Amanda Palmer is on tour in Australia at the moment, and through her I became aware of this protest movement. Apparently, in an effort to crack down on drunken violence, Victoria’s government is imposing stringent new licensing restrictions on clubs and bar. Offering live music is a major trigger in deciding that a venue needs to be required to spend large sums of money on professional bouncers. Many live music venues are reported to be facing closure as a result. It sounds fairly serious to me. Can anyone from Melbourne comment?
2 thoughts on “Saving Melbourne’s Music”
Comments are closed.
Basically true. There is a lot of drunken violence and the solution has come in a one-size-fits-all approach that patently doesn’t work. The little venues have had enough trouble with whiney middle class wankers who move into the inner city areas and then complain about the noise, now if they put on any sort of live music they must hire (extra) security as well. The TV stations have taken the venues side and one report last night showed the two security guards making sure the twenty or so middle aged folkies at a lunchtime pub gig made no trouble. Meanwhile, the massive venues in the CBD who play recorded music still attract all the suburban dickheads looking to get pissed and have a fight.