Inner West Council has collaborated with independent broadcaster FBi Radio to create a comprehensive online guide to live music in the inner west. The Lineup showcases the area’s musical talent as well as the venues hosting it, and FBi Radio will keep gig listings up to date.

“We want to reverse the trend of live music venues closing their doors across Sydney,” Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne told Broadsheet.

The Lineup is the latest initiative to emerge from the council’s Live Music Action Plan, designed to help revitalise live music. Other initiatives include the good neighbour policy, launched last year, which ensures that venue operators and residents attempt to find solutions for their issues before launching compliance or legal action, and the Off Broadway Precinct plan, encouraging more music and arts activity along Parramatta Road.

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The guide offers listings for today, the weekend, the next week or the next 30 days, and covers 25 suburbs. Events range from hip-hop to classical, soul, electronica and everything in between. On Saturday November 16, for example, there’s a tribute to the late Richard Gill, a renowned Australian musician, conductor and educator, happening at Stanmore Village as part of Edge Newtown. Melbourne’s Hayden Calnin debuts his EP at [The Vanguard] in Newtown on the 16th, and Blue Mountains duo Hermitude play next week (November 22) at The Enmore.

Live music venues have had their ups and downs over the last couple of years. After 45 years, The Basement shut last year, and the inner west lost the Newtown Social Club, among others.

“We want to keep venues open and keep musicians in work,” Byrne says. “Live music has a rich and proud tradition in the inner west. We need to engage residents, musicians, venue operators and local government to ensure that tradition of local pubs and clubs supporting local acts can continue.”

He adds that council support will include helping venues with additional ticket sales. “If local venues need help – whether that is with noise complaints or navigating what can be a bureaucratic maze of planning, safety and alcohol rules and regulations – then we can step in and assist.”

innerwest.nsw.gov.au