Scene Building

Over the past year or so, I’ve realized that my music and our band fit into a multi-tiered system of clubs, promoters, fans and musicians that makes up what most people refer to as "the music scene". Before, I always conceived of a scene composed solely of bands and their "groupies". I was naive to the business aspect of the music business at that point in life, and have come to realize that the everyday club owner has as much to do with the music scene as the next band or musician.

But it is how different bands and musicians coalesce, coexist, break apart and reform inside a given scene that really interests me. Right now I can count approximately twenty-five musicians I know, spread amongst 6 or 7 bands in Denver/Boulder, who are all between the ages of 21-25, went to all the same high schools and universities, and most importantly, have all played with each other in various projects for the last eight years or so. It is great to think that the same kids I grew up with, playing music in basements and garages, are now cutting albums and playing at festivals.

A case in point occurred last week when a good friend and highly visible member of the scene, let's call her Whitters for anonymity's sake, turned 22 years old. It was decided that a birthday party BBQ and backyard jam were in order. Several of the aforementioned 25 musicians were contacted by telephone and before we knew it, most every band in our scene was represented in the backyard, jamming aplenty.

This is a great example of what I refer to as "scene-building", an oft-overlooked aspect of the music business. The fact that Whitters herself is a musician and adept poet demonstrates that creative people tend to gather together. It is the friction between creative concepts in these settings that produce an even more fertile scene for bands to grow up in.

We would have had a party for Whitters the other night, regardless of any "scene" that anyone is involved with. In fact, that is one underlying prerequisite for a scene itself: that its members share more commonalities than just the qualities the scene is identified as having. In other words, we would have been in the backyard drinking beer even if French Moustache Art of the 1970's was our bag.

Unless your favorite pastime in life is being lonely, you gotta love your scene.