It’s late summer in Halifax and the sun is setting over the MacDonald bridge filling the sky with pink clouds. You pop the brand new tape you picked up today from Sam the Record Man into your walkman and the opening riff to Penpals fills your head as you make your way across the Commons. It’s the final night of Pop Explosion ‘94 and the line is already wrapping around the block outside Brunswick Hall. There is a buzz in the air. You can feel it. The city has been crawling with record executives all week desperately trying to be the first to nab the next JALE or Sloan to their label. Whispers about Halifax being “the next Seattle” are starting to feel real. You make your way through the crowd and hear a few people mention that festival headliners Meat Puppets backed out last minute and Eric’s Trip gets to close out the night. You’re not mad. In fact, it only feels fitting that a local act gets to carry it home. Afterall, Halifax seems like the epicenter of the indie music universe right now. While Eric’s Trip erupts the Brunswick Hall with the fuzz filled tones of Waiting All Day, another band you’ve never heard of is rehearsing just eight miles outside of the city. In a small suburb of Cole Harbour, in their parent’s basement, some 14 year olds jam out an extended version of Day Job Woman. The sound carries down the suburban streets. The neighbour next door watering his hostas catches himself singing along. They’re good. Darn good. The band is Bark. And hopped up on a new drink called Orbitz, the four friends share laughs between songs and take turns giving their best impression of a local doom metal band. The basement walls are covered with cutouts from The Coast and handmade gig posters of their local heroes. The young teens are writing, demoing, and carving out a tracklist for their first EP. With an excitable naivety of the music industry, the kids will take their Battle of the Bands prize money and go into a Dartmouth studio. The result is Chicken Pot Pie. A six song debut that punches above its weight and proudly carries its influences on it’s shoulder like a WWF wrestling belt. Twenty Five years later the original digital audio tape will be retrieved, remastered, and uploaded to bandcamp to stand as a relic of an overlooked part of the Halifax music scene. The part of kids that weren’t old enough to be in the bars but were waiting in the wings for their turn - listening, writing, playing.

- brendan morley (August 7th, 2020)