Dude, I diggs this one. God bless you for taking the time to even read this, cause who’s got time honestly? Everyone SHOULD, but frickin demiurge corporate planet x here… Whatever. Peace and blessings and all good things to you and yours. Thanks for being here. Thanks for checking out the music too, which you must dig or else you wouldn’t be reading this. Heck, put that song on repeat while you read this, just to let it sink in a little more. That song is the spirit and soundtrack to all of this. This is where it came from.
Annie Bodied… So we were on the way to one stop on the Dedstop tour to spread some ashes. I don’t know if I mentioned the Dedstop tour anywhere in here. Feels like I did. I’m kinda backlogged on posting. Written… or wrote? a buncha stuff but just ain’t had the time to upload it all yet. Sadly the only ones who post things are Tyy and Me at the moment, for the most part. Tyy’s stuff is crazy so he’ll do some gram stuff or whatever. Usually reposts and liking a bunch of stuff. He’s always like (well, everyone actually is like) “Man, I don’t know what to post! None of it seems like a ‘post’ or something interesting enough to post.” Which I get but at the same time, nah. Going around to different places and realities you meet all sorts of people from all walks, different beings in different dimensions, and one thing that’s kinda common is the things you get amped about the most are cool, yeah, but it’s that everyday regular normal mundane stuff that’ll interest folks. Like if you do graffitti, you’ll get a bunch of likes or whatever on the finished piece, but post a vid of the walk TO the spot, and cut to a setup clip of unloading cans and doing the work… that gets more. LIFE is dope, but the LIVING, the expressing of the expression has way more juice, dig me?
Anyways, so, yeah, the Dedstop tour was a triiiiiiiip bro. We had to go on the road, just for us. Yeah, living in a haunted insane asylum between worlds and realities is dope and all but stuff happens in realities and it effects everything. The ripple effect is crazy. Sometimes it’s from things trying to get into other realities for whatever reason, sometimes by accident and you feel this “disturbance in the force” when like a civilization is wiped out in another dimension, which may manifest in your reality as like some kinda deja-vous or even a Mandela Effect kinda thing. Still… COVID. Basically we were all in a bit of a rut. I don’t know what a rut is exactly, but from how people describe it, we were in a rut. Better than being in a Rott I guess, because neither the entry as well as the exit point options of a Rott seem like they would be particularly pleasurable. One may prefer the rut over the Rott. Whatevs. Anyways, rut… so Doc (my shrink, it’s complicated though it ain’t… though) suggested for us to kinda take a WAKEUP tour. Not even playing shows, but we went for that too, but more to just get back to the roots of the things we all loved about the band and our music and music in general. We had writer’s block, things were slow and shut down and stupid all over the place. Crazy boredom. Crazy depression. Bury yourself in work or classes or whatever but nothing does it. You get this building angst and anxiety and indescribable blend of all thoughts and emotions and can’t get it out or figure what to do with it. You gotta create, but… can’t. I dunno where the line is that a muh’fugga crosses where you go from purely creating in the moment because that’s living at the moment… to WANTING to create because of the juice of the moments… to NEEDING to create, and then might end up stuck in some kinda pressure from the feel of needing to create but the meaning of it all gets twisted and you kinda lose your self in trying to top yourself, if that makes any sense. Stuck in CAN’T create. Trying to remember WHY create. I can only imagine what the supreme being goes through. Having created EVERYTHING and STILL facing eternity??? That’s madness. I’ll pour a drink for you bro. To your sanity. We’ll get to the song, don’t sweat the technique baby… we’ll get it.
