There is something special about the undiscovered artist, the indie rock if you will. Maybe it is the smaller, more personal concerts at the local dive bar, the photo-ops with them selling their own CDs, so you can say, “I met them once back in the day…”or the unmistakable passion for the music that they possess…not to mention the cheaper tickets. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy a big fun lawn seat at pretty much any concert in Hi-FI Buys, or that I am perhaps too pretentious to enjoy a mass crowd, a radio hit, and a drunken sing-along, because believe me, I do. I have just as many sing-alongs on my ipod as the next (my all-time favorites including 80s Heart, The Outfield, and pretty much everything by Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, or any boy band). I have everything in my repertoire from classic rock, to indie, to punk, to country, rap, jazz, and the very frequent early 90s hit. I was, shamefully/secretly still am, one of the biggest Hanson fans around (just ask my family as I was mercifully teased for the majority of my 5th grade year by them for this very fact). Yes, we all (or should) enjoy the drunken fist pump, dancing with your friends on a Friday night to the latest and greatest, but those are the easy ones to find, they are the ones you already know and love. My focus today is to map out the lesser known artists, some just as wonderful as the classics…just with the aforementioned smaller venues, cheaper tickets, and thirst for the music.
Let me begin by telling you a little about myself (Feel free to skim along as I tend to ramble). I am 24 years-old and currently reside in Atlanta, GA. I might be what you call a music enthusiast. Not so much so that I am a groupie or anything, but I do have an insane love for finding new music and overanalyzing my favorite songs, along with a plethora of useless factoids about my favorite bands combined with my eagerness to always be right in “Name that Tune” (handy during a Tuesday night trivia game, yet quite annoying on the other 6 days of the week). But my passion for music began at an early age, from my first tape, Brian Adams – Cuts Like A Knife (I have my big brother to thank for that one, what a classic!) to my parents calling the house pretending to be the local radio station telling me to stop calling and requesting the same song 12 times an hour (most likely Backstreet Boys or Everything I Do, by Brian Adams himself). But it went far beyond the boy bands and sappy love songs. I learned the appreciation of music through my family, all of them having their own unique tastes; Memories in the kitchen with my Mom, staying up late to bake, listening to Motown and old Jazz; Summer nights by the pool with my Dad learning about the Alman Brothers, The Beatles, or every band Eric Clapton was ever in; Singing along with Steve Miller Band’s The Joker in my sister’s car, before I really understood what “I really love your peaches, want to shake your tree” even meant; Catching a glimpse of the Nirvana CD in my brother’s room and downloading my first illegal Napster application on his computer, probably destroying the hard-drive forever; Or later on, stealing Mary’s Unwritten Law and Strung Out CDs, thinking I was so cool (eventually I would scratch them and be banned from touching most of her things till I was about 15). From my first real concert (ok, ok so I did go to Hanson and LeAnn Rhimes, but I mean first big-kid concert) The Ataris, Lagwagon, and the Vandals, along with the many concerts that followed, Friday nights driving up to Atlanta with friends or at the local tool-shed of a venue in Columbus, my appreciation for music only deepened. Maybe I watched Empire Records one too many times, giving me the dream of one day owning my own record-store/bakery/hangout. Alas some dreams fade, or mold their way into other aspects of life (I later worked in a bakery and determined that while I enjoy a Christmas cookie baking session, I was not quite cut-out for that lifestyle). I also acknowledged that I was not much of a musician myself (lack of discipline to practice, along with a complete lack of any sort of rhythm rather inhibited me) but I have always found a hobby in creating mixed tapes, or putting my own soundtrack to some of my favorite movies. Hearing a song and thinking, that would be perfect in a scene like this! While yes, I would love to find a career in that, they are few and far between. So for now, I will find the simple joys in discovering new bands , spending countless hours finding that perfect song, creating that perfect mix of well thought-out and progressive music, with just the right amount of classic and new, popular and indie, songs that spark emotion, creativity, or just fond memories. So this is my devotion to that task, a hobby embarked on one my favorite pastimes. Finding the new artists, some popular, some you may have never heard of, some local, some worldwide, along with the latest events in the Atlanta area, and hoping you will enjoy the fruits of my labor, without boring you to death by my incessant rambling. So, on that note…let the journey begin.
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