It’s good to be at band camp. There is polished wood and loons on
lakes and mountain views and heated pools. There are skinny jeans and
plastic glasses, beards and v-necks and smoker’s pits. There are
bedroom guitarists and bathroom singers and everyone is full of
whimsy. But sometimes the rooms feel like ghost towns. Us lay-about
hippies with our ribboned dreams of glory don’t really belong in these
wholesome lodges. The silent ski-boats and empty beaches are negative
space in their silence. These Birkenstocked trails have tales of first
loves and smalltown crushes, close brushes with the counselor law.
Late-night lake adventures and campfire song residue kick up their
echoes in the dust.

We don’t belong here.

But we’re doing what we came here to do. Get our heads on straight.
And meet some like-minded people. Maybe it’s because we’re Canadian.
Maybe it’s because we’re harmless musicians. Maybe both. But no one
here is bloodthirsty to win anything. We’re all artists of one kind or
another, and thus we are art-supporters. Which makes for a good scene.
Camaraderie. But then again, perhaps the nice boys from We Are the
City are planning to smother me in my sleep…