Rocking out in 2010

It's been a very mixed start to the year, musically. I've seen some fantastic gigs so far - The Meanies, The Drones, Spiderbait, Camera Obscura and The Decemberists - but sadly several of those gigs only came about because Victoria's liquor licensing laws now penalise as 'high risk' any venue trading until 3am, regardless of whether its patrons have a history of violence or not.

Thus, last week long-running Melbourne live music venue The Tote was forced to close its doors - going out with one hell of a bang - because running the pub was no longer viable in light of the increased liquor licensing and security costs which came with its farcical 'high risk' status.

I've been drinking at The Tote since 1990, and not once in 20 years have I ever seen a fight there. I have, however, seen some truly kick-arse bands; several of whom performed at The Tote last Monday, its closing night.

The Meanies played a brilliant, blinding set that made me feel 15 years younger; Spiderbait stepped in as a two piece at the last minute, replacing The Cosmic Psychos; and Joel Silbersher (formerly of precocious young punks GOD) joined The Drones to rip out a blistering version of Australian underground rock classic 'My Pal' as the last song of the night.



The sad, frustrating and infuriating thing about all this is that The Tote should never had had to close. The Victorian state government has rushed a flawed piece of legislation into place in order to be seen to be doing something about alcohol-related violence - just as they rushed a fatally flawed '2am lockout' policy into ill-fated action in 2008.

As I wrote in a recent article for Arts Hub:

The recent changes to the liquor licensing structure are based on a July 2009 report prepared by the Allen Consulting Group called Alcohol-related harm and the operation of licensed premises, which is freely available online as a PDF.

The report identifies the following risk factors that are likely to cause alcohol-related harm at licensed premises:

• Late opening hours;
• Patron intoxication;
• Hotel gaming; and
• Combination of late opening hours with patron intoxication.

The study’s great flaw, however – one that is repeatedly acknowledged in the report – is that its data is incomplete, specifically where different types of venues are concerned.

In compiling the study, its author/s were not able to differentiate in a substantial way between any one Victorian venue providing music entertainment (either live or recorded) and another:

Page 33 of the report reads, in part:

“It is understood that most gaming, adult entertainment and karaoke venues are identified in the data set, and therefore adequately captured by the relevant venue type categories. However, many live and recorded entertainment venues in the data are not captured by the relevant venue type category. Given this fact, results for the live and/or recorded music category should be interpreted with caution.”

Elsewhere, on page 45, the report states:

“Note that the findings for licensees with live and recorded entertainment should be interpreted with a high degree of caution. It is understood that the unknown group of venues, which includes 2,094 licensed premises, most likely includes many venues with live and/or recorded entertainment...”

“In particular, live and recorded entertainment represents 462 licensed premises in the data set. However, it is understood that there are far more venues across Victoria that have live and/or recorded entertainment. Therefore, the unknown group of venues must contain many venues that have live and/or recorded entertainment...”

“Given the data limitations, the risk associated with live and recorded entertainment is assumed to be captured by the late opening hours risk factor for the remainder of this analysis.”

In other words, the report only assumes – it definitely does not prove – that live music venues possess the same ‘high risk’ as other late night venues studied by the report such as bars and gaming venues.

(And I should thank David Blumenstein for pointing me in the direction of this section of the report!)

The only good news from all this drama and government-caused stupidity is that the huge public outcry over the closure of The Tote - which included over 2000 protesting in the street on its second-last day of trading, and hundreds of phone calls and emails to ALP politicians in once-safe but now marginal inner city seats - is that the government are panicking, and trying to rectify the situation. That it should never have happened in the first place, however, I'm sure will be remembered come the state election in November this year...

And on a brighter note...

As I said, The Tote aside, I've seen some fantastic gigs over the last couple of weeks. I'll cheat and include a great set by The Veils at The Toff in Town late last year, since I've been rather tardy in updating this blog over the last few months.

More recently, on Saturday night I caught Glasgow's Camera Obscura at The Corner Hotel, and then last night I sung and danced and swayed along to the piratical indie folk-rock of Portland's The Decemberists at Billboard. Great gigs all. Here's a taste of what you missed thanks to the magic of You Tube.

