Barb Schlif grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, listening to the Beatles and the Who. When she went to the University of Iowa in the late 1980s, Schlif dissed the generic classic rock and opted for what was all the rage on her campus -- the Minutemen, Black Flag and other bands on the SST record label. Soon she and her future husband started their own three-piece power trio, House of Large Sizes.

Although college-town punk rock scenes in the 1980s aren't uncommon, this is Iowa. And in the case of this sparsely populated state, punk rock didn't just invade the alienated youth of one angsty city -- it invaded the whole state.

"We've never been a punk-rock band, but we're a part of that scene," said Schlif, bassist for the Cedar Falls band. "It's always been more of a state scene than a scene in one city or one town."

To help out the local music community, Schlif and her husband, Dave Deibler, started their own record label, North Cedar Records, named after the "white-trash part of town."

And the University of Iowa isn't the only Big Ten school lucky enough to have local record labels. State College has Art Monk Construction records and other regional labels, while other Big Ten schools have music scenes that are helped along by homegrown record labels.

Minneapolis' independent Twin/Tone label gave college acts such as the Replacements and Soul Asylum their starts before the bands went on to national major-label successes; the Twin Cities' Amphetamine Reptile label promotes the noisy rock of loud Minneapolitans and University of Minnesota students.

In the past, Minneapolis' tradition of punk and post-punk has relied on the city's record labels, and today, the labels continue to help along underground musicians and the healthy dose of hip hop and noisy music that has developed.

"There's a very international tint to (the Minneapolis scene) that kind of colors the play list," said Simon-Peter Groebner, a music reporter at The Minnesota Daily. "The Minneapolis pop movement has an emphasis on melody and experimentation."

Ann Arbor, Mich., also has two record labels vying for the diverse bands that play for the University of Michigan student population. Schoolkids Records label is an outgrowth of a cluster of record stores by the same name, and local bands such as guitar-pop Melda are on Ann Arbor's Skillet Records. Other Ann Arbor bands in improvisational, power-pop and art rock genres are prospective candidates for these local labels.

But even without the support of a local record label, bands in the Big Ten are finding allies in the music scene -- in East Lansing, Mich., the music scene is to the point of band saturation.

The biggest complaint in East Lansing is that too many groups are falling for the trendy grunge sound. The so-called grunge movement has also inspired latent musical talent in East Lansing because there's not much talent needed to be a grunge band, said Brent Gillespie, bassist for Fat Amy.

"The grunge sort of allows you to have more flexibility -- it's junky music," Gillespie said, adding that his band has more of a Smashing Pumpkins distortion-type sound. "(Grunge is) not very finesse-oriented."

For those East Lansing bands who haven't succumbed to the attraction of grunge, the miserable weather helps to promote local talent. The bad winters and rainy springs that Michigan State University students face keep musicians inside, giving them time to practice their instruments, said Chris Johnston, singer for The Hannibals.

"In the spring, I walk down the side streets and hear bands playing in the houses," Johnston said. "I don't remember that five years ago."

When too much live music drifts out into East Lansing streets, the music scene gets congested. When that happens, bands feel as if the best thing to do is to play out of town, said Britt Diver, a drummer in East Lansing.

Diver's band, Power of Suggestion, has played at the University of Michigan, Ohio State University and the University of Illinois and has found that East Lansing groups take music more seriously than groups in Ann Arbor, Columbus, Ohio or Champaign, Ill., Diver said.

Musicians in Bloomington, Ind., have run into saturation problems similar to East Lansing's in the past, said Carl Saff, guitarist for Pencil, a Bloomington band on New York's Grass Records label.

"There's a lot of same-y-ness," Saff said. "For a while, new bands were popping up everywhere, but not anymore."

Although Big Ten towns such as Iowa City, East Lansing and Bloomington aren't lucky enough to have local record labels, bands in those towns are still taking an active role in their music.

"That's what influenced the scene in Iowa -- sort of the SST idea that you could do it yourself," Schlif said.