The Scene, Vol. 3

The cover art here wasn't staged. It was a snapshot taken by a local photographer and friend of mine by the name of Sean Evans after he came upon the remnants of a house that burnt to the ground during the Witch Creek Fires of Southern California in 2007. These fires caused the evacuation of 950,000 individuals (the largest peacetime movement since the Civil War era). Satellite pictures actually show that the flames were so massive and widespread that they could be seen from space. The fires themselves began in my hometown of Ramona (the base of operation for Pac Ridge). My family and I were one of the few individuals the didn't evacuate when the chaos struck. We opted to stay and try to protect our home from looters and ride out the disaster. The town and the experience quickly turned in to a post-apocalyptic scenario with no water, no food, no active businesses, looters and quickly approaching flames. We made it out okay, but many others didn’t share the same fate and good fortune. Over 1,500 people lost their homes, 500,000 acres were burned and the government declared the disaster a state of emergency while the President himself sent federal aid. My goal is to have this compilation to serve as a reminder of those tragic events and the hardships that they caused. It was a difficult time for numerous families, but like always, we as a society persevered. Today, the casual observer would be hard-pressed to even tell that Southern California was, in large part, razed to the ground. That's because we came together and rebuilt our community. A step that I believe music takes an indirect part in. Music has always assisted in binding cultures and bringing together loved ones. It's a small yet stable pillar that serves as an important piece of the societal puzzle that in tandem with other factors will keep us moving in the right direction. I mean how many times have you found solace in music after experiencing something traumatic, frustrating or depressing? Weddings, funerals, movies, parties, it doesn’t matter. Every avenue of life includes music, and the pure abundance and variety of genres that exist all help in sorting through what can be trying emotional experiences. My original intentions were to release a charitable compilation back in 2007 in the aftermath of the disaster. It never came to fruition for a variety of different reasons, but I would like this compilation to serve as something similar. I want it to serve as a reminder of a catastrophe that looked impossible to overcome, and yet was conquered like any other obstacle that stands in the way of progress. I also want it to serve as something that can be listened to on the best of days as well as the worst of days and have it still hold meaning thanks to the variety of genres that exists within these independent artists and within the scene as a whole.