On October 11th, Auckland's Temple bar closed, and with it a remarkable chapter in the history of live music in the city.
 
Ongoing battles with the local city council over noise control issues were about to be exaggerated with the completion of an apartment tower immediately adjacent, and the proposed anti-smoking legislation would have wiped out both the pleasure and profitability for the Temple's equally remarkable owner. It was time to give up the struggle.

Situated on the steep upper part of Queen St, the bar which comfortably holds only 60 people has provided more performance opportunities than any of the country's much older venues like Dunedin's legendary Empire or Wellington's eulogised Bar Bodega. Seven nights a week for more than seven years the Temple has been practising its policy of being the only dedicated live original music venue in the nation's music capital.

When Karen Phillpotts took on the lease of the two storey building and licensed café almost exactly eight years earlier she had no idea of the journey ahead. The trained accountant had been looking for a place to live and got that plus a business in one.

Used occasionally for live music, the Temple then had no stage or house PA and made most of its revenue from coffee. Previous accounting experience in radio and her own classical piano training had given Karen an interest in music and with the Gluepot closing around that time she soon observed a huge gap for live music in the city.

Karen, who later legally adopted the nom de guerre Karen Q Temple, set about creating a structure of opportunities, especially for singer/songwriters learning their craft, which has over time evolved into a fully fledged grassroots musicians' support network.

"I had no experience in hospitality - no idea what I was doing in either the music industry or the hospitality industry!"

This from a woman who these days spends much of her time teaching the need for musicians to have a business plan - the irony is certainly not lost on her. It took three years to overcome the cash crisis that small business owners so often encounter, for a year she worked another full time job just to survive.

Establishing the website www.temple.co.nz in 1999 was a key development to the Temple's success.

"The website and the mailing list have had a snowball effect on peoples' awareness in the last three or four years. The Internet has allowed the creation of a music community, and once I realised that is what I was doing I started aiming to achieve it."

Newsletters, workshops, band competitions, seminars and even a mentoring programme have followed as Karen has led a one woman crusade of musician education and empowerment. Her income from the bar has been supplemented by teaching business studies to students at MAINZ for the last six years.

And at night it's been live music - six or seven nights and around 60 acts a week.

Monday has been 'Open Mic' night. Tuesday was generally 'Acoustic Café', with five or so acoustic acts getting 45 minute sets. Wednesdays varied with a multi-genre show of comedy, poetry and music one week, and the female singer songwriter night called 'Femme Fatale' on the second and last of the month. Thursday was an entry-level band night, Fridays for more established acts and Saturdays usually a multi-band night.

"I guess the way that the performance opportunities are structured at Temple is so there is a pathway for people and that they are looked after. Quite often people's first public performance ever will be at a Temple open mic night. They come in, there's someone here as an MC to host it, someone doing sound making it easy for performers. We get details and add them to our mailing list.

"For the organised nights we make up flyers and mail them out to the artists to advertise their gig. Then we follow that up, see how their promo is going, if they have any questions. I sometimes wonder if we babysit them too much - from there it can be difficult for them when they don't find that kind of environment.

"Very, very few would recognise the level of support they are getting, the resources and the costs associated, and I guess that's one of the many frustrating things. People will phone three hours before their gig and cancel, or they won't have bothered to promote it even though we've given them all the tools to do it. It's that aspect that I honestly rip my hair out about."

Sundays lately have seen heats, semis and finals of the Acid Test, the Temple's new band/act competition that encapsulates Karen's ideals - it's almost more about developing professionalism than performance.

"We ran a competition in '97 but the first Acid Test was in '98, sponsored by Progressive Studios. The Lab sponsored us the following year and since then it's been the 'York Street Acid Test'.

Annually 72 bands or soloists have competed in the Acid Test over 12 heats and a five month period from August to December.

"The philosophy is for it to be advantageous to have been in the competition regardless of whether you win or not. There is a lot of coaching that runs through the whole thing and a strong emphasis on professionalism and getting together the bits and pieces you need if you want to be a successful musician - like a bio, a photo and all that stuff. If you make it to the semi-finals you have to do a business plan," at which she laughs infectiously.

Karen's high level of involvement and preoccupation with the business side of music making may have led to some questionable choices of Acid Test winners (none have gone on to major success), but the underlying intent cannot be disputed.

"I was asked recently how many people I had helped to get signed. I found it a strange question because that's not really the purpose of a live venue, but the answer I gave was that record companies are looking for something very specific and mainstream, and the majority of people playing at the Temple don't fit into that. I don't think that it is particularly alternative but the music played here is rarely mainstream."

