Is anything like this happening in your neck of the woods?
The EG (Entertainment Guide) of Melbourne's Age newspaper is pretty much a jazz-free zone - their jazz coverage mostly gets shuffled into the general arts coverage. And this piece's author, Patrick Donovan, is a splendid example of rock pig.
So jazz isn't mentioned here, but it strikes me that all the different types of gigs mentioned here could apply equally to jazz.
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Host of the town
July 10, 2009
Torn between the couch and live music? Patrick Donovan gets the best of both worlds.
IT'S easier to contemplate cleaning up your house the day after a party when one of Australia's best guitarists, Charlie Owen, is blazing away with his band, Large Number 12s, in your lounge room.
Some people recently blew their weekly salaries to watch Simon and Garfunkel from 50 metres away. But when fleet-footed Large Number 12s singer-guitarist Chris "Horse" Harrington shuffles into the middle of the room for an acoustic solo during Give a Little Love, the beaming host, Barry Williams, reaches out and pats him on the back.
Just when Williams thinks the gig can't get any better, his favourite Australian singer, Ron Peno from Died Pretty and the Darling Downs, who has arrived as a guest, jumps up to perform two Beatles covers.
Williams is a car dealer by trade but he is also part of a new breed of do-it-yourself promoters who are taking matters into their own hands.
This is the second gig he has put on at his St Kilda home. To pay the band, he passes around a hat and asks his 35 guests to contribute about $30. It's more than the usual door charge for a gig but there's plenty of food and grog included.
He says he was inspired after reading about musicians playing porch parties in the US, so he approached some of his favourite acts about the idea.
"I think some of the early American music came from porch parties, so I am trying to follow tradition," he says.
And as with many entrepreneurial promoters holding gigs in crowded inner-city Melbourne, Williams has a canny approach to possible complaints from neighbours: invite them.
Passion for a different, more intimate live music experience without big crowds, late starts and expensive drinks in plastic cups also inspired Oakleigh Bowling Club band booker Peter Foley. Last Friday local country rock band Wagons entertained a full house of 260 while Queen Elizabeth surveyed the room from her portrait on the wall and coffee was offered through the servery for a gold coin donation.
Foley started holding gigs in the lounge room of his Murrumbeena home after becoming frustrated with having to travel across town for gigs.
"I knew there were quite a few folks in my local community feeling the same way," he says. "The lounge room gigs were an immediate hit with both punters and musicians. They had a special, intimate feel."
Two years ago, Suzannah Espie and Ian Collard decided to cut out the middle man and run their own Bless This House tour with another musical couple, the Yearlings. The tour comprised 25 shows inside people's homes, some interstate.
"We reached people we ordinarily wouldn't reach who would not go out to a pub," Espie says.
It's happening all over Melbourne. Most weekends, someone is putting on a DIY party in a warehouse, a lounge room or a backyard (there's even a MySpace site dedicated to the practice:
http://myspace.com/diyhousegigsmelbourne).
Victorians love their live music. This year they've had the chance to hear it in just about every available outdoor space: record stores such as Pure Pop Records, Basement Discs and Prahran's Greville Records; houses, warehouses, backyards, churches, trains, laneways, bowling clubs and even on mountain tops, at January's All Tomorrow's Parties festival at Mount Buller.
This is despite more stringent liquor licensing laws and the gentrification of the inner city, forcing many venues to turn down the amplifiers.
In Yarraville, Jaye Kranz has opened up her rented church hall as an "underground" music venue — launched last month by artists including Suzannah Espie and Chris Wilson — while over in St Kilda, Dave Stephens hosts regular shows in the courtyard of his Barkly Street record store, Pure Pop Records.
In 2005, when sales of physical music were in free fall, Stephens would sit at the counter wondering why every cafe was full yet his store was empty. So he decided to branch out into food and drinks. After waiting 18 months for a liquor licence, he opened the cafe a year ago and has hosted many memorable shows in his courtyard by artists including Barry Adamson, Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Conway Savage and Spencer P. Jones.
The store has a capacity of 50 and there is no "backstage" area, so punters and performers mingle before and after their sets.
"We're not CBGB or the Cavern in Liverpool but you can't help but be a bit proud when you've helped a band along," Stephens says. "And with more people visiting the store and spending more time in here, we're selling more records."
Over the years, Julian Wu's Windsor home has become a de facto motel for touring musicians. The passionate music fan, guitarist and barbecue expert has held many impromptu shows featuring visiting musicians but has also put on shows by artists including Jon Langford, Horse Stories and Dan Warner. A $15 donation included his mouth-watering "Wu-B-Q".
"There's lots of guitars and other bits of musical gear in the house so it's not hard to put something together at short notice," Wu says.
Another nice, open space that was used for gigs over summer was the Melbourne Zoo.
"This one's for the meerkats," said Brendan Suppression from Eddy Current Suppression Ring as he launched into Colour Television in front of pictures of a yawning hippopotamus and a soaring hawk and a sellout crowd of 3000 people. The zoo is certainly a unique venue; where else can you see lions feasting on whole goats before seeing a band?
You can imagine the monkeys jumping in their cages to the garage rock of the band but zoo keepers told us they were probably sleeping; the monkeying around was left to young fans stage-diving and Suppression, who donned a purple elephant hat for a song and jumped into the crowd to join the mosh pit.
Barry Williams likes a good party. As well as his house parties, he threw a memorable birthday party a few years ago on one of Victoria's most unique venues, Queenscliff's Blues Train.
He handpicked his four favourite blues acts — Chris Wilson, C. W. Stoneking, Mojo Web and Geoff Achison — who played on four separate carriages, with guests swapping carriages at designated stops. The train runs most weekends from October to March.
Blues Train organiser Hugo T. Armstrong says the chugging of the train is a natural fit for the rolling blues rhythms and passengers often tell him they have never experienced anything quite like it.
"It's that unique combination," he says. "You're on a steam train having a few drinks with your friends and rocking along to Australian blues artists on this great train journey. Where else would you want to experience the blues outside of the deep south of America?"
But while it must be great fun running your own gig, surely cleaning up the next day is a drag?
"The cleaning the next day is easy," Williams says. "We just put on my playlist and relive the moments."
Shake some DIY action
■Find a band you know can cut it live.
■Calculate a cover charge that will cover expenses.
■Make sure you look after the musicians with a rider (drinks, food), as well as a comfortable space in which they can relax. A happy band equals a good gig.
■Ensure you employ a sound mixer or someone who knows how to get the sound right.
■Make sure guests can find the venue — perhaps include a map on the invitation. It helps if you are located near public transport.
■Invite the right number of people — not so many that it's overcrowded but not so few that there's no vibe.
■Try to get an even gender spread.
■Ensure the beer is plentiful and cold. Repeat the mantra: you can never have too much ice.
■Invite neighbours, or at least warn them about the event.
■You need a liquor licence to serve alcohol. A restricted club licence enables you to supply alcohol to members and/or guests. It is also possible to apply for a temporary limited liquor licence to supply alcohol for one-off events.
Alternatively, you can apply for a BYO permit to allow customers to bring their own liquor and drink it on your premises.
More details at
http://consumer.vic.gov.au.
It's great on both levels, actually. I much prefer to be hired by a rich patron, though, than to have people pay admission--I'd rather they contribute voluntarily to the host to cover expenses and have my payment set at the start.
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