Ottawa nightclub Zaphod Beeblebrox is pairing up with two local arts journalists to help bring music to the masses.
Kevin McGowan and Steve Fouchard are launching a new project this fall called The Revue, which will feature bands playing live sets, recorded and videotaped from the club.
The pair has 10 sessions of live music and interviews finished so far and are looking forward to having more bands and artists in, McGowan said. He said the project began after many years of discussion.
“We were not sure what we wanted a project like this to look like at first,” he said. “We thought about going around to all the different venues and collecting footage like that.”
But McGowan said he and Fouchard narrowed down their plans to a single venue because they believed it would be the simplest logistically.
Fouchard said the pair chose Zaphod Beeblebrox “by luck” and Eugene Haslam, the owner, was enthusiastic about it.
Haslam said he regularly reads McGowan’s music column, and was excited by his proposal.
“Things started coming together, I think because we were all excited about the same thing,” he said.
McGowan said he agreed the process was a fairly simple one.
“We called him and told him our idea, then got to sit down in his office and hammer ideas out there,” added McGowan. “[Haslam] has been very hands-off with his approach and has let us do our own thing with The Revue.”
And while that may be true, Haslam said it’s a relationship built on helping each other.
“First of all, by providing the space for them to do it,” he said. “It’s helping him and the artists by giving them a place to [film] in a kind of funky way, in a background that’s coherent and makes sense to a lot of people.”
It helps Zaphod Beeblebrox, he said, because it offers them a more visual way of disseminating information and promoting bands. It also allows Haslam a fresh approach to something he has been doing for years.
“I’m excited about anything that has to do with evolving music and making it more accessible and helping bands both local and foreign and simply energizing people in a musical sort of way,” he said.
And so is Carleton band Paterson Hall, who played at Zaphod Beeblebrox at the beginning of June.
Band member Adam Finlay said The Revue would definitely push them to play there again. It’s difficult for small, local bands to make a living in a digital age, he added, but ideas like The Revue could help.
“Live shows are a huge part of keeping the whole machine going. But it’s difficult for people to get an idea of what we’re like live without any sort of direct experience with it,” he said.
“So giving anyone the opportunity to watch our show, or any show, is a great opportunity to give people a taste and get the idea in their heads to come out and support us in person.”
And while the idea seems increasingly popular, Fouchard and McGowan are still tackling it with just the two of them.
Fouchard labelled their recording process as “do-it yourself,” adding that they strive to make as few changes as possible to the original sound in the videos.
“We are interested in a raw, gritty sound,” he said.
In the long term, the pair said they hope to see the website garner support for local talent of all genres.
“I would love to see all aspects of it expand, from the varieties of music we bring in to more blog content, extra video and even comic book-style stuff,” said McGowan.
For now the pair is focused on putting out all the episodes they have already filmed. They’ll be releasing one full episode every two weeks starting on August 14, according to their website, which means they have enough videos to run until January 2014.
The duo said the response from bands has been amazing.
“People are contacting us through bands who have recorded episodes,” McGowan said. “We have been blown away by the support of everyone we have talked to about the project. It has us really excited.”
