Taken from the Acid Archives, as reviewed by Aaron Milenski:

“There is no album I own that has as much emotional complexity and depth as HARVEST OF DREAMS. Bobb Trimble’s previous album, IRON CURTAIN INNOCENCE, is of equal musical value, but HARVEST OF DREAMS is the one that exposes all of his inner demons, all of his hopes and all of his joy. Everything about this album, from the strange album cover to the name of his publishing company, can be interpreted in multiple ways, and every listen to the record reveals new nuances.

How far a listener can go with Bobb’s music depends in large part on their reaction to his high, fragile voice, and the many effects he uses on it. Within two seconds of my first listen to Bobb’s music, I was transfixed and had that rare feeling that this was music that could change my life. This obviously won’t happen to everyone, but I find his voice to be as beautiful a male singing voice as there is anywhere in rock and roll. His music is essentially 60s-style pop, with a bit of a folk-rock influence. Bobb is heavy on effects, from echo to delay to phasing to flanging, and the overload of altered sounds give every song a trippy, otherworldly feel, equal parts psychedelic 60s and new wave 80s. Like all transcendent music, his music is *of* his time, but lacks the trendiness that causes much music of the time to age badly. A number of traditional psychedelic sound tricks (including backwards recording and heavy echo effects) are augmented by more unusual layers of sound: telephone dial tones, incessant talking, noises from the video game “Defender,” bouncing ping pong balls, lingering layers of white noise caused by the heavy phasing. The effect is that of being drawn into a world where there’s nary a moment’s peace, to have a mind that’s so full of ideas (often contradictory) that the talking in your head never stops. Even on “If Words Were All I Had,” which is just guitar and voice, the heavy echo on the voice creates a bouncing wave of sound. Psychedelic music can be an expression of mania and psychosis, just as hallucination can come from high fevers or mental exhaustion, and the exact source of the sounds in Bobb’s head are unknown, maybe even to him.

When I met Bobb, more than twenty years after the release of this album, he asked if “the shadow had moved all the way across the album cover yet.” He says that there’s a shadow on the album jacket that wasn’t in the original photograph, and over the years it’s been moving. This is a perfect metaphor for the album itself (whether you might think this notion impossible, and whether you and I can see the shadow is immaterial.) The album is full of shadows, personal mysteries that float throughout and are turned into art, feelings and obsessions that can eventually be resolved (i.e. excised) by multiple listens to the album, or by years of personal change and growth. The album ends with “a confrontation between Bobb and the Devil in living stereo.” Is this the ultimate attempt to make sense of the barrage of voices in Bobb’s head and on the record? Inclusion of a “song” of pure silence is equally significant. For about two and a half minutes the voices stop and the mind is cleared. This is perhaps the *only* way to clear the mind. Nonetheless, the imperfection of privately pressed vinyl creates a few little crackles in all copies of the LP–silence is golden, but complete silence is ultimately impossible.

The front cover of the album is a photo of Bobb, looking at a fake “unicorn” (apparently, a single horn was glued onto a goat’s head.) Historically, the unicorn is a symbol of truth, purity and love, all essential elements of Bobb’s world. The unicorn is also, however, symbolic of the loss of purity, the single horn taking the virginity from young girls. Thus it represents both innocence and its loss at the same time. The fact that the unicorn on the album cover is a creation rather than a reality (something that Bobb apparently did not know when the photo was taken) creates an additional dichotomy: it is a false symbol of “truth.” The lies that Bobb sings about on the album, the difference between fantasy and reality, love lost, gained and imagined, the innocence of children vs. Bobb’s own tormented soul, all spring from the unicorn itself. Bobb’s ultimate message is one of hope (a note on the back cover explains the album title: “Harvest those dreams that had failed to Grow. Love, Bobb”), and even in its deepest moments of despair, there’s an uplifiting feel to the record. Yet at the same time it’s hard to tell whether the optimism is realistic or not. “Premonitions” is the most exhilarating musical expression of love I’ve yet heard. The song is full of joy and peace. Yet it may not just be about the joy and thrill one experiences at the beginning of a new love, but it may be the last happy gasp before something goes horribly wrong. On alternate listens to this album, one feeling or the other can dominate. The album isn’t just the artist sorting out personal contradictions, but also a mirror (or a shadow) of the listener’s own mood and feeling.

