The column's title is not a phrase that scans too easily, I admit. However, it seems obvious from where I sit that 'rock'n'roll' has well and truly been eclipsed by a similarly oikish pack of breadheads. Both parents now work like stink ... gambling in a pub is far more of a reason to leave the house these days, it seems, than live entertainment of any sort. Dating 'apps' save prospective rooters hundreds on booze, bands and disappointment. Also, the folk who used to flock to gigs are no longer as young, and commitments, and lardiness - sorry, not lardiness, I meant Netflix - means that more now-much-older folk stay home in droves.
Remember 1977? When the song title alone “I Don't Wanna Go Out” was as much an expression of contempt as observation.
The cost of running a pub is far, far greater now than ever before. If you don't have pokies in your pub you're gonna struggle. No wonder they're all closing. And no wonder the developers are moving in.
Yesterday I got together with Jethro Heller, of the Youview Australia YouTube channel, who (unwisely in my opinion) wanted to interview me for his upcoming feature-length documentary, “State of Play 2”, which focuses on the dwindling live music scene in South Australia.
You never get to fully express yourself in these situations. There's never enough time. And also, of course, almost everyone has said it already.
The doc will be presented to the earnest and well-meaning, part of a Futile and Hamfisted Parliamentary Enquiry. The government (bless!) think that because they're “in charge” they can somehow solve organic things with money. Reality never looked so gormless, honestly.
For example: a few years back the Adelaide City Council launched a big scheme to tell everyone how “vibrant” Adelaide was, complete with big stickers on pavements. But when the poster-posting folks tear down any and posters whose maker hasn't paid them for distribution, you realise that local “vibrancy” has a lot to contend with.
Posters for low dives and dubious performers are as essential to street life as the black market. But because public servants get their coke delivered these days, they're not so familiar with the street life. And let's face it, who'd want to slum it with the weirdos down Hindley Street or Rundle Street East, unless you really wanted to encounter live music? Not that many folks are willing to extend themselves to be bothered. Truth is, that's kinda always been the way at the bottom of the heap.
What could help? Well, the Adelaide City Council creating laws which gave complete legal right to the owner of a popular (or popularish) establishment (rented or no). Doesn't matter whether it's the Cranka (the Crown and Anchor scuffle has apparently been resolved, if you believe the local media), a bingo hall, a mosque, the spaghetti restaurant (utterly rammed even on a Wednesday night), or a bloody knocking shop.
Such places are culturally significant. It's not the building itself, but the momentum the establishment has built up. The Crown and Anchor here seems rather beloved by many punters; I've never particularly liked it as a place to go, myself. The Tivoli Hotel was more beloved, and while the stage and band room is still there, despite being used for disco or whatever, it can't be used for bands because it's adjacent to housing.
This nonsense has been going on here (and doubtless in your home burg) for decades - I first noticed it in 1982 with the demolition of the Aurora Hotel. Yet, as Michael Burden's book “Lost Adelaide” (Oxford University Press, 1983), makes clear, Adelaide has lost a raft of its culturally notable buildings, and they're still going down in droves. No-one wanted the hideous old factories to survive. But a shufti through “Lost Adelaide” is enough to make you weep.
Alright, at the end of the day, joints like the Producers or the Century or the Cranka or Lark and Tinas or Club Foote or the Grace Emily are just buildings, but with a culture gravitating around them. If the scene is happening, whether it be an arts class, a yoga club, a chess club or the headquarters of the underground dwarf-tossing club, it's culturally significant. And if you kill the venue, it's damned difficult to gain the same traction in a new place. Which is more important, fat wodges of cash for real estate agents and dodgy councillors, or our way of life?
(Oh, alright, consider me told. I'm dreaming.)
Like I say, developers can develop anywhere, sure. But a law could be passed to deny devlopers from infringing in any way on the significant establishment either in the place they want to squish, or nearby. Of course, would-be buyers of the flats etc, the would-be residents, would need to be told that complaints about noise and unruly street drunks will be ignored as the noisy unruly sods were there first.
You don't need grants and handouts for musicians or jugglers. If a place is happening, it's happening. You just have to help to keep the place happening. Don't make it too difficult. For once, fuck the developers, okay? There will always be a place for them to squash. Why must we sacrifice our quality of life?
Hell, don't put me in charge. I'd substantially increase the fines for developers who flout developing laws and, as many developers have discovered that arson can do wonders, change the law so that if a property owned by a developer goes up in a big fiery bang, they get hit with a fine of many times the value of the building - and are ordered to rebuild it. And, after that, they'd be banned - they and any company they are a part of - from owning any property in the city, and be forced to sell it/them at a low rate determined by the ACC.
I'd want to scrap all taxes to places designated of significant cultural value. That'd make it easier for venues or pubs to engage bands, comedians and petomanes. To attract drinkers (and so forth). People do like going out to have a good time. But the narrower the profit margin, the more unlikely these things will continue.
But, some might huff, what about the loss of revenue? Well, that's actually a lot easier than you might think. The first obvious idea would be to increase parking fees. The second, an annual fee for private cars which either park in or pass through, the city (excluding cabs). Ban Ubers, or tax them more heavily. Tax the bloody scooters too.
Like I say, don't put me in charge.
Over the last few years Adelaide City Council has spent quite a lot of money transforming lanes and alleyways into chi-chi eateries. Truth, the members of the government live in a lifestyle quite different and dissociated from that of the rest of us, and I suspect they genuinely believe that edgy new restaurants are somehow “real culture”, when, no, actually, they're just folks stuffing their face. Just like at HJs or Maccas. Nothing wrong with eating at a French restaurant in a former little lane of an evening. But don't confuse culture with having a meal and getting a bit squiffy.
Yeah, fewer and fewer folks want to encounter music in a converted basement, however intriguing (I recently visited Ancient World's new premises, and pondered if it might once have been a torture room, as well as a live music venue), but that's not the point. How can you have a vibrant culture when you're busy crushing the life out of it?
Us old farts won't be around forever (thank god). By 2035 we'll all be up to our necks in ocean in Adelaide, or perhaps glad of the local carparks where we can see a grizzled old git plunk at a guitar.
I expect Jethro Heller will be there, filming it for “State of Play 3”.
