MATT HARVEY
After winning the Auckland Rockquest, and coming 2nd in the Nationals, mucking about in jazz bands and cutting my teeth playing the drums around Auckland, I first became known as a disruptor alongside Evan Short as Concord Dawn, making noise, pushing boundaries, winning awards, and getting up to mischief while releasing on the worlds leading drum and bass labels, with tracks featured in sets of DJs around the globe.
Due to this time I can offer a vast experience of the electronic music scene of New Zealand, having performed over 500 gigs as an artist in Aotearoa, and have a vast knowledge and network inside that scene and the live industry here.
As an A+R, I, alongside Evan Short, signed the 1st Shapeshifter LP, released the 1st Pendulum 12”, and released debut albums from Bulletproof and State Of Mind to our own label.
As a duo, Concord Dawn was nominated for “Best Electronic Album” at the New Zealand Music Awards twice, winning once - and later when flying solo as Concord Dawn I also won it once out of two attempts.
After hundreds upon hundreds of shows overseas during 20 years of touring North America, Australasia, Asia, Russia and Europe, including a 10-year stint living in Vienna, I moved back to Southeast Auckland in 2016 with my family for a cup of tea and a lie-down. I quickly transitioned from being a self-managed artist to managing local legends Shapeshifter and then Kora, and now have a roster that also includes Jon Toogood, Mim Jensen, Flaxxies, Daily J and Spell.
With this experience of long-term sustainable careers via Concord Dawn, Shapeshifter, Jon Toogood and Kora - and confronting the challenges facing new artists via my work with Flaxxies, Mim Jensen, Daily J and Spell - I hope that I am able to offer a few different perspectives on the music scene here, and would love to add those to the perspectives of others, to find resolutions to our common problems.
I have a 1st hand experience too of what bad management can look like from my time as an artist, and have been through the process of resolving such, and believe the MMF at all times needs to be aware how conflicts of interest, overlapping power dynamics and relationships can pollute the fiduciary duties of managers.
My priorities should I be elected to the Executive would be to advocate for Fair Pay for musicians, a kaupapa I have been involved with via other ventures and have done a lot of research on, and this is key to a resilient and stable industry for musicians - and is fundamental to lives lived with dignity, positive mental health, and a strong music scene.
I have also put a lot of time into the MMF initiative “Spotlight” with the aim of getting a local artist onto every big international show that is announced in Aotearoa.