It was quite a leap from IRON CURTAIN INNOCENCE to HARVEST OF DREAMS. Though the first album had moments of powerful intensity, it did not have this same kind of thematic unity, or the deep personal nature, of HARVEST OF DREAMS. On the back cover of IRON CURTAIN INNOCENCE, Bobb asks “if I’m a good boy and work real hard, may I please be the 5th Beatle someday.” This time around John Lennon is dead, and Bobb’s focus has changed from his own youthful daydreams to the future of the contemporary youth. Bobb firmly believed in the youth and their future, and thought that music (including his own) was a way to rise up from a world of lies. The only clue to this mindset on IRON CURTAIN INNOCENCE is that it is “dedicated to a children of a dynasty destined to ruins who build their dreams on the darkness they buy…and steal.” This time around he’s often just as cryptic, but much more effusive. Children are everywhere. His publishing company is “Boysongs Unlimited,” a song is entitled “Premonitions Boy” and most importantly, the “Kidds” are omnipresent. Bobb had formed a band with young (pre-teen) kids, and they’re let loose throughout the record. They can be heard speaking and laughing between (and during songs), the silent “song” is credited to “The Kidds and Bobb,” the Kidds are credited on one song with “inspirational sounds of life and love,” and their only recorded song, “Oh Baby,” is on the album, despite the fact that it sounds nothing like Bobb’s music. The Kidds song and the silent “song” were not included on the JUPITER TRANSMISSION CD, which also excised some of the between-song banter and changed the name of “Premonitions Boy” to “You’re In My Dreams.” This is the most glaring way that hearing the HARVEST OF DREAMS songs in the context of the CD leaves out an essential part of HARVEST’s emotional and thematic base.

Side one of the album is titled “Dimension One - Truth.” It opens with “Premonitions - The Fantasy.” Marc Johnson is credited with “drums of the heartbeat,” and the song definitely is the ultimate expression of the heart. A bouncy melody, the most upbeat on either of Bobb’s albums, is augmented with cheery harmonica and, on the backing track, equally pretty flute. The song is pure joy, as Bobb finds everything he’d ever want “with every twinkle of your eyes.” Bobb’s delight is expressed with glory on a brief “whoo” and an occasional “yeah yeah” at the end of verses. It’s hard to imagine the exuberance of this song not winning over a listener, drawing them into the darker and more musically unusual moments that will follow. A stop-start section near the end of the song adds one last moment of excitement. “If Words Were All I Had” is a sparse guitar and voice ballad, an ode to unrequited love, ending with Bobb basically giving up. Just two songs into the album, both sides of love and obsession have been fully presented. “The World I Left Behind,” two and a half minutes of silence, follows, giving the listener time to mentally prepare him or herself for “Armour of the Shroud,” Bobb’s most psychedelic and frightening song. “Armour” is a howl of anguish full of backwards sections, heavy flanging, phone lines that can not be answered, the sound of Jesus being crucified, Bobb’s mournful lead vocal, otherworldly harmonies and, on the song’s coda, inhuman howling. Many of Bobb’s songs, even upbeat songs like “Premonitions,” end verses with chord changes that take the melody into slightly dissonant and/or unexpected places. With “Armour,” the *entire* song feels out of place, out of sync. At one point Bobb sings “God save you dreamers,” and goes on to mention “the cross that still crucifies in A.D.” A few years after this album, Bobb would record some Christian-themed songs. At this point in his life, though, he was certainly struggling with the Christian concepts of good and evil. That struggle would be played out further in “Another Lonely Angel,” but here Christian history is sinister and confusing. In the notes to this song, the “Voice of America” is credited with “Double Talk,” “Judas” with “Crucifixion of Christ,” and “Whales” with “Mourning Cries” (the howling, or part of the howling, mentioned above.) Without giving the listener a second to catch his or her breath, side one ends with a repeat of “Premonitions,” this time subtitled “The Reality.” The reality isn’t really much different that the fantasy, and in fact is the very same recording, just with the removal of a few backing instruments, and the addition of some studio chatter (Bobb counts the song off with A-B-C-D rather than the traditional 1-2-3-4.) This time Marc Johnson is credited with “heart of the drumbeat.” The song ends with a quick Donald Duck noise that is missing from the first version. As fantastic as this song may be, and as much as it does to change the pace from “Armour’s” bleakness, twelve minutes of it (both versions are about six minutes) is admittedly a lot. Bobb has explained that he recorded two versions (actually two different mixes; it’s the same recording) because he intended to release the song as a single and he thought the general public would prefer the less densely arranged version. The second version ended up on the album because when it was time for release Bobb wanted to include absolutely every recording he had. Looking at it now, accidental as the duplication may be, it adds a lot to the feel of the album. The fantasy/reality dichotomy of the two titles reflect the heart and soul of the album. Since the two versions of the song are essentially the same, are the contents of Bobb’s mind his actual reality? If he’s the only one who can see the shadow, doesn’t that still mean it’s there? Is fantasy a “safe” version of a forbidden or impossible reality? The lyrics to “Premonitions” find Bobb as the fanasty-fulfiller to his love object. As much as Bobb may be creating his own fantasy, he equally wants to give back the same. As Bob Dylan once said, “I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.”

