Music in a Box

I help run a small music club here in the middle of Ireland and, in our two-year existence, one thing has become very noticable and is, I think, a bit sad. I refer to the narrow-mindedness of so many people - musicians included - when it comes to music. I always knew that such compartmentalising (phew!) was out there, but I had no idea that it could be so prevalent and rigid. I know a man, for instance, who refuses to listen to anyone except Bob Dylan; someone else who has no time for anything recorded before 1980, and someone else again whose listening is dictated by what gets good reviews in the 'quality' English newspapers. Not to mention the retired teacher who absolutely adores every genre of music as long as it's a jig, reel or hornpipe. Or the friend of mine who refused to listen to REM after they signed to Warner Brothers. Or the young lad whose epithet for anyone who doesn't like the obscurest American Emo rhymes with banker. Am I immune to all this? I am not. Put me within an ass's roar of Oasis, Madonna, tribute bands, Country'n'Irish, warbling cailini with harps, or massive Brunnhildes belting out Wagner, and I'm gone like the proverbial hare. Prejudiced, moi?