19/02/2010

Last night, a friend invited me to a Brunswick Bar, to see a Band in which her friend plays guitar. I hadn’t visited the bar in question before. The Band was a small combo, playing an eclectic mix of Latin, Country and Blues music. The volume was low and a conversation could easily take place while the music was being played.

There were approximately twelve patrons in total – eight playing a round-robin Pool game and four sitting in leather armchairs, listening to the band.

At approximately 10:30pm, two young men walked in. They were dressed innocuously, wearing sneakers, polo-shirts and jeans. I didn’t notice them at all until my friend nudged me and pointed out that they were both wearing holsters and guns; they were the Music Police. I couldn’t believe my eyes! It had all the hallmarks of an undercover operation - plain-clothes police, old “civy” clothes, identification hung around their necks, which could be concealed or produced in an instant.

The Senior Officer, a Sergeant, advised the Manager that she was breaking the law because she had a 3:00am license and was therefore required to have security personnel. The Manager explained that the Band was due to finish at 11:00pm and that there would be no live music beyond that time. The Officer replied that this was irrelevant and that the law is quite clear about the matter.

The Officers then told the Band that it had to stop playing. The members of the Band (they were all over 50 years old) were visibly upset. They explained to the Sergeant that this was their livelihood, that the music wasn’t loud and that the dozen people in the Bar hardly constituted a mob. The Sergeant said that the music was loud, defining loud music as that which interferes with a normal conversation between two people, at 60 centimetres.  I later found out that this arbitrary measurement had been written into the legislation to placate the Restaurant trade.

So, has it come to this? Live Music is to be measured with a ruler and compliance enforced with a gun? As a businessman and a musician myself, I can say with considerable authority that this Bar will go out of business if it can’t host live music. It is a local-community Bar, much the same as a local-community Pub. It is a local-community meeting place: Crown Casino and other Beer Barns are not.

Small, inner-city Pubs and Bars do not breed violence nor does live music. Live music edifies people; it makes them happy. Where were the riots at the AC/DC concerts? Alcohol was available. All I could see after the concert were many thousands of happy faces. Unfortunately, not everyone has $150.00 to see AC/DC however the music of which I was ultimately deprived last night, cost nothing. Typically, inner-city Pubs and Bars offer free admittance and the musicians earn very little, sometimes work for nothing at all except the love of their craft. It is ironic to note that a General Practitioner does 6 years of specific study whereas a musician spends a lifetime studying, with very few ever gaining the status of even a C-grade G.P.

Musicians are purveyors of happiness, of culture and Art and these small, community, inner-city venues are their modus operandi. They are not the breeding ground of hooligans but rather, burgeoning musicians and vibrant communities.

That in this State we love, small venues and music are under threat from ill-advised, reactive, regressive and manifestly unfair laws, is blight on this Government and on the values for which Labor once stood.

If the Victorian Labor Government does not address this attack on Live Music and Community, it should be deserted in turn, by those constituents whose hearts it has broken, by moving 60 million centimetres away from its Heartland.

I urge all people who love music and justice, to attend the SLAM Rally on February 23.

Martin Cooper