Side two is titled “Dimension Two - Harmony.” The concept of harmony has already appeared in “Premonitions,” (”I’ll sing your every harmony”) and musically takes form in another utterly lovely melody, “Take Me Home Vienna.” The Kidds are all over this song, counting to four at the beginning, raising a background cheer in the middle, screaming “we love you Vienna” at the end, and after the song is over, arguing about the lyrics. Their excitement at being part of this musical project is only matched by the glorious beauty of the song, which Bobb has dedicated to John Lennon. Vienna is as likely to be a person as it is a place (or simply an image: “I was talking to a figment of my imagination’s oasis/my God I was feeling so damn foolish/ I was just a victim of self-hypnosis”), but whatever it may be it symbolizes happiness, and obsession: (”you’re on my mind every second, every minute of every hour of every day/every week, every month, every year gone by.”) A cheery violin solo in the middle perfectly expresses the happy-go-lucky nature of this song (or at least helps mask the mania), just as the harmonica did in “Premonitions.” “Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long” follows. It has another lovely melody, but with a darker tone, as with “If Words Were All I Had,” breaking the happy spell. The lyrics again speak to love lost, or at least not satisfied: “when I hold you in my arms, you’re a million miles away.” Some synthesizer effects on the bass are used to great effect. 

The Kidds then have their shining moment, a brief (minute and a half) punk rock song called “Oh Baby,” which was once described as “sounding much like what The Shaggs might have if they’d been boys weaned on Kiss’ LOVE GUN.” It’s silly, and musically unlike Bobb’s songs, yet somehow it fits right in to Bobb’s world. The depth of pain and emotion on his own love songs can be contrasted with the naïve innocence of the Kidds’ lyrics (they ask “Mr. Bill” of Saturday Night Live for help getting their girl back.) The mood shifts back to melancholy and emotional wreckage for “Paralyzed.” If it wasn’t for the sound effects, fuzz guitar, backwards instruments, and random background comments from the Kidds, this song could have passed for MOR radio fare. The melody, jazzy chord progression and bass/guitar arrangement is that smooth, that likely to stick in your brain. The contrast between the Kidds’ silly comments and Bobb’s tortured lyrics and singing only serve to deepen the emotion of the music. He is pouring his heart out to an audience that isn’t mature enough to understand his vision(s). The various communication barriers throughout the album become even more massive when seen in this light. The album closes with “Another Lonely Angel,” the aforementioned confrontation between Bobb and the devil. Bobb takes on two vocal styles, presumably one for each character, and begins in an uncharacteristically low range. The song soon slows down, and Bobb’s voice shoots up to hit his usual high notes. The heavy vocal effects make this song every bit as mind-bending as “Armour of the Shroud.” The struggle itself is cryptic, with references to Bobb’s music (selling his music/soul?), searching for your soul inside yourself, the ever-present “lies,” and the plight of “another lonely angel headed for the borderline.” The devil is credited with “background vocals and temptation.” The song, and album, ends as a verse dies off in the middle. Has the lonely angel fallen off of the borderline? Or has the angel stopped before reaching it? While this particular song is hard to sort out, clues to the source of the struggle are all over the rest of the album. Many interpretations of those clues are possible (and, indeed, the analysis presented here is just one of them, and in many ways just the tip of the iceberg.)

The liner notes go on to state “all moments experienced and recorded at MCM Recording Studio,” which is an accurate depiction of this music-it’s definitely an “experience” and is certainly a collection of “moments.” Bobb can’t resist also assigning a recording studio to the silent “World I Left Behind.” The title to the silence opens up yet more possibilities. What has he left behind? If he’s left behind an imposed silence, will he begin living his life the way he chooses? Or does it mean that in his new world the voices in his head can never stop? That everything expressed on this album is “truth,” whether a listener can figure out what it means or not? Has he left behind anything he really believes is of value?

Bobb’s final statement is “as people of world peace, we must join together and confront the Opposition of Indifference with the Spirit of Totality in the Loving Memory and Tradition of Mr. John Lennon.” It’s partially an afterthought, as a good portion of the album was written and recorded before Lennon’s murder, but there’s no doubting the effect Lennon’s death must have had on Bobb, and much of Bobb’s sorrow can be felt in the music.

Despite the emotional depth and darkness throughout, Bobb never loses a sense of playfulness. In the midst of “Armour of the Shroud” he references the local band (and Bobb’s friends) the Prefab Messiahs, and even had two of them play on the track. The liner notes also credit the song’s tambourine player (Seth “Xerox” Feinberg from the Prefabs) with “good vibes.” Even Bobb’s darkest songs have rays of hope and positive spirit. The previous album’s ode to insanity “Night At The Asylum” includes the lyric “come up and see me sometime.” Nothing in Bobb’s world is without some sort of joy or hope; his music is intended to be enjoyed. The liner notes are full of in-jokes (most listed above); “Premonitions” and “Take Me Home Vienna” are filled with musical and lyrical joy. This album is not by any means a downer; it’s as uplifting as it is complex. Most of all, it’s proof that rock and roll music is as valid an art form as any other, that it can open up new worlds as well as help explain ours.