So, basically…. though…. on the “tour” the Dedstop trip we all picked a place that we loved, something that felt rooted to us. Dedstop because that’s where everything was… at a dead stop. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no reason for anything, let’s hit the road and see if we can figure out why continue to exist and even do… anything. We had to get to those spots that started it all, or some kinda places that at least reminded us of those times, people, places…. Wasn’t or might not have been the number one dream spot, but we just went back to a bunch of places to kinda recharge. Like I remember in Philly there’s some back alley kinda streets, like Willow St. and Wood St., north and south of Callowhill St. downtown in Philly… I loved walking those streets. You catch things there. No, not herpes, but, if you play your cards right… NO, NOT HERPES. What I mean is that there’s life there but it’s quiet. Late nights you can catch things like stray cats or something, catching a rat in a dumpster, or someone rollerblading at whatever the heck hour in the moonlight, or even in the afternoon. Don’t seem like the spot to do that but to see it is like, “Yeah, they get it. There’s a different kinda freedom here. Just don’t tell anyone or then everyone will be here and completely ruin the spot.” You have room to breathe I guess is what it is. You’re alone there. Not really, but you are. No one notices hardly, and no one cares because hardly anyone is there who isn’t supposed to be there. Stone streets. Just enough grass. That city vibe, the sounds, the smells, just muffled but still there to keep you on alert. It’s like in those paranormal or whatever movies where you go to what should be a crowded place and no one is there almost. Places like that I dig.
So we were all just taking everyone else to spots. Like reintroducing us to us. No time limit either, just go and don’t come back until it clicks. It’s a haunted insane asylum in limbo, nobody’s gonna break in or tear down a ghost building, and god help them if they try. In your own living of your own life you have to take your time back from the bullshit and give it to your self. Take your time and mind and make them for you. Dedstop Tour. Charlie had a spot, Tyy had a spot, Slikk had a spot. We ended up with some other spots too because we ended up getting a new driver. “Not Chatty Cathy” who was cool, our old driver, had to… um… go. Long story there that was a shocker, but looking back on it, yeah, I guess you can kinda see it. She killed a bunch of folks wherever we would go. We’d play and chill at hotels… She’d go kill people. Whatever. Not important. It was one of the things, after finding out, that kinda messed with us, ya know? Adding to the need for the tour. Anyways, so we met this one really cool mechanic who’s daughter died, and he was on a mission to go spread her ashes at her favorite spot. It was after Slikk’s spot, this bar called GREENBAR. Dope spot. Trees inside. Anyways, so Rosario had a van and since ours broke down and he ended up having a ride, we ended up needing one, and it all worked out. It’s like that trip was for him too. He was needing it as much as we were. Queue Dr. Malcolm “Life… finds a way.” What up Rosario, if you read these. Great times bro… great times. Glad to have you. Thanks for putting up with… well.. with Tyy. We’re all great. Putting up with Tyy. LMAO. I joke I joke. I kid I baby goat.
((( Dig it, a slide show yo! Only a few pics though... tho..doh. Ok, no. )))
This song came about while on the road though… though. Hence the picture there. Something about desert drives is just relaxing. Well, something about desert drives where your vehicle actually makes the trip and you don’t have to stop for overpriced gas because the folks around there know you won’t see or might not get to another gas spot for a long time… good luck with your EV… so they charge an arm, an eye, and some reproductive organs and spinal fluid for a gallon of gas. I kinda get it. It costs them extra just to refill their tanks, and how many people actually come through there, but at least clean the bathroom and wipe the dust off of the jerky. Best to not have to fight any type of mutant from the mist night creatures or entities. And trust me, you love the reality you’re in. There is where you are because highest