A Low Hum

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History


A Low Hum evolved from a record label I started called HUM in 2001 into a music magazine in 2003 called A Low Hum. Since then I've used the name for band management, booking, tour management, festivals, making music videos, publishing books, events, a magazine, a label and anything else I could think of.


A comprehensive history is being worked on, but that is still quite some time from being online. For now, here is some stuff.


Gareth Shute has written an abridged history of A Low Hum over at Audio Culture.

A Low Hum on Audio Culture PART 1
A Low Hum on Audio Culture PART 2


About me (PRE-A LOW HUM)

I took up photography when I was 10 and bought my first SLR, a Vivitar V2000 when I was 12 and shortly after, along with my brother built a darkroom in my family laundry. I spent my youth either making mixtapes and recording music video shows or being locked away in the darkroom.


I sung and played harmonica in a band in high school that started out playing Hendrix covers, moved onto RHCP covers, onto Sex Pistols and Nirvana covers and then ended in 1995 as a disco band, called Shep Ramsey and the Truetones.


I started a photography company called Tiger Photography in 1995, but after Tiger Woods got famous a few years later and sick of people thinking I just took photos of tigers (though, that would be sweet), I changed the name to " Blink ", which among other things was, yes, inspired by me being a huge fan of Dude Ranch by Blink 182 . Under photos published at the time it would always say "Photo by Blink", that along with me having the username on the then uber popular site nzmusic.com, people started to call me "Blink" thinking that was my name and not just the name of my company, it stuck.  When Blink-182 put out Enema of the State and got all mega famous, I couldn't be bothered changing the name again.


Other than shooting my own band, I started photographing music around 1995, though for just a few years mainly shot bands in the Rockquest (the New Zealand high school band competition) and the odd show in Wellington. It wasn't until getting a press pass to shoot Shihad at the Wellington Town Hall in 2000 that I really got started in documenting the music scene.


From 2000-2004 I spent most of my life taking photos at shows, shooting either Fuji Superia 200ASA colour or Fuji Neopan 1600ASA Black and White films.


In 2003 I started A Low Hum zine mainly as an outlet for my photography as I was shooting a ton of black and white photos and the limited music media in NZ at the time generally wanted colour photos. 


From 2003, A Low Hum evolved into a beast, Gareth Shute has covered a few of my projects on the links above.