CC Caller columnist calls out locals to go out and support their bands



Me? I started at the pubs around Straussburg


CORPUS CHRISTI — BY Joe Hilliard of the Caller Times
Who is your favorite band? Now hold that thought.
How vital is music? It’s one of the first human interactions we have as children when someone who loves us sings us to sleep. It cuts through the nonsense of a first date: what kind of music do you like? When we’re alone in the shower, we belt out the hits. We enjoy it communally in the car and with thousands of strangers at a concert.
So when I ask who your favorite band is, you have an answer.
Consider this, though: your favorite musical act started performing in or near their hometown.
The Beatles were a group of teenagers playing around Liverpool, England.
R.E.M. garnered an initial following playing the Athens, Ga., club scene.
George Strait’s upstart band was devoted to central and southeast Texas back in the late 70s.
The early successes of these acts, or any other I might have listed, came from playing small shows to a willing audience waiting to discover and support them.

So answer this: Who is your favorite LOCAL band?
We are a city full of people who love music (remember question #1?) while local and regional bands play gigs all over town. For whatever reason, though, these two natural halves are not finding one another. Let me rephrase: we don’t go out to hear live, local music. Yes, we pack into American Bank Center when a big household name comes to town, but we’re not interested in local, future superstars.

Between our iPods and the iTunes store, Pandora.com and Sirius satellite radio, it is almost too easy to find new signed music, but these technologies do nothing for our local music scene — a scene ripe to blow up if people would get out there and discover it. And we need it to blow up for reasons too numerous to list here.
Here is an earnest challenge for you: find your favorite local band. I’ll even let you cheat and call The Corpus Christi Symphony or the Veterans Band of Corpus Christi your favorite band if it means you’ll physically leave your home and go listen to them live.

From rock to country, hip hop, classical, metal, reggae, Tejano and covers of your favorites from years past, all of your favorite music is out there, locally. Go find your favorite.

Laredotejas editor's note:  Except for the name and a few other changes..... Laredo's story is the same one.