Persecution Blues is the long awaited documentary about the legendary Tote Hotel in Collingwood. Now about to celebrate its 30th anniversary, this is the place where many Melburnians received their musical education.
Taking its name from the title of a Powder Monkeys track, ‘Persecution Blues’, this documentary is the result of seven years worth of filming and over 400 hours of footage.
Van Dungen has done a commendable job of celebrating what has become a beacon of the live music scene in Melbourne.
She also had impeccable timing in that she was making her documentary at the time The Tote was forced to close due to the archaic laws of the Liquor Licensing Commission; they classed The Tote as a ‘high risk’ venue simply because it had a 3am license and was located in the inner city.
What impresses about the documentary is its raw and visceral quality. Van Dungen’s access to interviews with those intimately involved with Tote such as band booker, Amanda Palmer, and former licensee, Bruce Milne, is both informative and candid.
As a viewer, you are right there in the thick of the drama, as the Victorian government (of the time) places pressure on The Tote and many other venues of its kind to close, due to its unreasonable and impractical guidelines and requirements.
The documentary also beautifully illustrates how the Melbourne music community, including both punters and musicians, refused to let the Victorian government squeeze them out. The results was an extraordinary day where twenty thousand people marched down Swanston St and up Bourke St to Parliament to protest The Tote’s closure.
Of particular interest was that the police stated that The Tote was somewhere that they had never had problems, in regards to violence and crime in Collingwood. It was very nice to see that the local police blocked off the intersection where The Tote is located on the second-last day of trading for the first protest.
There is a very impressive array of people in the doco talking about The Tote and what it means to them. A particularly heartening moment is when the girls from The Spazzys, without hesitation, say that they would recommend The Tote to anyone from out of town as a way to experience Melbourne’s rich and thriving live music scene.
Other wonderful moments feature throughout, such as a punter doing the sign of the cross as he walks into the venue on the final day.That sense of community and love that many feel for the venue is palpable throughout.
Thankfully, there is a happy ending to the doco. The Tote has now reopened, and the former government’s misplaced belief that there was a link between live music and violence has been disproven.
It was also interesting to see that on the day of the Save Live Music rally, the government were trying to spin the day into, in their words, ‘a celebration of Melbourne’s live music scene’!
This showed perfectly that the former government had no understanding of its own live music scene and that it is a particularly appealing and unique feature of Melbourne.
As part of the funding, the filmakers agreed to a running time of under an hour.
This is a shame, as one would love to have heard more about the venue’s history and how people were first introduced to the legendary sticky carpet and the remarkable jukebox in the front bar.
For the DVD release, Van Dungen has promised more footage and a longer cut of this wonderful and heartfelt documentary.
