2007年 01月 16日 火曜日 18:51

I usually try not to be too sentimental or to dwell on the "good old days." I was listening to The Reality of My Surroundings today, however, and it occurred to me how fortunate I had been as an undergrad student in terms of the shows I'd been able to see.

I'm currently in the home of Purdue University, where good shows are few and far between. Wilco and Alejandro Escovedo came last fall, and The Queers were just here, but there's not a whole lot going on. I guess we're not that far from Indianapolis or Chicago, but I'm too lazy nowadays to get excited about a long drive for a show.

As an undergrad, I had the good fortune to spend four years in Columbia, Missouri, a fantastic town in which to be a music-loving student (or at least it was 15 years ago, but I suspect that not much has changed). Listening to Fishbone brought back memories of my first semester in college, the Fall of 1991. What a semester that was at the Blue Note, at the time the only place in Columbia someone underage could see a show: Hoodoo Gurus, Pixies, Meat Puppets, Dinosaur Jr with My Bloody Valentine (Loveless tour), and Fishbone with Primus opening. I saw plenty of other great bands there, both national (Afghan Whigs, Kyuss, Breeders, Pavement, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Public Enemy, Ice T/Body Count, Fugazi, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Matthew Sweet, Seaweed, Flaming Lips, fIREHOSE, Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt, Mudhoney, Supersuckers, Social Distortion, Sugar, Screaming Trees, Poster Children, Girls Against Boys, and probably dozens of others I'm forgetting) and local/regional (St. Monday, Mercy Rule, Billy Goat, Tenderloin - actually Uncle Tupelo, et al. would probably fit in here).

We had a way cool college radio station (KCOU) that had an annual outdoor festival - one year the Flaming Lips headlined, another was the Big Star reunion documented on the Live at Missouri University album. Once I was of age, I was able to discover even more cool live music like the Cows and Mule. Plus by that time, there were more all-ages places that brought in great punk bands like Bikini Kill. Salt of the Earth and Whizz Records kept me well-stocked on the latest indie releases.

Anyway, reflecting on this experience, plus knowing what Champaign-Urbana was like in the 90s, I think it's amazing what a sense of creativity and community a college town can engender. Big city scenes are cool, I suppose, but there's something special about spending four years in a place where there's nothing much more to do than study and immerse oneself in a vibrant music scene. I've always been keenly interested in music, even when that just meant listening to my parent's classical records, and I'm sure I'd still be passionate about music if I'd gone to school somewhere else. I just think my passion would have taken an entirely different path.