The decision to do another Camp was difficult and complex with a number of contributing factors. Bear with me here while I try to explain.

2016, in the aftermath of ‘I Will Come Forward’, I lost my faith and passion in the underground music community here, I didn't know who to trust and I abandoned a multitude of archival projects featuring numerous local bands. 

In Sept of 2020, a beacon of the NZ underground music community, Reuben Winter suicided. Being that I'd stepped back from the music scene already, his passing, at the time, signalled the end of my relationship with music in NZ - I didn’t see myself doing any events without his involvement.

Mourning Reuben’s passing, I looked through my abandoned projects for performances of him at my various events. Watching through these archives while piecing together a video to accompany a tribute I wrote for him not only brought about waves of sadness in knowing what a gifted and beautiful person the world was missing, but I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. I was just running away from facing something difficult and in doing so, failing to celebrate and share the incredible work of a multitude of artists, musicians, managers, crew, producers - everybody who had contributed in some way to A Low Hum over twenty years.

I hadn’t looked at this material for years and going through it once more made me realise its importance. I attempted to work out how to celebrate a scene and share the work of hundreds of adjacent musicians and artists, while in-turn not giving a platform to those who don't deserve it anymore. I met with and listened to survivors of abuse in the local music community, I read countless accounts online and have tried to develop a system that perhaps other promoters, labels and archivists could look to when trying to acknowledge and respect trauma associated with a community. 

I revisited all my projects. 

I re-read over the writings of my frustrations with the industry, in particular, Chapter 7 of my book The Problem with Music in New Zealand..., titled ‘Music Funding in NZ is just a Temporary Fix’.

In a particularly emotional moment I notice I had suggested that one of Reuben’s collaborative projects Kerosene Comic Book should be the recipient of a restructured funding plan, one which looks to build sustainable communities rather than throw money at one-off projects in the hope that something sticks. This stirs an anger in me I hadn’t felt for quite some-time. The industry’s insistence on seeing minor commercial outcomes immediately and not seeing the worth in building audiences and communities which can feedback into each other and create massive systemic change, angered me as much in that moment as it had a decade prior.

If you’re interested, you can download that essay (and other 9 essays) here: https://www.alowhum.com/the-problem-with-music 

I needed to do something.

The loss of Reuben made things really clear: everything I needed to do should be focused on just a few things;

• Growing community and building support networks for artists
• Inspiring musicians and entrepreneurs with innovative ideas and showing them pathways to explore
• presenting/celebrating the work of those leading the way as a guide and inspiration.
• 
  

I was angry again, but needed an outlet. I can't radically change arts funding in this country, but what I could do was try to set an example of how much can be done with very little. I'd seen the global impact that my little self published book ‘DIY Touring the World’ had made.. a little can go a very long way.

Current colonial funding models are broken. Faking adaptability, every few years they have a "review" which simply finds new ways for people to jump through new hoops and force artists to work within their narrow structures - all the while looking for immediate "results". Funding agencies instead should work out how to no longer be needed.  They need to seed communities so they can get the hell out of the way and let arts flourish regardless of the applicant's location/background/privilege/ability to embellish documentation. 

Nobody likes admin, artists gotta art.

This is how The Winter Fund was born - finding a respectful way to celebrate a community, to grow that community, to inspire it and to have it help itself. 

The various archival projects are spread out here so they can not only meet part of the intention of the Fund which is to celebrate and inspire, but they can also bring in funds to make the communal efforts happen. I'm lucky enough to have a career which I love and it means I don't need to make any money from these projects so all proceeds from any project feed into the following ones.

The Winter Fund is for Reuben Winter, Bridget Tyson, Hamish Kilgour, Peter Gutteridge, Daphne Camf, David Adison, Scruff, Louis Amos, Peter Stenhouse, Anna Pastor-Bouwmeester, Tim Marsh, Otis Hill and all the beautiful people of our community who can’t be with us today.