As part of our ongoing commitment to providing information and skills development for musicians and music businesses in Victoria, Music Victoria will host two free workshops as part of the 2012 Brunswick Music Festival.

Covering popular topics such as social media, online marketing, tour budgeting and bookkeeping, musicians and music industry workers will receive invaluable advice from industry professionals including Carlo Santone (Blue King Brown), Kat Cazanis (Nitty Gritty Digital), Tom Harris (White Sky Music), Ben Strong (GI & Sanicki Lawyers), musician Matt Kulezsa (Rat vs Possum), and Serge Bolzonello (Director, Banks Group).

Both sessions will be held at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre on Sydney Rd Brunswick. These workshops are free but bookings are essential to secure your spot.

Meet Me On Facebook: Building and Engaging With Your Fanbase With Social Media
Date: Monday 19th March 2012
Time: 6.30pm to 9.00pm
RSVP via http://www.trybooking.com/BEZM 

and

Money for Nothing: How to Manage Your Financials and Maximise Your Profits
Date: Tuesday 20^th March 2012
Time: 6.30pm to 9.00pm
RSVP via http://www.trybooking.com/BEZO 

Both sessions will be held at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre, 270 Sydney Rd Brunswick (cnr Glenlyon Rd).

Greetings Music Victoria members and subscribers

We hope you had a good break and are refreshed and ready to tackle another exciting year for Victorian music.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, St Kilda was the live music epicentre of Australia, spawning its own distinct sound. Music Victoria is celebrating this era of individuality, enthusiasm and creativity with a panel at the St Kilda Festival’s Live N Local week called Saints and Sinners – St Kilda’s Musical History at the Prince of Wales Mink Bar at 5pm on Sunday 5^th February.

Former promoter Dolores San Miguel, author of Ballroom: The Melbourne Punk & Post Punk Scene, will do a reading from her book and musicians Paul Stewart (Painters and Dockers) and Bohdan X will regale the audience with stories and lessons from the era.

Michelle Harrington, founder of the St Kilda Live Music Community and editor of St Kilda Rock Chronicles, will also be on the panel to describe the issues facing the music scene today and what young musicians and promoters can learn from the DIY attitude of the 1970s and 1980s.

It is a free event but RSVPs are recommended via workshops@musicvictoria.com.au

The good news about the St Kilda music scene is that the new owners of the Prince Bandroom have reaffirmed a commitment to live music with the signing of new band booker and live music seven nights a week in the public bar.  You know the deal southsiders: use it or lose it.

Sadly, one of the north’s best mid-capacity venues, the East Brunswick Club, will officially close its doors on Wednesday 29^th February with a show by Oscar + Martin, Parking Lot Experiments and Milk Teddy.

The room has hosted memorable performances by local acts including The Mess Hall, The Drones, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Lisa Mitchell, Jet, Cloud Control, the Hard-Ons, Angus & Julia Stone, Boy & Bear, the Temper Trap and Urthboy. The owners Pete and Pam are retiring and the new owners have decided to not continue it as a band room and have put in an application to build apartments.

There is always lots of churn in the live music industry. What we need to focus on is that the venue operators that want to continue trading, and new ones that want to open up, have the regulatory framework and support to do so.

This year Music Victoria will be working with councils and the government to allocate resources to identify the state’s key “cultural clusters” and manage community expectations around them. Clearly neighbours in Balwyn should expect a different level of amenity than residents in a cultural epicentre like Fitzroy.

One of the concerns is the difficulty in starting up a new venue. The Phoenix Public House recently opened up in Sydney Road Brunswick, and the Regal Ballroom is set to open up in Northcote this weekend, but they had existing licenses. We need to ensure that new licensing procedures are not so cumbersome that potential new licensees are scared off from starting new venues.

Music Victoria is getting behind the first National SLAM Day on February 23^rd. If you’re a band, venue booker, promoter or licensee and want to support this historic event by hosting a show on 23^rd February, register your gig at slamrally.org. It’s free to do so!

Otherwise, please make sure you head out on the 23^rd and show your love for your local.

Music Victoria is also looking at ways to increase musician’s income. We have recently completed our report into musician’s access to Centrelink, and are currently researching tax concessions that professional musicians receive in countries such as Ireland and France, and what the highly subsidised film industry receives in Australian. Our Student Committee is also researching the state of play with the underage gig scene.

