"Ugh, what stinks?" "This town baby!!"

I'm kinda divided on this one...I mean yes my other blog is about the whole music thing but I think this topic goes deeper than that, and I have touched on this a little bit but on this blog but perhaps not on that deep level.

So here's the thing, I live in Mississauga, and as I was telling a friend earlier I have a love/hate relationship with this city. There's small town beauty in this big ol' city, and great people to boot. But with that small town beauty comes small town thinking, conservative thinking. It's my theory that places to play music in these parts are suffering for that very reason. I realized something today: the two main places that I've been able to showcase my music here in Mississauga, have gone under. First it was the Streetsville Soundbar, and recently it was the Executive Snooker Club.

Where is the interest in places like these? Mississauga certainly lacks that socialite, nightlife fire that Toronto has going, especially downtown Toronto. And what about us? What about the build-up and industrialization of Mississauga's unfortunately literal dead center? You know, our downtown core. Well, our downtown core is not a downtown core...it's the Square One Shopping Centre surrounded by a bunch of restaurants.

Don't get me wrong, the fact that Mississauga is such a big city but with such a small town atmosphere is a beautiful thing most of the time, it's inspiring. I mean, I wrote a song called "Small Town Boy" for god's sake! I hate the big city bullshit. I really do, but sadly, I think we need some of it here in Mississauga.

I for one can't be lugging equipment 45 minutes in every direction to play shows. Now, again don't get me wrong, I will still be doing that every now and then because I have to. For what I do, for making music, Toronto is the most accessible and quite possibly the best epicenter and I would encourage any Missisauga musician to go and hone their skills there. However I also believe that it doesn't have to be that way. each town, big or small should have a community, big or small that embraces the arts. And not just music, anything...anything you can get famous for I guess.

It's true that all those celebrities live in Hollywood, but that's certainly not where all of them were made.

Until next time,
Joe