Whether you’re a live music fan residing in Perth or live anywhere else in Australia, you would know that the great city of the west’s music scene has taken some hard beatings over the past couple of months.
Sadly, there’s been the closure of multiple venues, causing headaches for both local and interstate bands who are losing performance spaces, which has generated a flurry of panic for the west coast capital.
Many within the industry worry that their once illustrious and revered music scene that has spawned the likes of Tame Impala, John Butler Trio and Eskimo Joe not to mention up-and-coming local acts like The Love Junkies, Fait and Felicity Groom, may be on the brink of falling apart.
Instead of sitting idle in paralysed fear, a panel of major players in Perth’s music industry came together last night to discuss the future of live music in Perth, the open public discussion headed by Dave Cutbush, (Convenor of Perth Venue Action and Director of national touring agency Life Is Noise), as well as Bob Gordon (Editor of XPress Magazine and musician), Andrew Ryan (Director of Cool Perth Nights, owner of Mojo’s Bar and musician), Mike Harris (CEO of WAM), Abbe May (Musician), Luke Rinaldi (Band manager, and booking agent at Sweetmate Music) and Jason Cleary (General Manager at RTRFM 92.1).
We spoke with Dave Cutbush to talk about the issues facing Perth’s music scene today, and what, if anything can be done to save it from falling into the abyss.
Venues Are Dropping Like Flies
Let’s remind ourselves that we are still only in February, yet Perth’s live music scene has already copped two hard-hitting blows, with two important live music venues announcing that they will draw their curtains for the final time in 2015.
The Bakery, an almost iconic gig spot, sadly revealed that it would close its doors for the final time on Saturday 9th May, management confirming that The Bakery would not move to another location. If that wasn’t enough, the “hell” themed Devilles Pad lamented in informing punters that it too would cease to operate as of Saturday 21st March.
Toward the bookend of 2014, the city’s live music scene took a beating as the small yet pumping venue Ya Yas in Northbridge closed after delivering five years worth of sounds to live music fans.
Despite painting Perth’s venue situation as such a bleak portrait, there has been one small victory for the city which must be acknowledged. After 28 years of functioning, Fremantle’s Fly By Night looked to be in dire straits, however local council threw the house of music a small bone, extending their lease for one more year, with the potential for a further few after that.
Perth’s Local Gig Scene Is Unlike Any Other…
For nearly 12 months now we’ve focused on the best local gigs around Australia for $15.00 or less, and a common phrase we’ve found ourself consistently penning every week in the WA capital is “Perth has got one the hottest nights of live music in the country.”
This is emphatically exemplified by the amount of talent that is squeezed into one night of live music, take a fortnight ago, which for a scant $10.00 saw the likes of Eleventeen Eston & The Conversation, Gunns, Felicity Groom, Flower Drums, Runner and Golden String perform an epic Friday night gig.
An evening like this is commonplace for the people of Perth – seems ridiculous that their live music scene could ever be struggling when, from the outside looking in, it appears to be spilling-over in performing talent.
…But The Government Has Left It Behind
The Bakery, the epicentre of discussion, will leave a giant hole in Perth’s art and culture scene. A staple for the local musicians as well as national touring bands and an artistic hub that played host to exhibitions, the medium sized venue puts Perth at a massive loss.
As Cutbush explains, The Bakery had received subsidies from the government which enabled it to continue operations. However, there is now nothing like this set aside for small-to-medium sized venues, making it damn near impossible for a replacement space to step in and resolve the crisis.
The government have instead shifted their focus to the upper echelon of touring musicians, pumping millions of dollars into new world class stadiums and arenas, “The new Perth arena has a huge capacity, it has to be Neil Young or Taylor Swift playing to fill it, not a young rock band, they’re just not being catered for, I don’t think private enterprise will” Cutbush details.
“I hope either this or the next government works out a plan to support arts in the city on a smaller scale and not just on the big end of town” he said.
Why Does It Matter?