Music Victoria featured in a recent front page Melbourne Leader story on a recommendation from a recent City of Melbourne report that a music incubator should be built on crown land behind the Victorian Arts Centre. We argued that the Victorian contemporary music industry is comprised of hundreds of inter-related micro businesses that are spread out all over the state. The benefits of an incubator would range from economies of scale to shared resources, ideas and collaborations. We need a hub that everyone from young creatives to tourists could migrate to, with live music, seminars, education and exhibitions. There’s plenty of evidence that incubators provide an excellent and inspiring environment to work in, away from the isolation of working at home.

Cheers

Patrick Donovan

In the 1970s and ‘80s, St Kilda was the live music capital of Australia, spawning its own distinct sound. In this insightful panel, St Kilda music identities discuss what today’s promoters and musicians can learn from the heyday.

As part of the St Kilda Festival Artist Development Series, Music Victoria brings you a free discussion on the past, present and future of the St Kilda music scene - 'Saints and Sinners – St Kilda’s musical history'. 

Speakers include:

Patrick Donovan - Music Victoria CEO
Dolores San Miguel - author of Ballroom: The Melbourne Punk & Post Punk Scene
Paul Stewart - Painters & Dockers singer and music journalist
Bohdan X – St Kilda musician in the ‘70s and ‘80s
Michelle Harrington - founder of the St Kilda Live Music Community and editor of St Kilda Rock Chronicles

Bookings: this is a free event but RSVPs are recommended. Email workshops@musicvictoria.com.au to secure your spot.

Date: Sunday 5^th February 2012
Start time:  5pm      
Venue Name: Mink Bar, downstairs at the Prince of Wales Hotel
Venue Address: 2b Acland Street St Kilda

St Kilda Festival 2012 - 4th-12th February

Involved in a music-related business in the City of Melbourne or thinking about starting up?  City of Melbourne offers Enterprise and Micro Business Grants which music businesses can access.

There are four categories of grants:

1. Start-up - Grant value: up to $30,000
2. Business expansion - Grant value: up to $30,000
3. Export entry - Grant value: up to $10,000
4. Business support services - Grant value: up to $10,000

Previous recipients include Bennett's Lane Jazz Club (refurbishment and extension) and Rubber Records (to develop export markets).

Applications for funding are open Monday 13^th February 2012 – Tuesday 13^th March 2012 (5:30pm). Notifications will be from June 2012 for events / activities completed by 2013.

Information Sessions

A general grants information session will be held in with additional lunchtime briefing sessions.  The lunchtime sessions will cover more specific detail about the assessment criteria, application form and assessment process.

For more information and to register for either session, please head to: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/enterprisemelbourne/BusinessSupport/grantssponsorship/Pages/InformationSessions.aspx

For more information about the City of Melbourne grants, please head to: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/enterprisemelbourne/BusinessSupport/grantssponsorship/grants/Pages/BusinessGrants.aspx

It’s been a big year for Music Victoria and the industry and we’ve noticed that, as De La Soul once sang, three is the magic number.

For years the music industry has lagged behind other industries because of a lack of meaningful data. But this was addressed this year when APRA, Arts Victoria and the City of Melbourne each released reports into the economic, social and cultural contribution made by music.

2011 will be remembered as the year that they started to take the music industry seriously. The three reports highlighted the importance of the industry and will help shape the decision making process in years to come.

The Victorian government and Responsible Alcohol Victoria have also acknowledged the value of the industry by amending the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998 by inserting an object into the act recognising the contribution of live music to the state. Objects act as guiding principles of the act and should not only help avoid another SLAM rally but give weight to the push for the Agent of Change principle (which protects existing venues against new neighbours) to be given legislative teeth. We look forward to working on that, and other issues, on the soon-to-be established Live Music Roundtable in 2012.

Music venues are an endangered species. This year we lost the Arthouse and the Public Bar, the East Brunswick Club band room will wind up after summer and the Prince Bandroom’s future hangs in the balance (although the appointment of a new band booker announced today is a positive sign). On the other hand, great new venues such as the Phoenix Public House hosting music again, and the Regal Ballroom in Northcote and Bridge Hotel in Castlemaine will also start hosting live music.

