Welcome to the premiere issue of Notes on the Scene.
Notes is conceived as a free concert and festival magazine that reflects on the people, politics and culture that evolved out of the improvisational music scene. What is the scene? Well, to name it is to limit it, but to broadly outline it, the scene is the semi-intentional mobile community that was a direct outgrowth of the Grateful Dead and Phish parking lots, a scene that grew, flourished (and in some ways deteriorated) in the late eighties, early nineties, and on into the new millennium.
When the Dead scene was in its infancy (or adolescence, really) the open air market/bizarre bazaar which evolved in the parking lot came to be known as Shakedown Street. Now, ten years after Jerry's death, Shakedown continues to be the name that's used to describe the place on tour where the action happens.
Notes is the Shakedown Sheet, your lowdown on the hoedowns... a Minglewood Town Cryer for our tribe.
Over the years "the scene" has taken on many different forms, shifting and adapting as it goes. Faces come and go. Children are born into the scene, grow old, leave, return...
Just as the scene was not born with Jerry Garcia, it did not die with him. Much the same can be said about last year's announcement that Phish was disbanding after more than twenty years.
The scene is you. The scene is me. The scene isn't about the scraggly old musicians on the stage, much as they are often generating the soundtracks to our lives and the songs that move our bodies and souls. It doesn't begin when they hit their first notes and it doesn't end with their encores... or band break-ups... or deaths.
The Notes on the Scene 'zine is conceived as a way to sound off on the issues and ideas that we believe are relevant and of interest to people in our scene. It isn't about the music, though the music is often the campfire around which we gather. It isn't strictly about the politics, though social issues we believe to be of relevance will certainly be discussed here.
Politically, our editorial board/staff has a range of views. We are more apt to debate the pros and cons of the Libertarians and the Greens than deliver the soundbites and platitudes of the latest corporate lapdog Republicrats. Politically, Notes on the Scene examines the phrase "we the people" as it pertains to our civil liberties, our social responsibilties, and our shared concerns. And, yes, we on the staff are activists. We are not the mouthpieces of the quasi-governmental corporate oligarchy like those on ABCBSNBCNN or, heaven help us, Faux, er, I mean Fox, News.
We'll report on issues like the RAVE Act (and it's evil stepmother, the Amber Alert Act) and other ways in which legislation is encroaching on the civil liberties of concert goers (and Americans as a whole), but whenever possible we'll also point to reasons to remain hope fiends and pronoiacs. (unlike paranoiacs, those who fear the unknown, pronoiacs are those who believe that unseen forces in the universe are conspiring on our behalf.)
Notes on the Scene strives to be a mirror of the scene itself... a mirror of the joy and bliss, as well as the struggle and hardship. We learned long ago that the scene is a Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion and we need each other to live and learn and grow.
Do you care about the fate of your scene? Your neighborhood? Your nation? Your biosphere? If so, we'd love to hear from you.
Stick around. You know it's gonna get stranger...
With love that's real, not fade away,
Matthew Rick
Editorial Pooh-Bah and Chief Bottle Washer |
