In the summer of 1989, me and my brother Geoff attended an inexpensive 4 night summer camp on Newcastle Island; a rocky, raccoon-ridden, blot of sandstone in between Vancouver Island and the Mainland, pocked with mines, made famous by supplying the sandstone that built the San Francisco Mint.

The camp got off to a good start with a cookout and a few rounds of that parachute game that has no real purpose other than to keep idiot kids busy and laughing.

Towards nightfall, our 3 camp leaders (an assortment of late-teens, early-20's BC potheads with little-to-no experience managing 30 Canadian kids) decided to let us kids in on the problems with "Ghost Miners" on the island, and how they had been responsible for several recent child murders.

By midnight or so, my nerves were a little rattled by the highs and lows of marshmallow sugar, several potential Ghost Miner sightings, mild dehydration, and general exhaustion. A nature walk in the dark was just what I needed.

Our fearless leaders took us into 3 staggered groups down the single dirt road that winded through the campsites and towards the "mining museum"/shack. I was apart of the last wave, a full 10 minutes behind the first group, and 5 minutes behind the second (which my brother was in).

About 5 minutes into the walk, further away from the luminance of the city of Nanaimo across the water and deeper into the dark, we came to a clearing full of a bunch of dead kids scattered around a blazing fire, their necks broken, their faces bloodied and bruised. My brother hung by his broken neck from a tree, and fresh blood dripped from his mouth. I wondered how I'd tell my parents of his death, I wondered if I would escape the murderous Ghost Miners.

It was all too much for my 9 year old mind to process, and I decided jumping into the fire was my only option. Shock has a strange effect on the human body, and it slowed me down just enough for the grand finale when the dead kids jumped up and started chasing us back to our campsite.

Did summer camp have a lasting significance in my life? Not really, but I know to stay away from Ghost Miners.

Wow. I am NEVER going to camp in Canada.

EVER.

I never enjoyed summer camp until I was in high school and went to a camp that was housed in a college dormitory (read: showers, beds, and walls). It was a media themed camp and we got to run the college radio station at night. So I guess for me that was my rock camp and I have great memories of it (read: no dead campers by fire).

My terrible camp memories come from Girl Scout camp in the summer of 88. I spent most of the two weeks crying and writing the most pathetic letters to my mother about how much I missed her. The lasting impact on my life has been that if someone mentions Camp Pondicherry I feel sad and want my teddy bear.

That's messed up Canada.

I had to be rushed to the hospital from camp when I was a kid. Had an asthma attack.

I was at asthma camp.

Oh the irony.

Heh...I think I'm going to make a response in my next article. Your iHerald article got my brain brewing. I'll be making an appeal to tradition.

Unfortanately the RIAA uses illegal downloading as a scape goat -- and punished their consumer base which is a stupid business move on their part. If the problem was that simple. The sole reason the record industry has lost money isn't illegal downloading, but rather a shaky economy and an inferiour product. Downloading could've been an effective marketing tool had the major labels understood it better -- but they were scared of losing control. As a result, they have lost control. Blogs have shown that mp3s can be an effective marketing tool... and the major labels are slowly, for better or worse, coming around.

Unfortantely, the major labels are too big to adjust to the times and they will continue to struggle. They need to learn to adapt to make it --- smaller labels are the ones surving. Musicians don't NEED labels anymore -- they do need savvy management and a savvy booking agent. Everything else can be done from their laptop.

While major labels have shrunk, the tailend has grown. This is what is exciting. With the Internet, every niche genre is at the consumer's fingertips. Local bands have become international over night. It's exciting.

The Industry (capital I) isn't hurting. It's changing. The Industry is becoming more about the little guy and less about the corporation --- and if you ask me, there's nothing wrong with that.

There's never been a better time to be a music fan.