Missing

Tobin Street, January 9th, 2004 (Friday night)

In Halifax, there is a lot of live music. In Winnipeg, I didn't experience that at all. In Halifax it is my perspective as an adult. It's a great scene, and there are cliques as the young 'uns grow up a little, or a new kid shows up in town, and there are sub-scenes, like punk and hip hop and whatever The Family is. All these groups make up what I love about this city, and they interact like cogs. The gears that grind the town. Grind you down. Bring you up again. If you watch closely, you can see the influence they bring to each other. You can hear it, you can feel it. It might be the nod of a head, the tapping of a toe, the stage banter. But if you look real close, you can see it in their fingers, in the bending of a note, the flick of a wrist.

I am a privileged member of a sub-scene. There's no question. I am only beginning to appreciate it. I have witnessed many hours of genius. Some people will never get to see what I have seen, hear what I have heard, feel what I have felt. I know that in all those other scenes, the same thing is happening all over town. People are doobin' down and playin' tunes. Magic is being created. I hope all those other audiences (those not lucky enough to pick up an instrument) have been moved as I have. Because I have heard music that has made me dizzy and dumfounded and hushed with awe. For hours and hours on end. It's like knowing a dirty secret, almost. The experience is not incredibly unique, while at the same time managing to be totally and completely unique. I wish there was a way to impart upon the world the music shared at 5139, and the music I heard in the basement and at the mothership, and here in the little place on Tobin Street. Wow.