Constructing the Venue Menu...

This week has rounded up the last interviews conducted for 'The Venue Menu' podcast. Over the past month, my friend Jeremy and I have been travelling, with our Pelican cases of Radio microphones and Zoom recorder, to various venues and organisations across Melbourne, for some interesting talks about our city’s live music scene.
We’ve spoken to artists, venue owners, managers, band bookers, and representatives from Music Victoria and the Melbourne City council.
It has been enlightening to say the least.

The Tote Hotel, Collingwood. Photo: Jeremy Tang. 

Before beginning this project, I assumed I had a decent depth of understanding when it came to live music in Melbourne – I attend live gigs, I am surrounded by musicians, artists and DJs, I listen to community radio stations and keep up to date with Melbourne music news – but there is so much more that concerns the everyday going-ons of venues than I originally allowed myself to consider. I have gained such a greater understanding of the inner workings of Melbourne’s venues from hearing from a range of people behind their scenes.

        Bar Open, Fitzroy. Photo: Jeremy Tang.

FAD Gallery Bar, Melbourne CBD. Photo: Jeremy Tang.              

I won’t go in to detail with every part of knowledge that was endowed unto me, because that is what our podcast is for! The podcast will be completed within the next month... I am excited to share it, and look forward to blogging about the final product when it is, indeed, a final product.

But as a general reflection on what I have perceived from this experience, my main take-away has been a deeper conception of the connectivity of the Victorian music industry. 
As a podcast, we are posing the question of WHY the music scene in Melbourne works – so well and at all! The greatest explanation of this to me is the network that exists here – of people, at various levels of effect and community, that truly care for and love music – working to the common ideal of having a healthy music scene. 

           The Old Bar, Fitzroy. Photo: Jeremy Tang.

​The venues, their owners, their bookers, their managers, all want to help bands and creatives express their work, to give outlets to artists, and provide places for patrons, of all ages, of any social-economic status, to appreciate art, feel at home, be a part of something grander than themselves, and the mediocrity within our everyday lives. With the measures and ambitions of organisations like Music Victoria, and the considerations and initiatives of the Melbourne City Council, venues are given the ability to do all this.

It is widely acknowledged, across all spheres, that our live music scene in Melbourne has value, great potential and importance. Music for enjoyment, creative expression, mental health, relief, community and human-interrelation. From thereon, it is a matter of working as a unit, to maintain, better and improve what we already have and where we are at.
Everything is stronger as a network, as an ecology of cooperative parts... It's a family really.

Music Victoria offices, South Melbourne. Photo: Jeremy Tang.        

        City of Melbourne Council House, Melbourne CBD. Photo: Jeremy Tang.

​This has been a brilliant assignment to have been a part of, in its outward-facing relevance, as an opportunity to talk to people in the crux of the industry, an industry I care greatly for, and that I am studying with the intent of being a part of!

​I feel very grateful and indebted to have had such insight shared by those that have given us their time:

Joel from the Old Bar
Oriana from FAD Bar and Gallery
Dannie from Bar Open
Rich from The Tote
Matt from the band Chook Race
Patrick from Music Victoria
Hannah from Melbourne City Council.

It has been an absolute pleasure, and an ear-opening experience, thanks to each of them. I hope it will be the same for our podcast listeners!