Chapter 1: Who wants to hear some music?

So this is my first installment of "Voices In My Head". Yeah I should get a catchier title but I don't care. Just to set the record straight I will be using bad language, I will offend people, and people my unfriend me on facebook for this but I don't care if you don't like it don’t read it. 

Now down to business, today we’re talking about music.  I live in Wayne County, IL and if you play gospel or you’re a female that sings well you have a chance. But if you play anything else outside of the gospel genre you’re pretty well fucked around here. Sure we sometimes have an open mic night but the location is under constant change and it’s my personal opinion that some of the people around here don’t want to play music because anything original is considered taboo and god forbid you start a metal band the whole county will want to burn you at the stake. Don’t get me wrong we have some amazing original artists around here but you wouldn’t know because advertisement costs and most of us are too broke to do anything about it. If we had more venues willing to open their doors to some bands and give them the opportunity to play their set and possibly give people (not talking about just adults here, kids also like listening to music) something to do and look forward to in this area it could really open up the path for touring bands passing from Missouri to Indiana to make a stop here and maybe get a little gas money and a place to crash and then they would spread the word and maybe Wayne county would be more than just a cluster of towns before you get to the cities.

 In theory this sounds like a simple idea yet there are so many holes in this plan it would never work.  First off almost all places equipped to have a band are backed by churches, no problem for me I can edit and I don’t blaspheme against any god that I know of but some heavier bands and even some of the rock bands are not welcome in that environment. Secondly there are no venues able to host all ages shows with proper regulation, I was a kid once and so were my friends and we all know that when you’re young you want to try everything so any all ages shows would have to be alcohol free so that kids could sneak it in (I don’t give two shits about how good you think your child may be you just haven’t caught them yet) and get hammered and screw it up for everyone else. And lastly if you got a band, got some songs, and you want to play in Wayne county you have to pay out the ass to play anywhere. When I did shows here the floral hall was 300 bucks, the legion upstairs was 250 and the gym at Sims was 50 dollars. The first two places might get people to show up the third was a bust because the sound sucked (it’s a gym with no stage what did you expect), no one knew where it was, and you couldn’t drink.

So a lot of people put blame on the bands, the fans, or the venues for local shows and bands dying out but when you decide to lay blame look at yourself and think “if all these people would stop blaming each other and work together we could have a hell of a scene to work with” then you will realize the problem is that everyone hates everyone and until this beef gets cooked our musical availability and diversity will be forever in the shitter. 

If you took the time to read this mess pat yourself on the back and rest your eyes because I’ll have a lot more to say I assure you, but for now I’m wrapping this up. Please remember to pray for me, even though I’m almost certain that I’m going to hell, it would be nice to have a kiddie pool.