Oh The '80's

[limpyhobbler]

9. the 80s

For people who are really into music, growing up in the 80s, we literally* had to wade through seas of crap to find the good stuff.

These young whippersnappers today don't realize how good they have it with the internets and music being available with just a mouse click.

Everything back then was word of mouth. I was lucky to be where I could get a few good college radio stations north of Boston, and in the late 80s WFNX was decent. We had homemade fanzines, whole-in-the-wall record shops, and all ages shows for $5 on the weekends.

But it was all stuff that mainstream media just ignored or refused to play. We sometimes had to go through extraordinary lengths to find these alternative sources. And the community of people interested in the same stuff was pretty small, so there was a sort of camaraderie.

Eventually the underground kind of got popular and took over, or got bought out. But for a lot people who lived through that, it was a character building experience, and it did affect the way we see the world.