Pictured above: Local musos at a recent Espy open mic night, heroically helping the venue meet its live music obligations.
St Kilda has a long and proud history of musical accomplishment. From our local residents, Paul Kelly and Tex Perkins, to more recent inductees like Envy Marshall (having hit number one in five European countries, and tracking within the top ten in the UK), the list of stars this suburb has launched is nothing short of astonishing.
Over 40 percent of the suburb also identify as creatives, and the entire nightlife trade revolves around art, entertainment (usually live music) and unique dining and drinking experiences. An endless stream of tourists have visited our suburb for just those reasons, while locals live here precisely because they can enjoy the arts and entertainment lifestyle that St Kilda is famed for providing.
However, ill winds have long blown down Fitzroy, Acland and Barkly Streets, threatening everything that has made this suburb so special. Live music venues are closing down at a disturbing rate, musicians are under-employed or are now deserting this most historically dynamic of suburbs for other, more vibrant parts of Melbourne.
Fitzroy, Brunswick and Northcote are seemingly rocking and popping every night of the week, while St Kilda wallows somewhere between a wasteland and a ghost town. The seismic disturbance of the pandemic years certainly contributed to that decline, along with the ever-mounting costs of venue operation (especially insurance and alcohol expenses), but while St Kilda stumbles, other suburbs now shine.
Our musicians remain some of the lowest-paid Australians, having long heard of support schemes to keep them afloat but rarely seeing them enacted at a local government level.
In recent days we have lost ‘Claypots’, ‘Lona’ and ‘Voodoo Love Child’, while ‘The Dog’s Bar’ and ‘Lost’ continue to struggle, with almost more closed nights than open. The ‘talent factories’ our musicians can learn their stagecraft in are disappearing.
What’s happening with the Live Music Precinct?
And this is despite the claims on the CoPP’s official policy statement for the Live Music Precinct (LMP) that, ‘Our aim is to protect existing live music activity and support and attract additional activity in coming years while maintaining amenity for our community. It’s more music. Merged better.’ Catchy, but cruelled by reality. Where are these new venues and a flourishing live music scene (outside of the long-established titans of our area)?
Aware of these mounting problems, the City of Port Phillip Council commissioned research and an action plan to revive the ailing post-Covid live music sector several years ago (2021–25).
Dubbed the Live Music Precinct (LMP) zone in recognition that St Kilda houses nearly 70% of all live music venues within the expansive municipality, a set of policies were signed off by the relevant State Minister some 18 months ago to initiate a bold new approach aimed at reviving the sector.
And since that radical, transformative moment designed to usher in epochal, industry-saving changes we have seen…cue crickets.
Where the State Government has walked the talk by providing substantial, ongoing financial assistance to venues and musicians through their ’10,000 Gigs’ policy and the Minister for Creative Industries has personally visited and made further policy announcements at venues like ‘The Vineyard’ and ‘The Dog’s Bar’, Council has dawdled. Badly. We have seen, quite literally, no support for venues. Or musicians. None.
Astonishing lack of Council follow-through
The one policy they have tried to enact – a parking permit designed to help musicians bump in and out – has proven a dismal failure. There has been just a single application to date. And if you read the detail on how many hurdles you have to jump through to procure one of these Willy Wonka gold tickets, you’ll understand why.
In fact, I’ve even had to personally assist the owners of ‘The Dog’s Bar’ in a major dispute with Council enforcers over noise levels. Even where a complainant NIMBY had thrown a bucket of water over a band emerging from that venue at just 10pm, Council wanted to fine the owners for allowing too many decibels to escape their ornate doors. Despite not being able to actually nominate what that decibel level is meant to be, nor providing us with an actual EPA reading on it. The enforcers stormed off in a huff, then sneakily monitored the venue for weeks, threatening the owners with further fines. Now that’s what I call ‘protecting and preserving’ the sector.
After the recent Channel 9 ‘A Current Affair’ clip in which our suburb was publicly named and shamed as an ‘inner-city slum’ – which I am certain that many of us have seen or heard about – the astonishing lack of Council follow-through to our long-celebrated live music sector via THEIR OWN policies borders upon criminal neglect.
Why haven’t they delivered? Why are other suburbs borrowing their ideas (like Yarra Council) and doing a far better job of it? Where is our St Kilda Ward Councillor in all of this, an individual who was specifically re-elected to office to champion such vital matters? While it can be all too easy to point fingers, apportion blame and thereby turn our elected officials into ‘scapegoats’ – though some of us might say deservedly so – very serious questions must be immediately asked of Council as to why they are deliberately letting the music die…
