Gig venue debate fires-up crowd
Sticking a middle finger up at the cynics, a big crowd turned out for the Perth Needs More Music and Arts Venues action meeting at the Bakery on Monday night.
Although “1000” said they would come on social media — akin to clicking the “going” box to a mate’s birthday in London — the 300 to 400-odd that turned up witnessed some rigorous debate about the future of live music in Perth.
For those unaware, the 600-capacity Bakery venue is set to close in May (along with Devilles Pad next month, while Ya Ya’s closed late last year) leaving a gaping hole in the local live music scene.
It triggered Perth gig promoter Dave Cutbush to create a Facebook group, which now has almost 3000 likes.
The main purpose of the meeting was to get the music community together to discuss the issue and see if a common goal could be reached. Because, let’s face it, unless bands have somewhere to play — and people come — that “something in the water” within Perth’s music scene will turn toxic.
And though at times on Monday night the whingers whinged — and there were a few unnecessary, albeit funny, history lessons — overall the mood was constructive.
Chris Bausor has opened up Perth's newest music venue, Jimmy's Den, in Northbridge. Picture: Megan Powell/The West Australian
Ideas were aplenty:
Introduce a development subsidy where developers or entrepreneurs can convert unused public buildings into live music venues
Introduce a subsidy for licensed venues that have a certain number of gigs per year to encourage more live music
Encourage more venues in the ilk of 200-odd capacity Northbridge venue the Bird, with a local music focus.
Have more all-ages shows, particularly using public open space
Make a lot of noise so the Government will be forced to find a replacement for the Bakery.
This last point was the one thing everyone agreed on — it’s a no-brainer.
But something rang true and Cutbush himself hit the nail on the head: no entrepreneur is going to front up the millions required for this.
Although Chris Bausor, above, and two mates from Jimmy’s Den were able to muster $300,000 of their own money to start Perth’s newest 200-seat live music space on James Street — in effect bucking the trend — this is a rarity. It’s the Government that needs to step up to the plate.
The crowd. Picture: Ben Crabtree/The West Australian
Unfortunately Premier Colin Barnett is in something of a budget dilemma — like a first-year uni student out of work, he has no disposable income.
And though the State Government’s grants system for bands is admirable, if it cared that much it would have stepped in the way of Western Power selling the land on which the Bakery sits.
But it didn’t. The scope of Artrage, the operator of the Bakery (which has done a fantastic job), had changed and WAM was seemingly left out of the decision-making process. A replacement, right now, is pretty pie-in the-sky as you can be pretty sure fronting up millions for a contemporary music venue is pretty low on the list of priorities for the current Government.
Labor politicians were in attendance and gave in-principle support to the action group. A smart opposition party looking for leverage on the Government could turn it into a fringe election issue. But it is up to the WA music community to continue to make noise and Monday night was a good start.