While there’s not a lot that can be done to stymie the encroaching inner city gentrification, Music Victoria is looking at ways local councils and government can help make it more cost effective for licensees to host live music. Music Victoria also attends monthly meetings with band bookers from venues around Melbourne to talk about issues affecting live music venues and what we can do to help.

2011 will also be remembered as the year Melbourne simultaneously and successfully hosted three major music events – the Face the Music conference, the Australasian World Music Expo and the second Melbourne Music Week. All events were well attended and if the positive reaction from the creative director of Austin, Texas conference South by Southwest, Brent Grulke, is anything to go by, we’ve got a winner on our hands. Grulke, one of the most traveled and influential leaders in the music industry, was blown away by the industry’s size and talent in his nine days in Melbourne in November and confirmed that Melbourne has the passion, talent and infrastructure to run its own version of SXSW.

Three is also the number of committees that Music Victoria established in 2011 to ensure that it is broadly representative of the industry.

• the 70-strong Victorian Music Council, made up of leading musicians, managers, regional festival promoters, venue owners, community radio station managers and music lawyers, which helps guide the organization on priorities and policy;
• the Education Advisory Committee, which guides us on education matters;
• the Student Committee, comprised of 13 of the state’s top music business and performance students. 

In 2012, the students will be working towards setting up an internship database and Code of Conduct, re-vitalising the underage and all-ages gig circuit, helping promote National Slam Day on 23^rd February at TAFEs, unis and around the state, and assisting us in working with Centrelink to have a better understanding of the value of creative industries. For this, they will be working with our volunteer researcher Kerri Russell, who is adding the finishing touches to our Centrelink survey and report. It will be on our website soon and we will be approaching federal MPs about our recommendations. Thank you to everyone who contributed by completing our survey.

The Australian Music Industry Network, of which I am a director, had a great year, negotiating a deal with Virgin Australia that allows Music Victoria members to save thousands of dollars a year in excessive baggage fees. If you’re not a member, sign up now and save. We are also offering two Virgin Velocity memberships to new members who sign up and existing members who renew before the end of December. We’ll draw these lucky winners at random in the new year.

I also enjoyed my time on the National Film and Sound Archive board this year, and look forward to helping raise its music-related profile and acquisitions next year.

Music Victoria is also helping facilitate the Generate pilot program with APRA and the federal Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) to help identify, educate and fund the best and most innovative15 music-related business ideas in the country. For more details check our website and register your interest if you have an innovative music business idea. An information session will be held in Melbourne on 22^nd February – you must be registered to attend this workshop.

And all of you licensees and band bookers out there, don’t to forget to register your events at slamrally.org and be part of the first National SLAM Day on 23rd February 2012, celebrating our small live venues.

The Music Victoria board has recently been boosted by the addition of musician and festival programmer Sophia Brous and Street Press Australia’s own Leigh Treweek, and we look forward to harnessing their ideas and energy in 2012. Welcome aboard, folks!

Music Victoria is a non-for-profit organisation that survives on a state government grants, sponsorship, donations and membership fees. The state government, which has provided operational funding until the end of June 2013, has advised that we have to start working towards self-sustainability.

So it’s vital that our subscribers who support what we have done in our short tenure get behind us and become financial members. The more of the industry we represent, the healthier the industry and stronger we all become.

Our music scene is strong, but it’s a fragile ecosystem. On top of venues closing down, this year we lost record store institution Hound Dog’s Bop Shop, which closes its doors this week after decades of providing roots music lovers with rare vinyl and CDs. Make sure you pop down to 313 Victoria Street West Melbourne, buy some tunes and say farewell to manager Denys Williams, who says he is closing the store for a lifestyle change, not because of slow business. And make sure you hit the other record stores (check our Melbourne Music City guide for lists) and stock up on Victorian music for excellent Christmas presents.

And finally, our wishes are with music guru Molly Meldrum, who has been in an induced coma at the Alfred Hospital this week after falling from a ladder. Get well Molly!

Paddy and Bek would like to thank the Music Victoria board for their guidance and patience; and huge thank you to all the volunteers who have worked with us this year – Kerri, Ryan, Tania, Meredith, Graham, Cassie, Lanie and Carrie. 

Have a great Xmas and New Year. The Music Victoria office will be closed from Friday 23^rd December and we’ll be back on board on 9^th January, ready for a new year.

Patrick Donovan
CEO, Music Victoria