A few weeks ago, I went to the much ballyhooed Cosmic Groove All Stars show put on by Sarasota Music Scene and The Closet at the Sarasota Lanes bowling alley. Over the last year, as I have gotten more involved in the growing movement of independent musical artists making their mark in the community, I have watched as the bands and solo performers have tried to carve out a niche for themselves within the available venues. Yet as progressive as these artists are in striving to create original songs and work up a fan base, I have to wonder if Sarasota is actually amenable to such progress.

Obviously, one of the first questions that rises for me is how the local bowling alley has become the go-to venue for live music. I don't mean to sound snobbish (Sarasota has enough of that already), but using a bowling alley as a music venue seems to be a practice relegated to communities that have no other choice, and as someone who wants to take pride in our local artists, it is a bit embarrassing.

It's not that the Cosmic Groove show wasn't good. All of the bands that I saw - including the ever-growing assemblage of Cats in the Basement, the perpetually buoyant Elysian Sex Drive, and the visiting, much-too-good-to-play-a-freaking-bowling-alley Gringo Starr - put on great performances. However, the attendance was dismal, the sound was garbled, and while it is great fun to hang out and party with the folks that did show up, we as a vibrant artistic community should demand more than a cordoned off section of a venue designed for drinking beer and rolling heavy balls at unsuspecting pins. That plays fine in Arcadia, but shouldn't Sarasota be held to a higher caliber of entertainment venue?

While I've heard several critiques of the growing Sarasota music scene, I have yet to see a show that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed. Not all performers have universal appeal, and perhaps I am a pragmatic and forgiving aficionado, but I find that while each of the acts have more well known comparisons, they each have their own unique sound, style, and charm. Even among the Finch House troupe, where many of the players cross pollinate the various bands, each band still manages to create its own unique signature sound.

I think that the biggest challenge facing the musicians in this town lies in cultivating the community to support such a momentous endeavor like creating a viable music scene. Although Sarasota has had its waves of independent musical movements, original music has historically been deemed as more of an anomaly than a norm. Because most of the appreciated arts in this community cater to the larger population of elderly, wealthy retirees in the form of symphonies, ballets, operas, and regurgitated nostalgia, more contemporary musical selections have been relegated to cover bands and background music. Because of this, Sarasota has not created a viable venue for performers that have something original to say and just want to be heard.

A number of venues have opened their doors to local, original musicians, but the fact remains that these venues are simply bars and restaurants, and the performers are simply there as a draw to get people to imbibe the venues' offerings. Because the venues were not created to showcase musical acts, but only to serve as watering holes and gathering places, they are not equipped to offer the acoustics necessary to deliver a show that will actually captivate an audience or an environment where performers can really connect with their potential fan bases. Unfortunately, this often amounts to the bands performing for paltry payouts in order for them to play largely incoherent sets that you can dance to, but not really understand.

However, there are those that are doing the best with what they've got, and really trying to carve out a place for local musicians to be heard. After a long fought, uphill battle to create an actual venue for The Closet, Erin and Mike Murphy have relegated themselves to simply use the venues available to them. Improvisational madman John Lichtenstein has tried to utilize just about every venue in town for The End of the Dial Tone series in order to open up new pathways for artists to get into venues. One of the venues most amenable to house this burgeoning movement is The Blue Owl, under the much more visionary management of Pete Hansen, who is working tirelessly for the Main Street establishment to be the launching pad for the independent music scene to rise from underground. Across the board, many venues are opening up to the viability of a music scene actually happening here in the City of David.

Based upon the number of shows around town in any given week, it's obviously not that venue owners don't want to see a vibrant music scene. It's just that because it is not something that we have done much in the past, a lot of them simply don't know how to make it happen. In these trying economic times, most of the venue owners simply want to sell drinks and pay the rent. Transitioning their establishments into places that can offer live musical shows may just be beyond their capability.

For many places, like Sarasota Lanes, opening their doors and putting up a curtain to block off some of the lanes may be all that they are capable of at this time. It's not like every venue can afford to buy their own PA system in order to provide adequate sound or carpet the walls in order to cut down on the incessant echoes of every note reverberating off of plaster in a cacophony of danceable, yet incoherent noise (I'm looking at you, Rhythm). While I am thankful that these venues are serving as a stepping stone for the future we envision, we still need more if this thing is really going to fly.

Beyond that, the question arises... do we have the fan base to support a viable music scene here? In a populace regarded as the oldest in the nation, do we have enough young people who are engaged enough to fill the venues and create events? And more importantly, can we, as a growing musical community come together in order to reach out to our neighboring communities and the world at large in order to draw them here as a musical destination?

When people come to Sarasota, they come for the beaches, for the established arts, for the shopping, the food, and the amenities. Can we cultivate this scene in order to draw people here for the music? It is one thing to have a music scene that the locals can appreciate and enjoy for our regular entertainment. Actually, we can do that in our living rooms and backyards. But to have a truly vibrant scene, one that will attract more people than just the fringe of our own community, we need places for them to come to.

So to the venue owners in town, on behalf of the local artists that are seeking a future for Sarasota beyond the hoity -toity nostalgia appreciated by the condo owners and retirees, I ask that you consider the possibilities. While we appreciate the open doors and the bar tabs, we seek for something more. We need the help of our community. Based upon all that Sarasota has to offer for those who come to visit, isn't it time that we also offered them an outlet through which all of the creative juice that is driving the current of original expression can be heard? In the words of a whispered plea that helped to create a field of dreams, "If you build it, they will come."