LOM Day About

Where do holidays come from? Old traditions; new traditions. There's something to remember, or celebrate, that lots of people care about; somehow it becomes a "day". At it's heart, a "day" is just an agreed-upon time for people all over to celebrate and appreciate something.

To show how these things can start, a small historical side trip.

Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", which detailed in dire terms our impact on the environment, came out in 1962. People began thinking and talking about protecting the Earth with real urgency. In December of 1969, someone decided a good way to raise awareness and make a call to action would be to celebrate something they called "Earth Day", and they picked April 22nd, 1970. Since it was mid-December, they couldn't really start work on it until after the holidays, in January. Earth Day was conceived of as a decentralized event, with no overarching authority. People in their own communities were free to and were expected to organize. There were efforts to get the word out, and put people in touch with like-minded individuals in their community. That push started with only three and a half months lead time; but by the first Earth Day on April 22nd more than 12,000 communities participated, with over 20 million people.

These things can happen fast if they're in line with the spirit of the times.

There isn't that same life-and-death sense about celebrating local original music. It's fundamentally different from what motivated Earth Day. But we have tools today for sharing information that were undreamed-of in 1970. Now the word can get out and around the world in a week. And although there isn't the question of survival of life itself, there are strong cultural forces at work and a powerful need. They may not be that obvious unless you know where to look. Then they stand out like a sore thumb.

First, the conventional wisdom about live music (unless you're famous) has for decades been that you play lots of covers. A lot of the same covers, in fact. But those same songs have been played for decades now, and they've gotten pretty tired. Though venues and many performers still hold to that conventional wisdom, in fact people are ready - even hungry - for something new.

At the same time day to day life and culture is being more and more controlled by algorithms telling us what we want to see and hear. It's pervasive. An ever smaller number of ever larger corporations control our reality. Constantly faced with that control, people miss more sincere, genuine experiences - experiences we need to thrive.

Anyone who has been a regular at an open mic knows there are brilliant creators of original music everywhere, unknown and unsung. It's staggering once you open your eyes to it. They're writing songs, beats, jams, rhymes - and they're never going to be famous. Most of them don't even want to. They write because they love to - and, in a very real sense, they have to. But the truth is everyone has access to that inspiration. It's part of being human. Surprisingly, perhaps the biggest difference between the person who wrote a great, inspired song who's playing it on their back porch and the person playing for thousands is chance. Creativity, the Muse - it's the most democratic thing in the world.

For far, far too long we as a culture have been told that we should only listen to or value a small, select few musicians, handed down to us as if from on high by record labels and media. At the same time we've somehow been taught to devalue or undervalue people around us who do make their own music.

It doesn't have to be that way. It shouldn't be that way.

We have a world full of people who want real musical experiences that hit them in the heart; who are tired of hearing the same songs, and tired of hearing mass-marketed crap. We have a world full of talented, inspired musicians and songwriters. All we need is a reason, an occasion to bring them together.

Enter Local Original Music Day. Is it really such an audacious notion? As a people, worn out on a culture dominated by faceless corporations feeding us by algorithm, telling us what we want to see and hear - we're absolutely hungering for something sincere; an experience that is directly, manifestly, transparently, truly and deeply cathartic. You could argue that it's the absence of those experiences that has left us prey to the kinds of divisive manipulation we constantly endure. Music breaks that cycle; share music with someone, and you open lines of communication.

Now consider the past two years, and how we've been isolated from one another. We're divided and scared. We as a country need to heal, to grow out of what we've been through, to come back together; to remind ourselves of how it feels to share the kinds of moments only music can give us, and local original music gives us best.

We're not just ready for Local Original Music Day; it can't happen soon enough.