Following a short lived run as an iconic Melbourne music site, the independent record store and cafe Wooly Bully is set to close this year at the end of its lease, the North Melbourne store has been forced to close it’s cafe, and is expected to stop selling records and comics once its lease term is up at in less than a year.
As reported by Mess + Noise, co-owner Mitch Marks says that the decision to close the store was due to lack of profits from its adjoining cafe.“We were actually continuing to be really busy,” says Marks, “but because of where we are and the site we’re in, we’d need to inject a lot more money into it or move to make any profits – mostly issues on the café side.”
Marks also commented on the complaints that the venue received from local residents. Despite often hosting in-store performances by local and international acts, the venue was often limited by “council restrictions and pointless revenue-gathering permits.”
“Our in-stores were a great promotional tool, but we were having to have each one strictly policed by council (despite them agreeing with us informally on most issues) because of one miserable resident,” Marks tells Mess + Noise.
“We also got knocked back for our recent [temporary] liquor license and I had reason to believe any permanent liquor application would be a case of over a year’s worth of fighting. Council restrictions and pointless revenue-gathering permits, plus their continuing dedication to listening to that one squeaky wheel, is probably the biggest problem we’ve faced. They promote us in all their media channels/reports/publicity shots, then tell us we’re not allowed to have lots of customers at once!” complains the Wooly Bully owner.
Because of where we are and the site we’re in, we’d need to inject a lot more money into it or move.” – Mitch Marks
Noise complaints are not an isolated issue, with several other Melbourne music venues struggling with the same issues (and providing reason enough for another SLAM Rally as we argued in our opinion piece). As previously reported, St. Kilda venue-come-record store Pure Pop, were under pressure from local residents to reduce the noise of their regular courtyard live music events. As a result local artists banded together to raise money to soundproof the venue in an attempt to continue supporting the presence of live music in St.Kilda.
Over in Melbourne’s northside, Thornbury Records managed to work around the potential grumbles of local residents by hosting the Silent But Deadly 2nd Birthday Bash to celebrate two years of business for the local record store.
“We plan to overcome the technical boundaries of a live performance by plugging all instruments directly into a sound desk and transmitting the resulting sounds to around 50 sets of headphones within the store,” said owner Clayton Pegus.
Wooly Bully was named after Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs 1965 hit song and, situated in North Melbourne, has specialised in providing music fans around Melbourne with independent music labels on vinyl and cassette tape since 2011.
Known for their lack of CD presence, the store holds a variety of music genres ranging from the likes of grungy punk to rock, blues and pop. The store also hosted 2012’s punk festival Maggost Fest as well as a venue for local bands to perform.
The diminishing of music retail is not just affecting independent stores but also large chain stores with David Jones announcing it will no longer stock entertainment products including CDs, DVDs and video games. The Australian department store’s entertainment sales fell 1.4% to $590.1 million during the three month lead up to January.
The news follows last week’s report that UK music brand HMV announced it will close down 60-100 stores resulting in a loss of 1,500 jobs following intense restructuring of the British retail giant after it entered receivership facing mass bankruptcy.