self knows that there is where the you that’s you now needs to be. The other you’s in whatever lifetimes, whether you catch up to them or not… they can handle where they are, but you’re here, so be here. Enjoy it. Sailing stones are dope. Toe biters and dune bugs are cool to see from a distance. From a distance. Not on you. Not cool to pick off of you. Nope. It’s great when there’s there’s no cop gangs or post apocalyptic in-bred Master-Blasting-Bartertownies that force people into death races where losing may result in some kinda trade or “services” and you’re not doing that so you have to do battle there some kinda way and remember to cross that part of town off of the list… or ghost road pirate bikers…. but it’s an adventure. A memory. A memory you can look back on and laugh at how “NOPE, we have to go.” Seeing some little girl skipping with a basket in a night gown next to you… skipping… you’re doing 75 mph, and she’s skipping… whimsically… not a care in the world, right next to you at the same speed or almost in slow motion. Hey, NOPE…. we have to go… faster… Now please. PLEASE. NOW. GO. Go go go go go go go. Don’t look. No one saw anything. Just more of the going faster now away from the here. Hey, a camping ground. Coo… wait a sec, Rocky-Road-Ass Sloth over there is roasting some kinda body parts I can’t tell what they are aaaaannnnd now he? She? IT? THAT… That them there is giving a crazy look. “WRONG TURN” MUCH? NOPE. Crazy red lights over the mountain? NOPE. Gotta pee, pull over here. No one is around. Wait, is that an elk skull on a post? Wait, are there… is that a LINE of ELK SKULLS ON POSTS?? Leading to where exactly? To NOPE. Pee on yourself or here’s a bottle. We have to go. Seeing that cool sweet old lady at the gas station while you’re pumping gas that you buy a rose from because she’s a nice old lady and why not, she’s getting her hustle on and it’s only a buck or two, and she pinches your cheek and tells you you’re a good boy, and you look down to take the gas gun handle out and look back up and she’s gone… like GONE.. like no way that hobbling hunched over babushka is gonna mad dash ANYWHERE cause you’re in the middle of nowhere off to the side of the freeway, but you’re still holding a rose, and you can’t explain exactly what happened. You go back in the gas station and they tell you she’s been dead for like 8 years, but there’s her picture on the wall cause she’s so and so up the road’s grandma and used to come here and sell good luck roses. You go back to the van and folks are like, “Hey, why do you have a rose?” and you’re like, “Don’t worry about it. It’s good luck. We have to go.” NOPE. Hitting some stretch that seems pretty rural, but the houses in that oooonnneee stretch have confederate flags and white crosses in the front yard… NOPE. I could mean whatever, but it could also mean whatever, so NOPE. Taking pictures of haunted places and seeing weird shit out there in the camera, but when you look up it ain’t there, but look in the camera again and now it’s looking at you so you take the picture and get the fuck outta there cause all you had to do was take a piss and now you partially pissed yourself running back to the van…. you go to show people the picture like, “Is this a frickin werewolf?” and it ain’t there. Pictures before it and after it are there, but not that one. NOPE. I’ve even seen that vanishing picture thing happen with an actual printed, like developed in a darkroom basin photograph which was then placed into a photo album, and when the dude turned to the page all of the other pictures were there but that one. He was freaking out. Yeah, NOPE. Yeah man, diggs it, trips where you ain’t gotta do none of that stuff is just really relaxing. Even with all of the random crap, no matter what reality you’re in, or what reality it may have come into your reality from, you can’t beat them. Either way, when you get back to “normal” which is crap, you realize just how right it went. You survived it, and you have a very very cool story now. Thanks road. Funny thing, even with those, when you get back to “normal” you look at that life like… NOPE. We have to go. Back to the road. Now. Also, now that I think about it, I if not the whole band here probably fit the bill of most of that stuff that would make you go NOPE. We gotta go. Ah well. I’m harmless.
