BIGSOUND: 'It’s Hard To Do Good Music Legally'

Music is regularly forced into illegal places, but the illegal venues create great music, argued a panel at BIGSOUND this afternoon.

As part of the inaugural Music+Design, The Grates' Patience Hodgson was part of a panel exploring the relationship between music and the space it's performed and consumed in. She admitted that because of regulatory requirements in Brisbane her Southside Tea Room – a café and bar set-up that mixes art installations with music – was forced to stretch the boundary of legality at times.

“It's hard to do good things legally, especially when music's involved,” she said. “With film, even if there's something illegal involved with the filming process, it's fairly easy to share once it's made. But bands have a certain way they want to play, a certain way they want to enjoy [it].”

Making specific reference to a 75 decibel sound limit for cafes, she said, “You're forced to do things illegally sometimes, because the red tape difficult to get through.”

Sounds Australia's National Live Music Coordinator Dr Ianto Ware also mused on a small venue he was involved with in Adelaide.

Taking over a shopfront, they deliberately gave the venue a small entry so they could hide music in the basement.

“We were reasonably aware that we would attract the attention of council and police,” he said. “We buried the sound by putting it in the basement, so the police couldn't see it… the music came out of that culture.”

The panel, which also included Underworld-collaborator John Warwicker, producer Magoo (real name Lachlan Goold) and Caroline Stalker of Architectus, agreed that these 'illegal' spaces help form music and the culture surrounding it, particularly by creating spaces which allow random 'mistakes' and having the confidence to commit to embracing those mistakes.