Music Scene in the Music City Melbourne

Music Scene in Melbourne
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Abstract
Being Australia`s second-largest city, Melbourne boasts of a vibrant and diverse musical, cultural, economic, and political environment. Due to its diversity, it is among the world`s top five music scene destinations and stands at the top of Australia`s music, thus becoming its music capital. It is a city with a rich history of immigrants dating back to the 1800s and has a reputation for putting some of the best talents on the world map. The research paper explores the intricacies of the music scene in the city`s context.
Music Scene in Melbourne
According to the International Journal of Community Music website (2006), the music scene community encompasses people, institutions, purposes, needs, aims, cultural association, demographic relationships, and the presence of economic support. Most often, music activities` financial support emanates from the government, audience, philanthropic funding, and volunteer contributions. The indie music scene in Melbourne is at the heart of the local community and the local government. The unwavering support offered by the city`s population and the Victorian government, though after a raft of reforms, enables a symbiotic relationship between the music scene community and Melbourne.
In this case, the exploration of Tote Hotel`s closure, a small live music spot in Melbourne`s northern suburbs, and the grassroots insurrections that necessitated a series of liquor license regulations reforms are vital in understanding how the music scene community relates to Melbourne`s contexts. The activities precipitated collaborative and inclusive policy reforms that effectively balanced cultural and economic deliberations governing the city`s music scene, residential area, and urban space. The events were a culmination of stringent regulations earlier set by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation in 2010. It imposed numerous restrictions categorizing licensed spots hosting live music as “high risk” responding to increased alcohol-related brawls in Melbourne and its environs. The requirements subsequently skyrocketed operation costs, resulting in the closure of several music avenues like Tote. It is a scenario that almost killed Melbourne`s indie music scene, but in contrast, it turned out to strengthen the music scene community due to a raft of legal reforms.
The success of any urban music economy like Melbourne consists of interdependent enclaves and diverse music-related establishments. Locally, the music economy is a group of performance venues (Tote hotel), record companies, record shops, retailers, community radio stations (3CR), any form of promotional media, and recording studios. The entities offer the platform for music scenes, the broad, interconnected networks, alliances, and circuits outside and inside the city, enabling revenue generation to support the city`s cultural activities (Stahl 2004: 54).
Australia`s federal government and Melbourne`s Victorian local government have played a key role in setting Melbourne on the pedestal as one of the world`s music scene destinations. As observed by Homan 2013, the federal government`s ad hoc nature in handling music and arts policy has bolstered local government`s efficiency, mainly in the capitals. Consequently, local governments are fast-tracking music strategy implementations to reap the cultural, economic, and social benefits created by the dominant music community`s presence. In Melbourne, the Victorian Government and Melbourne City Council offered land-use reforms and incentives in the 1990s, a program dubbed Postcode 3000. The program provided lenient parameters for reconditioning buildings for mixed and residential use, a simplified approval procedure for development, and fee relief, which birthed restaurants, cafes, 613 new bars, and over 9000 new residential homes (Adams 2008). It was a move at the center of the success of the city`s music scene due to the creation of live music and nightlife avenues.
However, those opposing the move cited the resultant disadvantage derived from positive favoritism towards residential schemes that caused a boom in the construction of expensive infill-housing, breeding several long-term repercussions for cultural creation in the city (Shaw 2009: 369-71). Nonetheless, the Victorian Government in 2014 embarked on a plan akin to the Postcode program to inspire mixed-use infill developments in Melbourne`s inner suburbs activity centers. The 2014 Victorian metropolitan planning strategy aimed to create closer proximity neighborhoods to the city center by increasing residents around schools, shops, parks, recreation facilities, and shops to build sustainable local economies and “liveable” communities. The resultant restructuring of the city`s urban space impacted cultural activity concerning sound pollution, safety amenities regulations, and increased land values (Shaw 2005: 152-3). The Victorian regulations plan mainly affected live music negatively relating to noise regulation, liquor licensing, and urban planning (Homan 2010).
With the stringent regulations imposed by the local government, most hotels and music avenues like Tote became unprofitable and decided to call it quits. It was a significant loss for the music scene community, artists, community members,...