Salvaging Gainesville’s local music scene

For a town of its size and seemingly small cultural relevance, Gainesville actually has quite the thriving music scene, far outfighting its weight class. Nearly every night, a stroll down University Avenue into the center of town will offer you some sort of live music options from which to choose. For what might appear to be a sleepy college town from afar, Gainesville occupies a unique position in the musical environment — it has a humming live music scene filled with a spectrum of independent artists, but it also has the might of UF to bring in much larger performers every once in a while. There truly is something to satisfy each musical taste, and it is something that sets Gainesville apart from many other towns comparable in stature.

The sad reality, however, is that music scenes like this one are dying right before our eyes.

This past week, Paul McCartney made news by backing a new campaign in England that hopes to save UK music venues from shutting down.

“Without the grassroots clubs, pubs and music venues, my career could have been very different. If we don’t support music at this level, then the future of music in general is in danger,” McCartney said in NME Magazine this past week.

Musical performance, at its core, is a social activity. Songs are created to be heard. Artists dream of as many people as possible listening to their creations. For much of history, music was performed in town squares and city streets, seamlessly becoming a part of the day-to-day life of all passing by. Popular artists would eventually perform in massive concert halls and amphitheaters for all to hear, establishing the concert as one of the most fundamental of social events.

In the 20th century, pubs, clubs and other smaller, independent venues became massively popular for their duality. They provided cheap and enjoyable entertainment for audiences, while also serving as effective vehicles for artists to garner attention and spread their music and brand.

The 21st century brought a complete shift in the music industry, one that would forever change entertainment and the life of the artist: the internet. Artists soon saw the untapped potential of MySpace as a way to spread their music, and with the eventual addition of Soundcloud, Bandcamp, YouTube and Spotify, the floodgates opened.

For the last 15 years, the internet’s crusade of the music industry has given anybody with a computer a stage, while putting countless bars and clubs out of business in the process. Why scratch and claw to perform for 30 people at your local club, when you can easily upload your own music onto a platform that billions have access to?

The benefits of the internet’s impact on music are strong. It is far easier for artists to get seen, and everybody has free and open access to consume, collaborate or create music.

The cons, however, are a little more nuanced and hard to sell. Nonetheless, they are powerful. The pros listed above neglect to consider the magic of live performance. Some artists are more performance acts than solely studio acts, and being on a physical stage, in the flesh, brings the best out of them — something that might not be evident when listening online.

Is it possible for online and in-person music scenes to coexist peacefully? Can there be some sort of compromise? Absolutely. The two are supplements, not substitutes. Eventually, people will gravitate back toward what originally brought them all together: the social and personable elements of music. We will eventually find what each medium does best and then find ways to have them work together, not cannibalize the pool of artists they both feed from. While the internet gives any artist an outlet and access to listeners, only local establishments can provide them with a stage.

Andrew Hall is a UF management senior. His column appears on Fridays.