Some places, or actually a lot of places are just peace though. Though. Doh doh doh. But, yeah man, road places are paradise, even if they don’t seem like it. There’s nothing like ‘em except other road places. Places where you hear a car or truck burrddttttttting every now and then and you hardly notice crickets because it’s just that quiet. Checking out rest stops, truck stops… Damn I love LOVE’S, and Pilots, Flying J’s, QT’s, even a couple Valero’s and Marathon’s were a godsend on a few journeys… and the cool convos with the lot lizards and working girls and truckers walking their dogs about speed traps and watching out for road gators and snakes (not animals, but if you know then you know)… Finding those cool little shops with craaaazy stuff in it, where you walk in and there’s a moose head over the door and ain’t no moose in that state, with the taxidermy owls and foxes or roaches and mice playing chess, with some borderline racist mural (but what ain’t racist nowadays, eh?) of Pilgrims saving Indians from a bear which is how that Rock got it’s name because Fuck whatever name the Indians had for it, and that school donated mural blending the bathroom doors into the rest of the wall, and a bunch of rattle snake heads pinned to a wall above the real animal belts or vests or whatever, with some of the best damn jerky made of some of the “nope, swore I’d never eat that” kinda “meat”… Welcome centers with facts about towns that you didn’t even know existed, and they still do because “You are here!”, that make them waaay cooler than where you’re from, with the cattle post fenced off barbed wire area with the sign “watch out for poisonous snakes” or “do not feed the goats” or “beware of birds of prey” which is an awesome thing to see but you wonder how many incidents and just WHAT HAPPENED that now you need a sign??? WORD???? The sign’s just gonna make you want to go out there even more… Pulling in to that welcome center looks like the most high tech thing in that town. Seeing what’s in the vending machines at night and wondering “Where do they make Peanut M&M’s because they’re EVERYWHERE!” and laughing at them bad-ass kids who due to economics are at the extended stay up the road, tryna reach in and knock something off or kicking it to knock something loose. Sometimes you buy it for them. Then they turn around and ask you for change, but fuck it, mom and or dad is laid off or lost the lance and this is home now, so yeah kid, here’s $10 bucks in gold dollars from the slot machines at the gas station named after whoever’s granddad and son’s liquor, up the road that has some of that new shit you won’t see anywhere else… “White chocolate strawberry crunch bars” and SHAQ Blueberry Punch or some shit. Not the one with the tin man made welded together from scrap and the sign that says “We sell rocking chairs, pickled eggs, and NEW used tires! CHEAP!”, nah kid, not that one… The OTHER one across the street where the pimped out red Caddy with gold trim and bull horns on the grille with the gold 50 inch rims with no one in it but it’s just rattling Master P… plate says “GTRDUN”… that one. Go crazy kid. Motels and Air B’s with no water in the pool but some local kids are carving it up with a skateboard or blades at 2am. Laughing at how THIS PLACE?? is classy enough to have the green leaf soaps, and not the oval ones that turn into surf boards and skate decks, or those flat Pepridge Farm Cookie thick 5 commandment tablet they call soap, looking like it was the Cracker Jack prize in one of them red packs of Biscoff tea biscuits they dish out on planes as a meal, but who cares, you just gonna jack a bunch of them anyways, and the towels, and washcloths….. Smelling weed seep out from under motel doors while you can hear the party going on in there while you walk the electric hum buzzing greenish lit walkway back to your room, past some kids you can hear making beats in their room, and someone else getting it in. You lean over the railing or sit on a plant pot having a smoke and look up or out and see bats sniping the swarm of giant moths that look like bats themselves, so many the light looks like static on a tv… like millions of them… at like 3 or 4 light posts! WTH?!? Deer and racoons and possums running around in the woods or by the lake area, or hitting up the trash cans while the highway patrol comes with the drug dogs to walk along and “just make sure everything is ok”… Its dope. Driving by crazy random carnival lights and mini-golf spots, and overpasses that look like some kinda giant spaghetti dinosaur graveyard madness… You gotta love the road, man.
