Media magazine 42 | Page 6

Pure Pop Records is no ordi­nary music store. Besides hav­ing a killer record col­lec­tion, it is also a licensed bar and live music venue; often host­ing up to 10 gigs per week. From undis­cov­ered local tal­ents to estab­lished record­ing artists from all over the globe, you never know who you’ll dis­cover when you step through Pure Pop’s doors. Dave Stephens began this ven­ture after play­ing in bands and work­ing in records stores most of his life. What he has man­aged to cre­ate is a warm, invit­ing musi­cal hub, fea­tur­ing some of the most tal­ented musi­cians going around.

But it hasn’t always been smooth sail­ing for this iconic St Kilda venue. Despite shut­ting off live music at 8pm each evening, Pure Pop has been faced with noise com­plaints from one dis­grun­tled neigh­bour for years. The stand-off finally came to a head at the end of 2012. “At first I sort of dug my heels in, you know, I didn’t think I was doing any­thing wrong,” says Dave. But the con­sis­tent com­plaints resulted in the coun­cil launch­ing their own inves­ti­ga­tion. They dis­cov­ered that the stage, which had been built by the pre­vi­ous owner, had been erected with­out a per­mit. “And that’s how it hap­pened. I got an order for demo­li­tion which had to be done by a cer­tain date or I’d face a $50,000 fine, which basi­cally shuts us down.”

Sadly, Stephens had run out of options and the cosy lit­tle court­yard was demol­ished in March of this year. The new, fully sound-proofed room will cost around $150,000 to build but Stephens has an ini­tial tar­get of $53,000 to get the work started. The goal is no mean feat, par­tic­u­larly for a small, inde­pen­dent busi­ness like Pure Pop Records. So for a help­ing hand, Dave turned to Poz­i­ble, the crowd-funding web­site that relies on com­mu­nity sup­port to raise funds for cre­ative projects. The response to date has been noth­ing short of amaz­ing, with over $35,000 of the tar­get already pledged. “It has been great. I started it just in the store and then I guess I’d exhausted my reg­u­lar cus­tomers and had to cast the net a bit wider. So yeah I went through Poz­i­ble and that’s going really well!”

It may seem like a heck of a lot of stress and work for one lit­tle record store but Dave has a pos­i­tive out­look on the situation.

Pure Pop Records

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Each month we find an online article that we think is worth sharing! This months article is from the Fashion Journel. Find the article here http://fashionjournal.com.au/2013/04/19/pure-pop-records/