Melbourne to Glasgow

Thurs 25th - Fri 26th August

Never one to do things by halves, I decided to combine two of the most stressful things imaginable on the one day: my most important radio program of the year and my first ever international flight.

First off was my Radiothon show for 3RRR. For 10 days RRR announcers badger, beg and sweet-talk our listeners into pledging a subscription to the station. As RRR receives no government funding, and we're not a commercial broadcaster, we rely on listener support for 50% of our annual income. The irony of course is that you don't need to pay to listen to the radio, but bless their little cotton socks, RRR listeners enjoy showing their support for the station by subscribing in droves.

This being my first Radiothon for 'SmartArts' I had no idea how many subscribers I'd get; as it turns out I got heaps. About 126 people subscribed during my three hours, which was a delightful result, and created happy smiles around the station. Many thanks to you if you were one of my subscribers.

Then it was home to finish packing, and out to the airport...

I'd packed my backpack the night before, overseen and guided by my dear friend Martin Liedke, who has considerable experience in these things; certainly far more than me, the travel virgin. I still got flustered and a little panicked on Thursday arvo, stuffing the last few bits and pieces into my cabin luggage, but I eventually got everything done, and out to the airport just after 5.30 to check in for my flight, on Emirates, which flew out at 7.30pm.

In brief, because plane trips are pretty boring at the best of times, we flew 9 hours to Singapore where we stopped for an hour (I wandered around the airport at 2am and treated myself to a vodka, lime and soda for $12.30). The next leg was 7 hours to Dubai, where we arrived at 6am local time. Huge, strange airport and duty free mall. Then onto a new plane for the final leg of the journey, 12 hours to Glasgow. Phew.

We got into Glasgow half an hour late, as we'd been held up in Dubai waiting for some lads on a late connecting flight; when we landed we were kept on the plane for another half hour or so, as one of them had got sick. Once the doctor arrived and told us all it wasn't some virulent contagion, we were allowed off the plane: customs was a doddle (had I stupidly decided to smuggle drugs into Scotland it would have been easy!)

So after passing through customs lugging my bags, out I stroll, expecting to be met by Bec & Bob - and they weren't there!

At this point I had a slightly sinking feeling in my stomach as I realise that I don't actually have their phone numbers or address on me - they're on the coffee table back in Melbourne!

Just as I was wondering what to do I was paged, and once I found the airport information desk I found Bec and Bob waiting for me as well.

Crisis averted: Glasgow awaits.

Bearing in mind that I've only had about six hours sleep in about 36 hours at this point, I was feeling surprising good, and was very chatty as we drove into the city. Bec pointed out my first group of Neds - local hooligans resplendent in tracksuits and trainers, one of whom had his hand stuffed down the front of his boxers having a grand old scratch: such public displays are, I'm told, the visual equivilent of territorial pissing to mark territory and display macho prowess.

To learn more about neds, aka scallys, chavs or charvers, go here and tremble in fear: http://www.scallycentral.com - and yes, that's a picture of a couple of neds, one of them even scratching, up at the top of this page...

After a kilt fitting literally within half an hour of arriving in Glasgow, and then an hour or so relaxing at Bec and Bob's flat in a beautiful Georgian Terrace in Minerva Street, it was off to Edinburgh for the hen's night. This became something of a highly amusing farce, as the plan was a 40 minute train trip followed by dinner and a show at the Fringe, but due to signal box failures on the Edinburgh line, our train ended up going to Edinburgh via Perth - a round trip of about two hours, 20 minutes! Still, I got to see some stunning scenery, including a couple of castles, and flirted outrageously with the young lad serving refreshments from a trolley: he seemed to be flirting back, although he might just have been trying to be nice to a tourist - I'll just have to see if he sends me an e-mail...

We were in Edinburgh the same night as the Military Tattoo, and after relocating to a pub for a quick dinner and several drinks, we watched hundreds of soliders stroll past at the end of the tattoo. A grand view: so many handsome lads in kilts!

It was at this point, about 1am, that I started to hit a wall, so it was off to the bus-stop and home to Glasgow (I think I slept the whole way) with Nerida, a fellow Aussie friend of Bec's, and Bob's sister Eleanor. Bob's buck's night drinks were still in progress when I got back to Minerva Street, so I stayed up for another hour of drunken conversation, then eventually crashed...

Talk about an eventful 48 hours!