In the years that I have written this column there was rarely a time where I wouldn’t have a couple of rants per year about either the lack of music venues or that we have too many music venues. I haven’t had to go off on any kind of analysis of our music venue situation for a long time as I think we have had the perfect mix of clubs and bands coming through town for the past couple of years. That hasn’t changed at all, but I am selfishly getting a bit frustrated at the lack of smaller touring bands coming through town for the hopeful build up. We get quite a few, which is why I am stating that this is a selfish rant on my part, but it doesn’t seem like we are getting as many as we once did. There are tons of great acts out there with excellent new albums that I have fallen for in recent times. Bands and artists like DM Stith, Motel Motel, Cazals, Benjy Feree, Iran, Phosphorescent and Passion Pit have little chance of coming through town unless they are touring with a bigger buzz band.

We have two big clubs in town that are booking the bigger local bands and the bands with either a proven record or a lot of talk about them. Those clubs take some chances as well on smaller bands, and I don’t expect them to take up the slack and book the smaller buzz bands. It’s not in their business model to do this all the time and it shouldn’t be. I feel like a smaller bar may find an opportunity in opening up their doors and taking a chance on some of the lesser known touring bands that may want to come through town. We have had bars in the past that did this for a year or two only to find that they ended up with a regular crowd again that was more interested in socializing than paying to see a band. It’s great that those bars ended up in that position and logical for them to cut the bands down or out completely. It just seems like we have hit a dead end where no one else is really stepping up to take on these small indie bands on a consistent basis.

I’m not saying it’s a golden opportunity for a club to do this. We have some of the biggest buzz bands in the country and world coming to town over the next couple of months and these shows are not sold out yet. Los Campesinos and the Hold Steady still have tickets available at the time of this writing. So where is the motivation to take even more of a chance on bands that may just have a small cult following? I think bringing in smaller acts that have some people talking and getting them established in town and putting them in a smaller venue does have some opportunity though. We used to get a lot of these bands and many of them did well, mainly because the music fans in this town were a lot more starved for music than they have been in the past couple of years. We get plenty of the cream of the crop now and that leaves only a few dollars for the acts that require the music fan being educated about and sold on.

There are many shows though that I walk into expecting only a handful of people to be at that are pretty full. So, there are people out there searching for the next big thing or just a night out listening to fresh music. I think there is a market for this type of venue if a smart bar owner or local promoter makes an educated go at it and commits to it for some time. Until then, it’s up to us the music fans to create that demand. Take a look at the bands that are coming to town, pick out a couple that you don’t know and either take a listen to them online to see if they are of interest or just take the blind plunge and head to their show. Cultivating a healthy crop of smaller touring bands through town is as important to the long term health of our live music scene as selling out the shows for the big buzz bands.