These days, the last thing we might expect to be told by an elected official is that they consider Sydney’s live music scene to be an essential part of the city’s makeup. After all, it’s pretty easy to get jaded; to look around at the state of Sydney’s sometimes overtly litigious culture and think that our music scene was enemy number one as far as most politicians were concerned – a blemish to be bleached clean. How else could one explain the shows that get shut down; or the perceived lack of financial support for artists; or the devastating effects of the lockout laws?
Maybe Councillor Jess Scully is an anomaly then. Certainly, the Councillor is adamant that our city’s battered and bruised music scene isn’t just a dalliance, or a charity to be fed handouts by the government, but a source of genuine community spirit and economic heft. “The live music scene is so important not only in a financial sense, but in a cultural and social sense too,” Scully says. “Obviously, looking after musicians is important for the music scene, in that it supports the talent pipeline and helps build careers out of the passion and talents of artists. But it’s also really important from a social and cultural perspective.”
Moreover, Scully uniquely understands the struggle of artists in Sydney. She’s under no allusions, and she knows firsthand from her experience in the visual art world what a drain it can sometimes be to follow one’s dreams. “It is difficult working in a career that you are passionate about,” Scully says.
“There are a lot of different challenges. I think because it’s fun – because when we’re doing something we love, we think, ‘I’m happy to be paid less – or not even paid at all’ – we see it as being somehow lesser.”
Nor, importantly, is all that waffle on Scully’s part. She is actively implementing policies that will change the lives of musicians and venue owners – working, tirelessly, to ensure that the irritating hurdles creatives have to jump over can be, if not entirely removed, then made that much less daunting.
Part of that is the New Ideas For Old Buildings project, one designed to transform Sydney into a hub of inclusive, safe spaces and venues. “We’ve said, if people want to adapt existing buildings and spaces – say they want to adapt an old shopfront, or a space that they want to turn into a venue for performance – we want to work out what’s standing in their way.
“Are there some old building codes or fire code requirements or security requirements that are stopping them? And then we say, which of these codes are important and safe, and are protecting people, and which ones are probably overkill, and which ones have been put in place long ago, and no longer correspond with the uses that are being requested.”
Similarly, Scully is working to tackle the other problem facing venue owners in particularly – the ever-looming threat of noise complaints. After all, on that front, Sydney doesn’t always have the happiest history – who could forget the time a Vivid Sydney gig was shut down before 9pm?
“One of the big restrictions that people encounter is that there are lots of different noise regulations that they have to contend with if they want to stage a performance. It’s easy to stage a performance and find yourself shut down to you noise complaints. We’re trying to contend with that, and to find a clear way forward.”
In that way, Scully is happy to stake everything on the need to look after creatives, comforted in her knowledge that musicians aren’t shackles around Sydney’s legs, but a genuine boon to a city that couldn’t function without them. “We’re researching policy, and looking at laws we have already, and how they can be adapted, and we’re doing advocacy work more generally, to kind of say, ‘This is how we think existing laws should be changed.”
