It starts at 12 pm and tickets are $20 at the door. Acts on the bill so far are Spencer P Jones & Escape Committee, Sons of Lee Marvin, Submarines, Fiona Lee Maynard and her Holy Men, The Annie Crooners, Suzie Stapleton, Tex Napalm and Gary Gray, Brian Hooper, Skyscraper Stan and Tom Dockray.
“Tago Mago has been an excellent backdrop and environment for artists, musicians, performers and audiences alike for almost four years,” said Spencer P. Jones. “Their agenda is to simply have an arts and music venue where artists and musicians would not just perform, but also want to hang out at in their spare time. This has become the case for me. Melbourne cannot afford to lose yet another music venue, let alone one as sympathetic to creative process and eclectic tastes as Tago Mago are. This is a venue well worth supporting.”
Tago Mago was set up in 2010 by Calvin Hillis and Peter Malbourne, and helped rejuvenate the upper end of High Street. They invested over $400,000 in the club over three years to keep things cool with the neighbourhood. In 2013, it got a noise complaint from a new resident who lived over 50 metres from the venue. Several weeks ago, they got another complaint, as well as a notice to quit on the 8 year lease on the building.
The venue requires $23,000 in acoustical improvements to keep the venue operating compliantly.
Band booker Harley McLeod explains, “We’re in a position where the only support we get for continuing to operate as a venue supporting local music and arts is from patrons, local artists and bodies such as Music Victoria and SLAM. Sadly, when faced with situations such as these, in today’s climate of laws designed with property development placed well and truly above the wellbeing of the community that is not simply enough.
“We were extremely hesitant to ask for the financial support of the wider community to continue to operate, but it has become a choice between a crowd-funding campaign and shutting up shop, and we refuse to let the local Thornbury area regress back into an artistic black hole. The residents of the area need to have a local venue putting these things on.”
This week, SLAM hit out at Minister of Planning Matthew Guy for his inaction on the Agent of Change, which protects venues from new residents and builders. Guy responded that he was “very disappointed” with SLAM’s comments and that the Dept. of Planning and the Liquor & Gaming Minister were working on an appropriate policy.
