Expand your musical IQ beyond the top 40

I have bleeding ears.\nWe are a generation of attractive suburbanites, raised on rock 'n' roll and music culture. We grew up on pop. Our parents were singing along to oldies and '80s radio airplay while we were in our formative years. \nWe are what we were raised on. The media is our model for life, be it dress, action or material belongings. We buy what they sell us, in various shades of plum and cherry red, orange and slate gray. We watch their moving pictures on an electrical box and fill in what we miss with their glossy pages. \nOur music is our declaration of individuality. Yet our declaration of individuality seems to fall within a range of 40 choices. We submit to boy bands and Britney Spears joyfully, while displaying a mock protest to amuse our peers. We live in an apartment filled with the latest emotional rock CDs and attend concerts of the bands that could be pureed into the same bland flavor of eggplant milkshake. \nI have a lurching stomach.\nSuddenly, the musicians start to come together. They are everywhere, in your classes, waiting on your tables and making your drinks. They ride your bus and shop at your mall. And they are angry. \nA generation of attractive suburbanites has ignored the misfits on the wayside. The lost music makers who want nothing more than to play original music and hear something unique come from the major music labels. \nThey meet in the dark, in smoke-filled bars. They are drawn to the anti-stages, the few platforms for original music in Bloomington. They practice in basements. They are music club.\nThe first rule of music club is you talk about local music. The second rule of music club is you talk about local music. The third rule of music club is the fight will never be over. The fourth rule, everyone is invited to fight. Fight for music all the time. Invent project music. \nThey dispense homemade CDs as weaponry against the cover bands and everyband radio airplay. They get gigs at the Cellar Lounge, Secret Sailor, Rhino's and a few other venues. You have names in music club. Indiana Trip Factory. Blue Moon Revue. You. Crooked County, etc.\nThere are music clubs all over the nation. Seattle, Lafayette, Austin. Musicians gather in the dark venues unattended by many a populace. And they talk about music club. And more people join.\nIn the real world, people buy a CD after watching "TRL." In the real world, Sony and Atlantic decide who will sell the most albums this year. Music club will infiltrate the real world one by one, until everyone is aware of the good music growing under their noses and around the street corner. \nCorporate and media America is seeking to control the mind of every unsuspecting sap out there, and music club is only one small, widely unsupported protester. Local musicians trying to put something new into the world.\nSupport local music, or one day we might all have bleeding ears.