Interview with Harry Awdey of Playing At A Theatre Near You
MVP: Alright it is Saturday March 25th 2006 and we are in Ann Arbor Michigan with Harry Awdey, the producer of Playing At A Theatre Near You. Harry, tell us how this show came to be, when it launched and where it airs.
Harry Awdey : Well, Playing At A Theatre Near You launched about three years ago. I think we just had our third anniversary in February, it was around the 18th, and what happened was it just kind of came about, we were doing a lot with local music at the time. A bands like the Teen Angels and Von Bondies, they were playing a lot of shows around and there started to be a local movement around the greater Detroit area towards a pure kind of rock and we decided to get on the front lines of it. You know, you tell a record company “Hey I’ve got a TV station, can you send me some videos?” at the time it was “Oh yeah, heck, we’ll go for some videos.” Now, servicing is actually a little bit harder with Universal, but at the time it was anyone with a DVD player or a tape deck, it was “We’ll help you out.”
MVP: Alright, well, where does Playing At A Theatre Near You air?
HA: It airs throughout Metropolitan Detroit, we’re here in Armada, that’s where we’re out of, but we also are in Romeo, Mt. Clemens, Utica, Grosse Point and Oakland township, and we’re also in Grand Rapids. We also have a media partner called CrushMusicMag.com, they do online hosting of our interviews.
MVP: The show has been on for three years, and each week you’ve got to select videos for your program, which is an hour long?
HA: Correct.
MVP: What are you as a programmer looking for to fill that hour’s worth of content time?
HA: Well, since I always look for creativity in a video, and a band that’s trying to do something different, I’ve never really thought about commerciality especially with Universal and how people want to make it a video pool now, I’ve decided that whoever has the best video is going to get played, and often it’s usually not the people who have a $250,000 budget, it’s little guys that other people have on little labels like Touch N Go and Drive Thru. People who are doing their own thing, because I can kind of identify with people doing their own thing. Three years ago when I was breaking into it, there were a lot of indie bands breaking in who were willing help out and support me. They got me through that first year when we weren’t getting enough content in the mail, before we formed formal relationships. So, I feel a strong bond with indie music like I must support it. We dedicate about half the show to independent artists and independent labels, then the other half is interviews and national things we get from the majors like Virgin and Sony.
MVP: Alright, I’m curious when it comes time for an interview, what are your preparations like? Getting the right questions, making sure the band feels comfortable, giving the viewers maybe some info they might not have just from hearing the record or visiting the band’s website.
HA: Well, we try a lot to make the bands comfortable. I’m not, obviously if you’ve ever met me, the best person for television. I know it. I’m no Ron Burgandy. I try my best, we try to form questions, I read bios, I go on the messageboards. Try to find out everything you can about that band, and then try to condense it down to ten minutes, which is a feat in itself. We do a lot to make bands comfortable. For example, at Warped Tour, we bring in catering and furniture to make bands comfortable. Yesterday night at The Academy Is... we actually found an area of the club, opened up the VIP area, lugged up some plush couches for the band. It hurts your back, but it’s worthwhile. We do everything; we’re buying lunch for people, providing them with cigars, whatever it takes to make the band happy. Whether it be breaking your back lugging furniture, bringing lights, etc. A lot of things where there is a production office on major tours, a lot of bands can’t call home from venues that are concrete, so we bring a line in and anyone that needs to use our production suite can, because often it’s “Hey, I need to fax this out” and we say “Sure, come on in”. We try to get dressing rooms at all the major tours, that way we can be more accessible and a lot friendlier. You get a lot of opposition from bigger promoters who don’t want you to come in and run your show because obviously they’re running the show. In essence we try to do anything to make the band feel more at home when they are with us.
MVP: Though we’re in Ann Arbor, which has a much different aesthetic than Detroit, would you care to comment on the music scene happening currently in Michigan and how it is evolving?
