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• Editor's Note

The one thing that has kept me sane (or sometimes insane) amidst all my studying and work has been music. Before coming to CU, I spent all my free time in drumlines, jazz bands, concert bands and steel drum bands.

So the scariest part of coming to Champaign-Urbana for me three years ago as a freshman wasn’t the cafeteria food or the mandatory rape awareness classes. I was more concerned about whether or not there would be kids to play music with, stages to play it on and crowds to listen to it with. And surprisingly enough, for the amount of music that we have in town between the College of Music and all the resident DJs and rock ‘n rollers, the culture was actually pretty invisible to me.

Thankfully, buzz is a print magazine, providing students a false hope of keeping dry as they find an issue, open it up over their heads and run to class in the pouring rain. As they walk into lecture, they’ll toss the issue in the aisles, and if lecture is boring enough, others will pick up the wet copies from the ground and browse through them.

At least this is how I passed time in American History as a freshman, and it’s thanks to buzz’s music section, then called “Listen, Hear,” and Mike Ingram’s Sound Revue that I realized there actually were a ton of people making noise around town.

Of course, I didn’t know what the hell Ingram was talking about half the time as a newcomer to the town, but it told me where to find live music and at least familiarized me with a bunch of local names.

The reason I’m taking up space to tell you about this isn’t to promote buzz as the source for local music. But this week’s issue does mark the end of Ingram’s four-year stint as the CU Sound Revue columnist (in buzz years, that’s like a couple decades when you consider our turnover).

Because the column has always served as an open invitation for anyone to come to a show and get involved with the vibrant scene here, buzz wants to keep it going, and while I’ll definitely miss Ingram’s ramblings and rants, I would like someone to take his spot. If you’re interested, drop by the buzz office at 512 E. Green or e-mail Ingram or me at buzz@readbuzz or forgottenwords@gmail.com with questions.

And thanks, Mike, for the column.