds, which have become synonymous with the male voice to the point where Critic’s 2018 quiz ‘Which Dunedin Sound band are you?’ led straight from “there is a woman in my band” to “you are not a part of the Dunedin Sound.”
But that’s not entirely true; there have been plenty of iconic women that have carved out a place on this masculine stage, like Natasha Griffiths, Lesley Paris of Look Blue Go Purple, and Jane Dodd of The Chills. Still, breaking into the Dunedin music scene for women is harder than a Pint Night glass to the head: hard, painful and leaves you feeling pretty bruised. The fact we’ve got fuck-all venues and a culture of casual sexism also doesn’t help, meaning women go undervalued and underplayed.
Kaia Kahurangi Jamieson has been on the music scene for almost a year now, performing as the vocalist and guitarist of alternative band The Daze and indie-surf rock band The Audio Visual Dropkicks. She’s a newcomer, but in her short time Kaia has faced no shortage of sexism. And despite feeling like her male mates want to support her, and despite culture generally moving in a better direction, she’s often stopped to wonder: would this have happened if she were a dude?
Kaia has always been a musician, singing and playing guitar since the age of 10, born to parents who used to be in bands during their university years. Growing up in Auckland, Kaia said that there weren’t a lot of student bands. But after seeing a Dale Kerrigan gig in her first year, Kaia says she thought that Ashley, the band's lead singer, was the “coolest person in the world,” and she started to pursue her own projects. “I wanted to write surf-rock music, but I thought in order to get into the scene I would have to do something similar [to Dale Kerrigan] because there were no girls at U Bar gigs, they were only ever at The Crown,” she says.
But the stars aligned for Kaia when her friend Max, who plays in Hot Sauce Club, reached out to her asking if she wanted to play a gig. Naturally, Kaia agreed, thinking that the new world of live performances in Dunedin was going to be filled with more up-and-coming Dale Kerrigans. But when she rocked up to soundcheck she realised that, out of the three bands present, there was only one other girl. Kaia felt even more deflated when she realised the other girl and her band wasn’t ever going to stick around to play a show. “There were only two other bands, and there were only guys there when we sound checked,” says Kaia. “I don’t remember ever sound checking with another woman.” This year's Hyde Street Party was a turning point for her, saying a particular moment after getting off stage made her realise “how underlyingly sexist the Dunedin rock scene is.”
“When I’m playing with the ‘Kicks, after shows everyone will go up to the other lead singer and tell him what a great set it is. And he deserves the clout, but people seem to assume I’m not a lead vocalist, despite the evidence pointing to the fact that we’re equals,” she says. “When we played Hyde, that’s when it really clicked in what was happening and the difference was so noticeable. Everyone would ask to talk to the guys, and be like, ‘Hey man, great set,’ but they wouldn’t even see me,” she says. “Or, I was ‘the chick’ or ‘the girl’ in the band. I wasn’t spoken about in relation to my instrument, but I was identified by my gender.”
Kaia explains that she isn’t resentful of her male bandmates, and she doesn’t play music for validation or clout. Instead, she thinks that these instances are “indicative of a wider theme” and that masculine voices have become a prerequisite to the Dunedin surf-rock sound. “While the music industry is better for women now, there is still this disconnect that if you want to be a girl in a band you have to be pop or RnB, but I love making surf-indie rock. People think there’s not a market for it, and I feel like masculine signing has become a signifier of the genre.” Kaia says that the male-dominated nature of the surf-rock scene has also impacted her creative process of actually making music. “I found it really hard writing songs for the surf-rock genre. I would write so deep in my voice range because I thought that was the only way it would work, and how can I write what I haven’t heard?”
Emily Kerr-Bell, who is the front person of band Emily Alice, is another predominant Dunedin musician who shares a similar sentiment to Kaia. Emily explains that sexism, no matter how indirect, still plays a role no matter what genre you play. “It is a male-dominated industry, and most of my experiences with sexism have been that people don’t credit your intelligence, or they just assume you don’t know what you’re doing, even though you have played a major role in building and creating this music and this band,” she explains. “The voice of the Dunedin Sound is a male voice, and because [a female voice] isn’t what we’re used to, it becomes this subgenre, so you’re not the main act.”
Sexism isn’t just limited to musicians in gig spaces; it extends to the behind the scenes operations of the music industry. Kaitlyn Ratcliff, who serves as the Promotions Manager for Radio One, says that even on the marketing and promotions side, “it’s so male dominated it’s not funny… From the inside perspective of booking artists and doing promotions, it's really hard as there is only a select handful of artists who aren’t dudes.” Kaitlyn says that the gender gap makes it tricky to create lineups which host a diverse range of sounds and artists, even though diverse artists create just as good, if not better, music than the popular male-dominated bands. “I feel like a lot of men aren’t grateful for the privilege that they have in just being booked,” she says.
Kaitlyn explains that women also tend to be subject to more labels or scrutiny compared to men, making it even more difficult and discouraging for women creatives. “On stage, you never know if people will respect you as an artist, or if they’ll be like, ‘Oh, that's a girl band.’ You can’t just be a ‘cool band’, there seems to be this hesitation of ‘will they like me as a girl? Will they look at my talent?’” Kaitlyn also shares that, when sitting in meetings or working with record labels, she feels there are similar sexist attitudes. “I think it’s the same when you’re a woman in promotions, it’s all ‘oh, you must have such a hard time’ because if you’re a guy, you’ve just done it. There seems to be this ‘girl’ label,” she says. “You wouldn’t say ‘oh that's a bunch of dudes’ when referring to a band.”
Kaia and Emily agree that another aspect to sexism in the music scene is that there seems to be an assumption that all women in music are inherently “political” and that women can’t just play music for the love of it. “There seems to be this perception that the alternative music scene in Dunedin is progressive, and so you feel like you have to be part of that progressive environment for people to be interested in your music,” says Kaia. “Women are funnelled into that direction, and there is this subconscious idea that everything is a political statement. We can’t just play music to play music.” Emily agrees that being political “is totally a thing… As an artist its a tool you use, but even rejecting that notion and saying ‘fuck it’ is a political statement. You can’t escape it.”
While it is true that being a woman in music is hard and that this environment can deter people from wanting to partake, Kaia, Kaitlyn, and Emily all believe that an alternative is possible and that more women should be encouraged into music - even if they think no one will listen. Kaia says that while she never considered her gender would be a factor when she first started playing, she recognises that more women need to be encouraged and represented in creative spaces. “It’s that whole thing of you can’t be what you can’t see, and I hope that other women out there feel inspired. I know if I saw more women performing at gigs, I’d feel validated in deciding how I want to present myself, and it makes me wonder if there are other women out there who want to listen to surf-rock,” says Kaia. “It’s just not that difficult to encourage someone, and if that was the case, everyone in this industry will feel more included,” says Kaitlyn. “We need to make more of an effort to really listen, and someone needs to be brave - which is better said than done but it only takes one person.”
Emily says that despite how hard it is to break through walls, that connecting with other female musicians has helped her navigate the landscape. “I have found that connecting with other women has been the most effective thing, and it's amazing when you meet another woman in Dunedin. There’s this unspoken connection that you’re on the same team and there is no competition because we all know it's really hard,” she says. In terms of changing the scene, Emily believes that “we need to encourage [women] to get on line-ups.”