There's Been a Complaint About the Noise
Author: Jane Fraser Jones
With the PM herself slotting the Arts portfolio into her briefcase in 1999, those words were hopefully going to comprise more than just lip service - real promises and real initiatives were going to push arts and music to the fore among the populace and media.
On the surface at least, the Government is delivering with degrees of success. At a national and global level, Kiwi popular music seems to be enjoying a period rich in recognition, respect and even record sales. NZ musicians are making a racket overseas and playing their way into 'we set the trends and everyone follows' magazines like Britain's The Face.
But trip onto less travelled paths, away from the money-spinning acts, the acclaimed talent and bands who have 'made it', and sadly you'll still find little players in the political game who are not so fond or nurturing of live music, and as a result 'making it' in the music world is becoming trickier despite all that.
Why? There's too much damn noise.
Before that mid-afternoon set at the BDO, before those gigs in the Viper Room, comes the hard yards in the small venues which have been the making of pretty much all NZ's top bands. The grassroots of Kiwi music; pubs, clubs and dedicated live music venues. It's not glamorous stuff, it's often not cash lucrative, it's local not national and local government isn't quite so ready to step in with support.
Karen q Temple has provided a platform for a diverse mix of original musicians for seven years in her upper Queen Street venue, the Temple. Since 1996 though she has spent a ridiculous number of hours battling the noise control division of the Auckland City Council and the laws and methods it uses to turn down the sound on local musicians.
"What happens is that Armourguard contractors stand at the door, decide if it's too loud or not, and if they think it's too loud they hand over a noise abatement notice," says Karen.
"Quite often they hand it to the nearest person they see - a member of the public or a band member. There's no attempt to give it to the bar manager or owner of the establishment."
It's not an ideal situation: security heavies using no device - other than their own ears - to make a decision which affects the enjoyment of the audience and the livelihood of bands, staff and even more vitally, the venue. Yet it's a scenario played out in bars throughout the country on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
Her dissatisfaction led, as Karen puts it, to "...a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with Council" culminating with an agreement reached in May 2001, whereby noise complaints directed at the Temple would be dealt with by a qualified environmental health officer.
"They would come with a meter to do a noise reading. If we were over, we'd turn the band down, close the windows... we'd get it below the limit then carry on with the show," she says.
The arrangement didn't go as planned, though. Less than a month later, a slip-up at the Council's call centre resulted in seven Armourguard and about 14 police officers raiding the Temple.
"They arrested people, they assaulted people, they were generally extremely aggressive. They confiscated about $10,000 worth of equipment. People were arrested who had done nothing wrong."
People who had done nothing except create and/or support NZ music. "They were later found not guilty, after stress and thousands of dollars of legal fees and God knows what else," Karen finishes.
Although Auckland City Council admitted they had made a mistake, there was no attempt at making financial reparations for the injured parties. A year on, Karen says the raid, which blew the noise control issue out of the water, has led to the original agreement being "... embedded with utmost undertaking from Council."
But Auckland City still send environmental health officers only to the Temple. Other venues with noise complaints made against them remain at the mercy of the Council's contracted security guards, a move that Karen describes as "... extremely irresponsible."
Jacqueline McDougall, of the Auckland City Council, says security guards undergo noise control training every six months. She does add, "... 'excessive noise' is a subjective assessment and is a short term solution to noise control."
In Wellington, Level 1, 171 Cuba Street has been a live music venue since the early 1960s, when it opened under the guise of Ali Babas. For the past four years, it has been known as Indigo and, says proprietor Steve Upton, dogged by noise complaints "... since day one."
Like the Temple, Indigo experienced an incident that distilled the issue of the damaging effect of noise control.
In 1998, the venue was shut down during a performance by Bailterspace, which Upton says gave rise to a barrage of negative publicity, and raised questions among both artists and the public at large about the credibility of Indigo. To be doubted by the community you support is damaging in myriad intangible ways, but to be taken to the Environment Court and slapped with a proviso of financially crippling compliance renovations rams the problem home.