The dual loss of the aforementioned venues is alarming for multiple reasons. First and foremost, such closures have a strangling affect on Perth’s local scene. With less performance spaces for the WA capital’s up-and-coming artists, it can become competitive to land a gig at venues, which not only puts a dampener on their current friendly scene, but it may also deter new WA musicians from seeking a place to play, as the demand for venue time has become too tight.
It also works negatively for local musos that want to make their way to Perth for national tours. It’s no secret that travelling Australia is not the cheapest, and although making the trip to the beautiful city of Perth is an experience like no other, what’s the point when finding a venue to perform at has become so increasingly difficult?
Cutbush spoke at length of this, “It’s bloody tough to bring bands over here financially at the best of times, if there’s not enough venue options it makes things harder.
“It’s 100 per cent true that there’ll be less touring, it’s not just about the local music scene, which is important to think about in this, but people want to see acts of outside of Perth. People want to have the opportunity to be inspired by east coast of Australia or around the world, they want to see their favourite acts.”
“There’s huge international success but also lots of cool little bands as well, it’s easy to look at the Tame Impalas, John Butlers and Karnivools big, big bands, however there’s incredible small-to-medium bands that play every week. It’s a vibrant scene and it has been for a long time, there’s artists and musicians of all flavours and popularities, but if we don’t have the venues where they can play – we don’t have a scene.”
These closures may also be the beginning of bleeding the city dry of musos, forcing a mass exodus from Perth to the east coast, potentially creating a terrible vacuum effect. What say of Perth’s music scene if such a phenomena like this were to occur?
Is There A Solution?
Monday night saw a panel discussion fronted by some important and passionate members of Perth’s live music scene, who called for any and all live music fans that are also distressed over the deterioration of venue numbers in the city to come together to find a solution.
Although Cutbush is optimistic, last night’s meeting was only the first of its kind, there’s still so much more that must be achieved before a solution can be reached.
He, alongside the upward 500 strong participants of the initial meeting, collectively agreed to the motion that Perth needs more high quality small-to-medium venues within the city, and this is can only be achieved through government assistance.
“We want to lobby the Government to make it easier to independently set up a venue otherwise for the Government themselves to step in and either subsidise or fund a medium sized music venue in Perth. I don’t think in the current climate that we would have an independent philanthropist or business set up a medium sized venue in Perth, it’s only going to happen with government funding or government subsidy” he explains.
Cutbush, in a call-to-arms suggests, “We’ve got to mobilise. We can have meetings every week and nothing can happen, we need to energise people and get people active, potentially get them out on the street to protest if a venue is being shutdown, for them to call and write and pressure their parliamentarians to join groups and encourage other people to go and see shows. Actually do things.”
What Can You Do?
Drawing from the ideas and status quo of Melbourne’s Agent Of Change that proudly protects its venues from such things as noise complaints, as well as the passionate mindset of its local music community, Cutbush hopes for the same of the Perth public.
“I think what happened in Melbourne is inspiration for venues around the world, not just in Australia, the way that Melbourne people stand up for venues in anticipation of them shutting down and save them, what SLAM does there and generally what the Melbourne music community does when they stand up to redevelopment or to noise complaints is very much inspiration, it’s something we’ve taken on board.”
So how can you, the punter in Perth, help save Perth’s local music scene? It’s simple. Go to a gig. Publicly display your love for artistry.
“What we’d like to see is greater audience participation, people coming down to more gigs and starting a campaign where we try to go to go one more gig, as individuals, really trying to get people to go out more, to arts events, music events, supporting their local venue and both bands that are touring” says Cutbush.
And what about those who are obsessed with the local bands of WA who live interstate? Support these bands, if they’re touring to your city – check them out.
Concluding, Cutbush positively stated, “We’re starting a committee, we had a lot of people join up as members to this new group and we will be planning future meetings and actions in the upcoming months. We’ll work towards making a real change and not just talking about it.”
To get behind Cutbush & Co’s noble initiative to save Perth’s floundering small-to-medium music scene, jump over to their official Facebook page and keep your eyes out for their upcoming movements, it’s not too late to save one of the most talented musical cities in the world.
