Note: The above two tracks were created with the intent to be background accompaniment while reading this article. They are manipulations of field recordings from the event taken from a Zoom H1n for the first track and a QFX RETRO-39 Portable Shoebox Tape Recorder for the second.
To the people who grew up here many things seem commonplace but for outsiders like me it feels mythological. This is why I probably have returned so many times in the past decade. Everything around here feels like it is embellished for a story which hangs in humid air. The miles of liquor stores and bait shops which dot the lone road into the county are flags and banners leading one into a kingdom of surface level strangeness. Someone described county people as “water people” which feels even more out of a storybook like they fish for sea monsters whenever the sun goes down. This is probably why I have returned over the course of a decade to see a friend be a part of creative endeavors where creativity feels non existent.
I am attending a Pink Floyd tribute concert put on by a group of local musicians and artists who make up the local music scene. It is called The Great Gig and is the second one of its kind in a few short months. I have seen this music scene grow from playing in practice spaces and fire halls to actual venues with hand built stages. Over the last few years, this coalition of creators began operating in sync led by a figurehead which has done most of the organizing and shaping of a space for original music. Carla, who has unceremoniously taken the burden of one of the most thankless jobs in music production is also involved in various parts of this elaborate concert in 100 degree heat. While this whole thing could have been a cover band playing a set of classics or even playing Dark Side of the Moon in full, it is a cast of 20 local musicians rotating on a stage through a 5 hour non stop show.
“They just took down their confederate flags last month.” I just learned about the neighboring bar and their compelled redecoration after some people complained It is only separated by 20 feet of gravel but probably miles in other measurements. Two bars occupying basically the same place in a small county by the water is something out of fiction or a sitcom if it wasn’t so jarringly real. I have daydreams of something terrible happening tonight and the two locations having to band together to thwart some outside threat. This fantasy didn’t happen and even if it would come to that, I don’t think it would play out like in fiction.
It took me a while to understand why I am here. Obviously, seeing a friend who I have known over a decade is grounds enough to go see but coming down here has been reason why the county intrigues me. Over the past year I became intrigued by a local music scene which despite being on the most cursory places on the internet exists largely for the benefit of itself. The music isn’t extreme or avant and largely derives from classic and alternative rock since much of the original music derived from cover bands which would play bars like the one across the street. The participants are a part of a larger age cohort than what we normally would ascribe to historic music scenes with some of its members looking like the parents or grandparents picking up their teenage musicians. Some of its most tangible artifacts from this place are a YouTube channel with 93 subscribers, a Facebook presence, a group chat, and a community calendar made for charity. Despite this seeming dismal by contemporary social media metrics, it is also an organic and supportive community which in the age of information exists almost outside of the internet. It is local music for local people.
I wanted to come down to take pictures and record audio as some sort of document. Since I knew Charlie and others were familiar with me, I could move around recording without looking weird (I am aware I probably still did). I have already been doing this at parties where a large group of people were fine with me recording bits of conversation for sound collages. I don’t think I could do this sort of thing without Charlie being there assuring everyone that this was just weird art rather than something malicious. There was something magical about a large group of friends which existed after the age of 30 continuing to be at events perhaps due to the lack of anything else going on. It reminded me of my own cadre of friends in high school which were there everyday sharing small experiences and incredible spans of downtime.This is perhaps why I enjoy doing this sort of thing as the recordings remind me of another time when friendship came with such ease and you would have ten or more people you could readily see on a daily basis.
Charlie and I are here at 3 when the show starts at 7. It is also the worst time for a heat wave which has been baking the entire region.They are running sound and setting up instruments under a black tarp with some instruments in direct sunlight which feels like it is under an absurd amount of heat. I didn’t want to eat food unless it is something that isn’t heated. There were going to be 20 musicians on stage in rotating order and the intensity of the set was something I couldn’t even comprehend despite understanding its complexity. This was less a concert and more a dramatic production put on by a cast who despite the perceived culture of the isolated have managed to carve out a niche ecosystem that is largely separate from the world despite only being an hour from the nearest city. This Pink Floyd show just seems like a manifestation of something happening despite it being in a place where nothing seems to happen . It didn’t need to be this elaborate but it was since everyone wanted it. A production like this under a makeshift stage across the street from a rival bar felt apart of a visionary style of local theater.
Under plastic tents we sit drinking complimentary water someone graciously filled in a cooler. There isn’t really anything to do as this many people playing parts in a show means there would be large swathes of nothing. This is where we are under the tents with people you probably saw yesterday. The musicians here talk about nothing of importance rather things they should do or projects they want to do. Carla has done a lot to cultivate a spirit of creativity in a landscape of liquor stores and bait shops (they are actually the same place). This is not to say it probably wouldn’t exist without one person directing it rather it feels like a mutual relationship which is the support of local art.If anything she has crafted a place for local creators to connect with each other and through the 4 hours of downtime you become familiar with other people and have the first step for future collaborations. I have seen this before happening on message boards and forums revolving around microgenres. It was fascinating to see a real life version of this or as Charlie jokes “yes, those are what are called communities.”
My interest in music scenes and communities can be read about with my various articles on dungeon synth. Outside of the obvious themes and sounds which seem to be tailored to me, a large interest was the community and how a group of people came together to make art. Dungeon synth’s history was shaped by its time on the internet not just as a global virtual community but also its evolution which came through communal spaces such as message boards and forums. I have talked much about the pandemic having an unpredictable effect on communities and for dungeon synth it was the boom of new projects, an elevated amount of attention on the style through social media algorithms, and the developing live scene for a style which was almost entirely online. Finding a near offline community (there still is a joke there) which has also been experiencing a creative wave born out of the vacuum of the pandemic is something deeply fascinating. This could just mean life changing events divert everyone’s path and new things come from that. This could also mean that life changing events and their effects are seen much later like the echo of a distant time.
There is also a chance that none of this matters to the level that I am making it out to be. It was just a chance to hear Pink Floyd outside for less than the price of a movie. I can’t talk about the level of importance for the crowd here who are wearing Grateful Dead shirts under their overalls or loved one here supporting their community. While walking around I saw people singing which isn’t hard given the popularity of the music. This is perhaps the true reason why I am down here since I have always enjoyed seeing people having a good time and love documenting people being happy. One of my favorite motifs is seeing people sing lyrics to songs in unison over loud music as if they are pantomiming exuberant joy. I also understand that the song I based the title of this article, while vague in meaning, has a large part to do with the connection between people and the quest for understanding. I don’t really know what “A million bright ambassadors of morning” really means or if it really needs to mean anything. For a moment there was something unexplainable when I saw strangers sing the same thing I have said a thousand times. I am you and what I see is me.
