A recent trip to Thailand exposed the Radar to several Thai promoters, a music “festival” in the sticks, and the cancellation of a big festival in Bangkok. As we are still here – the PAD protesters have now taken both airports – we thought we might apprise you of what we found out.
The first thing that really stood out in our conversations with the local promoters was a consistant reminder that Thailand is still in the main a poor country. It’s all-to-easy to forget as you travel around Asia, through the modern and gleaming new cities, that most of these countries still have very low nominal GDP/ head. This map is illuminating:
- IMF World Map by GDP/ Head average
Although Thailand just sneaks into the 3,500 – 6,000 bracket, this still only puts it on par with most of South America, while the rest of Asia lags significantly behind. And so it is, as we dream of a viable touring circuit of this region, that the realities become a whole lot starker. The scene in Bangkok, as in the rest of Asia, is dominated by pop. Grammy and 106, the two big labels, completely dominate a market where top artists used to be able to sell 20m CD’s of Thai pop. That’s one CD for every 3 people, and that includes babies. Of course, as with the rest of the world, recorded music is turning down in dramatic fashion. Does this mean an upward trend in touring?
The guys we met with were pretty negative about the size of the indie scene. They face a mirror of the problems that we have in China. Unsupportive media, a lack of venues and a subsequent lack of local talent, uninspired by the thought of playing every night in the same clubs for pennies.
On our travels, we took in a pretty mellow music festival in the coastal town of An A Mao, near Krabi. Reggae is the music of choice amongst music lovers in this part of the world, and a local Krabi hero has made it into the mainstream. Khun Job and his band Job2Do have been gigging the beach bars and clubs for nearly a decade. Last year, they hit paydirt. One of their songs got major radio play and now kids all over Thailand have this genuine underground reggae star as their ringtones.
The festival was a pretty low key affair, populated by bikers and locals. Apart from Job2Do, the bands were a mix of bad covers and very, very mellow shit.
This laissez faire attitude has spread into our return journey. Unfortunately, the Radar was in Suvarnabhumi Airport when the PAD protesters hit. We have spent the last 7 days in a void of information, watching democracy in Thailand completely disregarded, for the second time in 2 years. Musically, Thailand has suffered. its biggest international festival, the 100Rock was unfortunately cancelled, due to an inability to get artists into the country. I hate to think how much money the organisers and sponsors must have lost. Who’d be a promoter in Asia??
After 5 hotels in 7 days, you will be happy to know that the Radar is finally back in China, where we find it hard to justify freedom of speech and democracy to our skeptical Chinese staff.