What's going on in your neck of the woods? Jasmine O'Neil tells you where to look to find fresh, new music.

by Jasmine O'Neil

Watching your favorite singer's video on TV, rushing to Ticketmaster hoping to get good seats to your favorite band's concert, and making sure you hit the store on Tuesday to purchase your favorite rapper's latest album have long been regular behaviors on the part of music fans. Yet while many people can recite lyrics, history, and discography of some of the most popular bands from all across the globe few are in touch with the music scene that takes place right around them.

Your local music scene exposes you to new music that you're not going to find on the big radio stations or on MTV. While some of the acts are surely going to be less than impressive, let's not forget that all artists were small and unknown at some point, so you're going to find some really great acts as well. Not only will you be discovering new acts but you can also play a role in a group or artist's success. Local support leads to a larger local presence, which leads to more gig, more press coverage, a wider audience, larger fan base, industry buzz, and at some point possibly even a record deal.

If you love live music, tuning in to your local music scene gives you the opportunity to be front & center watching acts perform on a regular basis and in more intimate venues. If you're interested in working in the business side of the music industry or in a field that has branches in the entertainment industry (i.e. public relations, marketing, critiquing, writing etc.) then you might be able to gain good experience because smaller acts have limited funds and often choose to hire less known or less experienced individuals to assist in their affairs.

So where do you find these local acts? Well, bars and clubs sometimes have home bands or nights designated for live music instead of a DJ. Community and city festivals, fundraisers, and other events often utilize local talent. Smaller radio stations and college stations will sometimes include songs by the more popular local acts in their rotation, message boards on campuses and in busy city areas regularly have postings for shows or flyers advertising local artists, and of course there's always MySpace.com which has enabled musicians to reach a wider audience and allows users to search for acts based on genre and location (among other options).

By no means should you throw out your CDs from your favorite artists or shun those acts who have managed to achieve large success, but you also shouldn't be so quick to throw out the free demo or mixtape that you're handed as you walk down the street. You never know, some musician from your hometown might be the next thing to hit the music scene!

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