Let me start with a rant… If you’re offended by rude words don’t read what’s coming up next!
Here is a message to people who want to lodge complaints against live music venues … FUCK YOU all who sail in you …
You want the city lights and the convenience of being close to everything AND the serenity of a rain forest… FUCK YOU and all who sail in you …
You want a seachange or a tree change and then bitch that there’s nothing and you try turning it into an inner-city hipster village. FUCK YOU and all who sail in you …
A friend of mine just lost a decision in court against his local council which now stops him having live music on his property.
This guy wasn’t making a profit. He was holding house gigs on his property and people paid to cover the cost of the artist. People brought their own food and drinks and everything was fine until some no life moved into the next property and reported him to the council alleging just about everything from loud noise, cars doing burnouts, shit he may as well have said they were sacrificing virgins too.
Of course, those allegations were lapped up by the local council who tried to railroad my friend into having gigs at an exhibition park the council-owned that was losing money faster than a hooker with a public itch. So began four years of throwing everything at him. Noise control, building permits, health and safety you name it. They tried it and each time, my friend and his partner batted them away and came up with the goods.
So after four years of being lied to, being made to look like a liar, financially squeezed my friend and the council faced off in the Civil Appeals Tribunal. And he lost…
Did he lose on environmental grounds? No.
Did he lose on liquor licensing grounds? No.
Did he lose on any safety and security grounds? No.
He lost on the grounds that its prime farming land… PRIME FARMING LAND!!!!!!!!!!
This is the same council that has approved the selling of prime farming land to developers to let them turn this rural hamlet into yet another outer suburb ghetto of small blocks of land, pizza and pasta shops and nothing else. FUCK YOU and all who sail in you …
Now I’m bringing up this case because I have only found out about it last night but this is a very familiar story being told everywhere.
It doesn’t take much to kill off a live venue. All it takes is for one complaint and the council are on to it like a flash, More’s the pity they don’t act as fast when people trip over footpaths. Councils should stick to collecting rubbish and stop interfering with enthusiasts and legitimate businesses who promote local culture.
What pisses this author off even more are the people who make the complaints in the first place. You know the type. The one’s who move next to airports and complain about aeroplanes or move next to a school and bitch about kids and traffic in the mornings and afternoons. These people give me the fucking shits! The majority of people are being hamstrung by a bunch of cretins who either don’t do their homework who need a lesson in astronomy because they think the world revolves around them.
In addition to councils, live music venues and events are being strangled by liquor laws, the cost of security, the police and public liability. Add them all together and you get a nanny state. Politicians and councillors are bowing to business owners and developers who feel that live music venues are a detriment to business and property values in the area. It is NO COINCIDENCE in Melbourne that no sooner do we see more residential dwellings in the inner city appearing, that the squeeze has been put on live music venues. I mean, no real estate agent would want to sell a house with all that racket down the road so they’ll blame all the ills of that area; the crime rate the syringes, the traffic on that pesky venue down the road… FUCK YOU and all who sail in you …
Musicians depend on venues being kept open to make some sort of living. I don’t know of any other business that has to face so many restrictions in order to scrape the meagre incomes that most of us do. The draconian laws brought in and the lawyers picnic of public liabilty is killing a vital part of our culture. People who enjoy live music rarely cause trouble yet they are treated with the same contempt as dance clubs that are riddled with ecstacy, GHB, gangs, knives and violence. More and more of these clubs are opening up while live music venues close. How the fuck is that allowed to happen?
Live music will soon be completely dead if we allow gentrification to bore the shit out of our towns and cities. To all of you who bitch and complain and want to destroy the very things that attracted you to where you live, all I can say is FUCK YOU and all who sail in you …