I'm sure that the government could sort out the noise control issues - they have the power, but they refuse to address it.  Nor have they looked at the flow on effects of the anti-smoking legislation. - Karen Q Temple

The Temple started hosting music industry seminars "out of need" in the late '90s, and have held about 20 in four years. At first they cost the bar but with a decent cover charge have since become profitable. Typically though musicians don't like to pay to learn and Karen had to cancel the last one planned, about gaining that all-important radio airplay, due to lack of interest.

"I'm over getting too frustrated about it! I think we are in danger of creating a weakly driven musical community. Our environment is not as difficult as people think. It's not easy to be an accountant either - I studied and worked 60 hours a week for years! Don't say the music industry is a tough one - just get off your arses!"

The mentoring programme is a joint venture with Auckland City Council and Community Employment Group, a 12 month programme currently in review after completing its first year. Musicians and emerging managers have worked with Karen as a group and individually to develop their skills, also resulting in a number of 'toolkits' available free from the Temple website. So why is she selling up?

"In short, the easy answer is a combination of noise control problems with the apartments going up next door and the anti-smoking legislation, both of which will make it impossible for me to operate. But really - you would be able to deal with those two things if there was enough profit to be able to - but there's just not. And that's because the proportion of musicians who are onto it enough to make it work for them (and me) is too small - and also that the audiences aren't there at a grassroots level."

Karen believes that the government needs to address this last issue, starting with research into audience development, but that is the lesser of the major issues driving her out of the industry.

"I'm sure that the government could sort out the noise control issues - they have the power, but they refuse to address it. Nor have they looked at the flow on effects of the anti-smoking legislation, and also when you look at the changes planned to the labour laws they will just make it impossible in hospitality. And live music happens in hospitality venues so..."
 
Five years of fighting noise control issues have cost Karen a very hard-earned $20,000 of out of pocket costs she estimates.

"Plus thousands of hours and absolutely insane amounts of stress - and not just for me. For my staff having to deal with it and for various others who have got dragged into it, like the poor guys arrested in that noise control raid and their friends and family, witnesses. The real cost is probably closer to $100,000." Her protracted battle with the city council has become both a bureaucratic and a personal one.

"It became personal because I made a fuss and made the local body personnel answerable for their actions, so I have been singled out as somebody to throw the book at. The fact that there is a structure and system in place that can allow that to happen is the fault of the bureaucracy though."

The Temple has, she says, been served only around 10 or 12 noise abatement notices over eight years.

"They would suggest we create an enormous problem, but it's not considering we have live music seven nights a week almost every week of the year."

There have been repeated council-led attempts to cancel her liquor license. Even now with the business sold there remains a current Environment Court application which the Auckland City Council are refusing to withdraw unless she withdraws her counter appeal that they have no such right under the act.

"I think that they know that by throwing the book at you that going through that process is going to be difficult and so they have won regardless of whether they have reasonable case or not. And that sucks."

Smokers suck too, but Karen is both a smoker and a bar owner and is firmly anti the impending legislation which will make it illegal to light up in bars or other enclosed public areas.

"I've done a lot of research on it, plus had about 20,000 hours of first hand observation of customers' behaviour over the last eight years. If this legislation comes in we will potentially have more punters but less turnover - because there is a very direct correlation between bar spend and smoking."

The big spenders are all smokers she contends.

"Those non-smokers who may be enticed back out are the one juice/one beer customers and unless you are charging a hefty cover charge you are better off not to have them! So cover charges will become essential - and then there is the enforcement aspect."

While stopping people smoking in the bar may be difficult at times she agrees it won't be impossible. The real problems will lie with people heading outside to have a cigarette with their drinks (which is of course illegal), and the noise they will cause! The resulting litter on the street outside and "...the awful potential for drink spiking".

"Of course all the responsibility will fall on the bar itself not the people smoking. The bar will be fined (and risk a loss of license) and the smoker won't. It's the same with underage drinkers. They know they are underage, but it can be really difficult for the barperson to ascertain it at a glance on a busy night, and it is the bar staff who cop the penalties."
 
Thoughts of re-establishing the venue elsewhere have been given away but she has other plans to utilise the knowledge she has gained over eight years. A long sleep away from the buzz of Queen St. must be in order, after which she will take stock. The Temple venue is gone but the website will live on and the Temple community will continue to get regular updates.