HA: Well the music scene in Michigan is really evolving at a rapid pace. You’ve got bands coming out like the Von Bondies and the White Stripes that probably wouldn’t have made it ten years ago, but there just seems to be this rebirth of rock in Detroit. There’s a venue called Harpos that was always been a hardcore metal venue that just keeps growing and growing and growing. Well, you know, out in Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo, which are more college towns, you’re getting a lot more people like Ben Folds stopping by three or four times a year. And you’re getting more local bands like one called Tally-Hall, that kind of resemble that Brit rock sound coming out of Ann Arbor. Another band, The Hard Lessons, they are the epitome of Detroit. They just did a headlining tour, went out to LA and New York, and they really made a name for themselves. They were in Asbury Lanes (Asbury Park, NJ) and I guess they just did some total rock damage out there and I they’re building quite a fanbase. People should really check out the Detroit scene. It was kind of in a relapse, but it didn’t die, it just kind of went underground.
MVP: For someone wanting to send a video, other than needing to know that you accept your videos on the mini DV tape format, are there any dos and don’ts you might want to share with those folks trying to grab your attention?
HA: If you’re an indie band and you’re sending something, beta, VHS, DVD, I’ll take any format. If you want to deliver it to me on film, I’ll take that, because I don’t care, I know how the scene works. Not everyone has access to a mini DV deck, some people just have DVD burners, it’s real common now. I had a band that delivered me something on U-Matic. I mean, U-Matic is fifteen years old, but they somehow got a hold of a deck and I took it. But, one of the big don’ts is like four minutes of bars and tone. That really gets me. I like to be able to get a video, and go “yeah yeah, bars and tone.” And fast forward. It’s not really important anymore with digital. People want to make their fancy countdown and do all this crazy crap at the beginning, I just want the straight video because it’s just going to right into the avid, and I don’t like to deal with bands that put extra stuff, or even extras on there. They’ll put little things before the video, that’s really annoying.
MVP: Very interesting. Would you say that there are more videos being made nowadays now that digital filmmaking has made it more affordable?
HA: Oh digital filmmaking has been a huge thing and has been a big boon for band production. It started right around 1998, when Final Cut Pro started to come full circle and people were getting Canon XL ones and everyone and their brother was an independent film maker. But hey it’s the 44th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival and we’re going to go check out a movie today called The Winking Circle and it was shot on digital video for under $1,000 but yet it’s been getting a lot of attention and will probably get distributed on Fox Searchlight. You know a lot of local bands will give me Mini DV footage and one even gave me something shot in High Definition and this is a band that are all college aged dudes who just do it on the side but they did a High Definition production video and did it all on their Mac. That’s incredible because 10 years ago you had to rent an avid suite and find a producer and whatnot but now a lot of bands are doing their own thing and I think it started when Cake came out with the video “Short Skirt, Long Jacket”. They just went around and had people listen to their music. When people try new things I think that really comes through and I think it’s happening in video now. I think there is almost a rebirth especially with Myspace and Purevolume where people can get their video seen around the world without MTV. But you also have things like MTVU which isn’t that popular around here, but I’ve heard does great in other cities.
MVP: Well let’s talk about the social networking sites. Back when we were kids we really had to seek out music and nowadays with the advent of Myspace and alike there’s a whole new landscape.
HA: Yeah, Myspace and Purevolume have really started to make bands like The Academy Is… and Panic! At The Disco who I interviewed last night made their name on Purevolume. Everyone knows their music off of that. Yesterday night they mentioned to the crowd if they heard the new single on Purevolume and the crowd goes wild. Five to ten years ago no one was on the net. Another site that’s really coming up out of the ranks is Facebook, which is more of a university style site. It used to be paper face books were printed of everyone at a university but now it’s this national thing where anyone with a college ID can log on. It’s getting really popular, about 80% of students have it now. I think that’s going to be the next big avenue for music production when you want to hit that 18-25 market.
MVP: Okay last question for Harry Awdey. Your outlet where you produce the show and where Playing @ A Theatre Near You is actually created is actually at a local cable outlet where you work at. Talk about that and how the folks there at that local outlet help the community.
HA: Well at NEMC we’re a local community of 7 or 8 different communities that have banded together for better cable television in providing service for everyone and I have been fortunate enough to be able to support the scene. Everyone there is doing things for the United Way, producing segments on the Salvation Army and working with community groups like the Lions and Free Masons, we are out at charity runs, I’m out doing every charity spaghetti dinner I can. We do everything possible for the community because I feel that if you give to the community they will eventually give back to you and that’s really what local television is about.
MVP: Thanks Harry.