VIDEO: National SLAM Day Supporting Live Music In Small Venues Post by: Dan The Internut 22 February, 2012 - 10:51 AM

National SLAM DAY from National SLAM DAY on Vimeo.

You can bet your bottom dollar that your favourite band started out playing in pubs, so it's a big shame to hear that some of our best known live music venues are in danger of being shut down due to liquor licensing laws.

SLAM is an organisation aiming to fix all that. Following a mass protest on Feb 23, 2010 that saw 20,000 music fans march down Melbourne's Swanston Street, they're keeping the message alive with hundreds of SLAM shows across Australia which you can officially attend from tomorrow night. For your nearest gig go to www.slamrally.org

We asked some of the jocks here at Mix 94.5 why live music venues are so vital to up and coming muso's.

Freddy Botica says,

"Live music venues are the incubators of the local music industry. For musicians to create and perform, nothing provides better feedback than the immediacy of a 'live" audience. My one constant joy is being at a "live gig", no matter what the size of venue. And it's such a buzz when a band you once saw playing to about 90 to a hundred people, play a much bigger venue years later, and they're doing great. All the great performers pay their dues 'on the road', playing one small venue after another, honing their craft, and hopefully reaching their expectations. We need to nurture our developing artists, and venues and fans that support them are so crucial to that development."

"Rock 'n' Roll must never die!"

Clairsy from The Big Couch says,

"It's just so important for the industry, to progress in 2012 and beyond, for these young bands to have somewhere to play live. The live scene has become so important with the profits made from CD sales dropping in recent times. Plus there is nothing better than being at a venue an experiencing that live thing when a band is just GOING OFF - it is indeed priceless to experience it."

Craig Weston says, 

"Live music, regardless of genre, is the closest our society gets to a "tribal" experience or ritual. It’s primal. Dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of us gather in one spot, have a few drinks (our legal version of peyote, kava, mescalin or whatever...some people may have other not so legal drugs!) and then we go wild and celebrate. Live music is the chance to share something you love with a bunch of other people from the same "tribe", no matter how different you may be in every other way. Music itself is amazing, but LIVE music gets us out of the house, the workplace and the car, it unplugs those i-Pod headphones and plugs us into each other.

On top of all that, musicians are people too and they need to eat; go see a band!"

Tim Lordan says,

"For a start, you wouldn't have, especially here in Perth, excellent bands like Eskimo Joe, Jebediah and Gyroscope, who all got their start on the live music scene, so you'd lose all of those up and coming bands. Also, I think it's a great way for kids to release their energy and work out their aggression; people talk about them perhaps being out on the streets and drinking in parks, or whatever. Let the young people go to a proper venue, check out some live music and let out some energy that way. It’s healthy, it’s fun, you know."

Personally, I played in bands here in Perth for near on 8 years... Not that my band ever really broke any real ground, but the few big breaks we managed to get were original gigs at some of the pubs around Perth that still support live Perth music. The Paddo, the Swan Acoustic Lounge in North Freo, The Basement, Mojo's... even The Carine there for a little while. Without live music venues, bands just can't break into the mainstream because they can't survive on no income. And very little income these days comes from CD sales.

For more info including a gig guide go to www.slamrally.org

Who was the last band you saw at the local pub?

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