((( yes, another slideshow. Sorry the pics are all in your reality view. Some places are waaaay cooler in other dimensions but might not come out, or something else might come through )))
Desert drives… YES. The open road just gives you life. It’s therapeutic. That wide open loooong straight stretch of rippling in the heat red or blacktop open desert road. As if they would dare to put solid lines there. Where you can floor it with the top down or just the windows in our case, hands and arms twisting and surfing the air currents, and NOT EAT BUGS AT THAT SPEED… wind pushing the vehicle around and you kinda freak out for a sec and debate on “should we go faster? To push through it?” while cranking your tunes and watching the little dust devil swirls come and go… Trying to figure out what those animals are eating over there and where do they sleep and how do they even manage out here?!?… The random hawk or vulture soaring about… tumbleweed is an actual thing. God forbid you get caught in a dust storm, screw those. I dunno what mummy curse retribution is causing those things but you can have ‘em, but road weather is awesomeness. Road atmosphere in general is just the frickin bees frickin knees bro. I don’t know who was eating honey bbq bees knees or using them to go fishing or smoked ‘em or whatever it was that made them so great, but it’s those. How dope the sunsets and rises are in the mountains and wondering if there’s an alien base anywhere out there, where the air is just so friggin CLEAN your lungs freak out, and you can see so many stars you never even knew there were that many up there that were visible… and the QUIET… the quiet is just awesomeness. Watching the rain clouds and lightning storms waaaaay over there across the endless fields of dirt and scruff or even getting to that point where it rains on one side of the street but not the other, or when it just shuts off when you drive from under the end of the cloud. The clouds in general, just being in a place with that much open sky and open space where you can see the frickin beauty of the earth and wish death on anyone who wants to build here. Those run down abandoned shacks in the middle of a valley or the desert graffiti van just out there… why? What’s the story there?! Them long windy roads up steep climbs that open up into some wooded Bob Ross heaven with rivers and horses just running free… that lead to turnpikes where it’s like a frickin ludicrous speed go race and as soon as you hit that stretch YOU’LL KNOW because everyone, even the frickin V-Dub hippie van of nuns just mashes it to get a taste of that open road freedom… Going through the tunnels and screaming and tripping out on the lights and that weird hum… Trying to avoid the tolls and wondering if you’re gonna get that EZ Pass ticket… Bridges where you wanna stop in the middle and just take it all in but the bridge is kinda suspect… GPS getting you going in circles and to turn off onto roads that don’t exist and you end up on some highway with construction but just as soon as you pass the “SLOW” sign guy everyone’s back to warp speed… laughing at cops you spotted on the overpass radar gunning people passing below or hiding out in the cut… That road, baby. Give me that open road. “Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” Willie and Waylon open road peace and edification. Some folks got that life in their blood. Road dogs… gotta roam man, gotta run. Straight up Metallica “Wherever I May Roam” and “Fuel” or Godsmack “Serenity” drives. Yeah there’s other songs but those are some classics that just fit. Maserati “Monoliths”, System Of A Down “Lost In Hollywood”, or Power of Zero “The Return of Zero” or “IC 2944” freedom excursions to save and reclaim sanity and purpose and self. Take a road trip and drive through a desert at least once in your life, yeah? Yeah man, you can fly if you want. Taking the bus is an experience. Taking the train is also an experience, better for the fam or something… but the drive… maaaaaan, you can’t beat the frickin drive.
Anyways, in the van, Charlie was strumming on this for a few days, on and off the road. You’d hear it kinda here and there. She has one of them Pocket-Rocket type mini amp things that plugs into the guitar so she can hear it in headphones and just walk around but all we hear is quiet strings. You’d see her in the back seat of the van, or when we’d stop somewhere she’d sit there with the door open, strumming, working it out. When we got back she plugged in after we got settled in, and she’s like, “Hey… check this out.” When she started you could just feel that desert open road vibe. That warm quiet rumble of the engine and see the heat waves…. the hotels, motels, sleeping in the van… the sights, all of it… the NOPES… all of it… it just poured out. Like a portal opened up and the open road was there smiling at us on the other side. Reading this you might be able to see and feel it more, even falling back on some of your own road moments. I’ll drink to that. We all just kinda jammed on it and it came out how it came out. Each of us at our respective posts, Charlie on guitar, me backing her up and Slikk on the bass. Tyy on the boom bap. She went back in after we played and added other stuff to it and mixed it and then let it thunder through the asylum. At the end she was like, “Hmm… yeah, that’s good enough for me.” And good enough for Charlie is good enough period.
I don’t know why the title. Charlie knows. I dunno. The picture (the album art) is kind of a psychedelic thing because Tyy and Slikk were saying it has that kinda vibe to it a bit, a little bit of that edge, so Charlie did that one with the feathers. It’s peacock feathers.
But the one in the video, the one with the road… maaaaaaaaan, that’s the one. Needless to say, the Dedstop Tour worked. Like Elias in PLATOON “Feeling good is good enough.” Homage to the road. Yup. Gotta go.
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