The American music business has an ongoing ebb and flow: periods in which the recording and broadcasting industries undergo much consolidation and centralization, and other periods characterized by deconsolidation and decentralization. That said, we live in an era in which a few major record companies and affiliated distributors have a veritable oligopoly on the charts and this is helped no doubt by the fact that broadcasting is largely controlled by a handful of conglomerates.

And once upon a time, clubs and bars used to hire bands to play five, six, or seven nights a week. Let me make this painfully clear: You could go to the same club and see the same band five, six, or seven nights in the same week. Maybe that kind of engagement would last for months at a time. Now, it's a big deal if an act can get a three-date residency at a venue for one particular month.

I won't discuss why these changes have taken place because the reasons are numerous and the "why" is not really my point. My point is that these changes have done a great deal to hurt the vitality and viability of local music scenes. A less consolidated, less centralized music business left a lot of room for regional tastes. During the 1950s, '60s, and early '70s there were many records that became hits in one market, two markets, or a few markets, but not in every key market across America. While many of these records came out on tiny independent labels with only local distribution and promotion, a lot of them came out on nationally-successful indies or even major labels. Sometimes the artists who made these records were not local to the areas where their records became hits, but in many cases they were. Radio stations and local TV shows regularly featured local artists alongside the top national and international hitmakers. As a result, a lot of locally popular acts had fans assuming they were stars nationwide. I once knew someone from Pittsburgh who could not believe that I, a lover of '60s pop music, had never heard of The Contrails. Turned out they were a local Pittsburgh group that never made it in Philadelphia—though to be fair, oldies stations don't play anywhere near as many local hits as they used to, so even if The Contrails had been popular in Philly, I still might have missed out on them.

Of course, the exposure some bands used to get in the local clubs was immeasurably helpful. I don't need to explain how playing at a well-known venue every night had the effect of raising a band's profile on a local level. Indeed, the Philadelphia band The Kit Kats (whose definitive history I wrote) were able to have an extremely lucrative career based largely on local club residencies during the 1960s; during their late-1980s reunion, one of their biggest problems was that they couldn’t get much more than one-nighters.

And that brings me back to my point: local music scenes are getting buried. I have had countless people tell me that Philadelphia is no longer a great city for music—and that's wording their sentiments kindly! Having immersed myself in the Philly music scene, learning more and more about it every day, I dare say we're in some ways better than we used to be. After all, it wasn't necessarily the talent of Philly's recording artists that made the city famous. Patti LaBelle? Sure. Fabian? Absolutely not. It was the music business that made Philly famous: the heyday of American Bandstand, legendary record companies like Cameo-Parkway, Jamie/Guyden, Philadelphia International, the works of hustling producers who cut hot early rock 'n' roll and trend-setting Philly soul and didn't always need great singers to make those records. With a few exceptions, Philadelphia’s music business is no longer high-profile, but Philly today has got acts with TALENT. So many that I needn't waste my time with any local artist who's just so-so in order to find local music to support. But how many people even know about these truly talented Philly artists? They're simply not getting the attention or exposure they deserve, and as a result a lot of people both in and outside of Philly have given up on the city.

Local musicians have to take some of the blame as well. Some of them don't know how to treat their own scenes. Surely Detroit still has a lot of activity, but it's well publicized that The White Stripes relocated because Jack White felt that he helped so many people in the Detroit music community only to have them turn their backs on him or even betray him. If that is indeed the way things went down, it's as if Jack did a lot to raise the profile of the Detroit scene and Detroit's own musicians didn't care. I guess they were content to let Detroit's present be forever overshadowed by its glorious past.

Lately I've been discovering more and more solid artists from other locales that I never thought of as good places for music. This is one of the benefits of music journalism, but one should not have to become a music journalist in order to see the vitality of local music scenes in America today. And you know what? You don't have to become a music journalist. Go to the clubs, bars, coffeeshops, theaters, and festivals in your area. Check the event calendars in the newspapers or on the websites of the entertainment venues. Go out and see some artists you've never seen before—or at least check out their MySpace pages when you see their names listed somewhere. You'd be surprised by what's going on in your neck of the woods, and if a local act from some other area comes to your town, you might be surprised by what's going on in their neck of the woods, too. Keep local music alive! Remember: even the biggest international stars started out somewhere.