#local scenes

I can't. I can't tell you to listen to them. I can't link a public Spotify or Bandcamp or YouTube. You can't share in these experiences, as much as I want you to. They don't exist.

It's surreal to me. I'm walking around with the demos no one else will hear, the EPs that aren't yet released, the songs that haven't been recorded yet because the bands in question are so young in their careers that they haven't considered studio time yet. The beautiful songs that no one will hear because the band will scrap them on deciding they have better songs and won't waste their studio time on something they aren't 100% happy with, no matter that five people out there like it. The songs that will change before they make it onto the record. The songs no one will hear because one member graduated and the band fell apart. All these little, local things that will have a profound effect on me for a week, for a year, but will only exist in my own cultural worldview.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, a little ashamedly, is that it's so different being in a music scene from the creative standpoint rather than a consumptive one. Where things are in your hands. Where things will exist for posterity if your friends decide they want to make a proper recording. Where things are so DIY that I can't send you a YouTube or Spotify link to add to your Faves playlist. Where things are so DIY that I've got to get a band in for a radio session, record and mix them myself if I want to hear their work again.

And regardless, I'm a bit sad and frustrated that no one else might get the chance to know these bands, to share these cultural touchpoints with me, because a band may not last long enough for anyone outside a uni scene, a city, a province, to know about them.

He also offered me a job, but I already decided that I'm only going to do stuff that I'm super overqualified for if the pay reflects that (or it's for underserved people or whatever)... And it doesn't. (And it's low enough that showing my actual CV would just make it clear that they're looking for someone else.)

But how do I know how they feel if nobody comes?

This is why I'm leaving the scene after my last scheduled show in July. Nobody wants to play with me, nobody wants to come hear me, nobody wants to show me that they're alive.

I bet there will be a handful of people saying how they don't want me to go. These will be the same people who never showed up to my shows unless they were playing with me. Who didn't care to listen to me. Who never told their friends about me.