Thanks to Kris Thompson for clarifying some details about this record.”

Bobb Trimble
Harvest Of Dreams
MediaFire DL Link

Tracklist:
01. Premonitions - The Fantasy
02. If Words Were All I Had
03. The World I Left Behind
04. Armour Of The Shroud
05. Premonitions Boy - The Reality
06. Take Me Home Vienna
07. Selling Me Short While Stringing Me Long
08. Oh Baby
09. Paralyzed
10. Another Lonely Angel

My latest blog post for WFMU was posted a few hours ago. It’s about America’s indigenous internment/concentration camps! Read it now!

It’s been two years since I’ve exercised regularly. I know, it’s hard to believe that I — a good-for-nothing blogger with past chemical and alcohol dependency problems — ever “worked out,” but it’s true. When I was unemployed and living at home there pretty much wasn’t anything else I could do other than wake up in the morning and run a few miles and use the high-end gadgets in the fitness center at my mother’s condo development. I’d watch Cold Pizza, or USA Network daytime movies, or Top Chef reruns, and I’d work myself out really well. I felt great doing so, almost as good as I used to feel when I was playing tennis and had my own personal trainer in high school. But then I moved to LA and got a job and a girlfriend and stopped doing anything remotely good for my body. I think the most exercise I would get in a day would be walking to the coffeeshop for a soda or getting off the couch to grab a beer.

Lately I’ve been feeling the desire to take control of my life and start the process of reacquainting myself with physical activity. I joined the men’s softball league. I go on hikes with Nicci in Elysian Park, Griffith Park and Runyon Canyon. I’m eating less Qdoba burritos and more healthy foods. It hurts not to be able to eat a five pound burrito twice a week, but…something’s gotta change, and it’s not going to happen if I keep spending $15 a week to work to eventually get a free burrito.

Nicci got two book to help me better understand healthy eating. One compares the different options you have at fast food joints, and one talks about “regaining control of your metabolism.” Going from living on 100 calories a day in college (and popping lots of pills to disappear any signs of hunger) to feasting on Patra Burger and In-N-Out probably ruined various levels of helpful hormones.

This method of thinking is totally backwards, since I just got offered health insurance at work. Shouldn’t I be doing things like smoking, popping pills and eating really unhealthy foods now, because I’m protected by a little card in my wallet? How come now that I’ve got my “get out of jail free card” in hand I want to better myself? It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

You are all witnessing the birth of a new Evan. From now on, things are going to change. I know I say that every few months when I decide that I want to change my life for the better, but this time I mean it. No really, I do! This isn’t at all like the time I swore I was going to get my book published, or that time I promised to never eat fast food again, and it’s definitely not anything like my pledge to attain a consistently high level of blog writing. Nope, this promise to change my life is going to stick for good.

Also, Michael Jackson’s dead body has promised to suck several pounds of fat out through my penis similar to what he did to 13-year old Jordan Chandler in the early nineties. Keep that in mind when you’re celebrating his life this week.

Bill Frisell - Convict 13
Dr. Octago - Girl Let Me Touch You
Gastr Del Sol - Mouth Canyon
Benoit Pioulard - Hesperus

Today I went for a drive deep into the heart of Antelope Valley to explore an area I will be writing about for my bi-monthly contributions to WFMU’s Beware Of The Blog. To be honest, I’m not sure how that area could possibly be considered part of Los Angeles County. It’s like the dark side of the moon compared to common conceptions about Los Angeles. It is well known that the county is the most populous in the entire country, and covers 4,000 square miles…but the city itself is so spread out, and all the surrounding cities are so populated, it’s difficult to imagine any towns or cities tied together with LA that are so sparsely populated.

I drove through Palmdale, Littlerock and Pearblossom. The latter town has a population of barely over 2,000. Without divulging too much information, Pearblossom is the home of a rather suspicious facility that I was interested in seeing firsthand. I’m sure if you search hard enough on the Internet you can find exactly what I’m talking about, but if not you’ll learn all about it tomorrow on the WFMU blog.

Following the adventurous portion of my trip today, I stopped at a nearby gas station to use the restroom and buy a snack. I was hesitant to begin my drive back to the city so close to rush hour, so I thought about exploring Pearblossom Park a few miles up the road from my original destination. But…as I pulled into the gas station I saw a sign pointing travelers towards something called Devil’s Punchbowl. Knowing full well that pretty much any location in the world called Devil’s anything is a worthwhile sight, I asked the attendants at the gas station what it was. One of them excitedly informed me that it was “a huge fucking crater in the middle of nowhere.” He said “you hike a mile down into the crater and there’s a stream at the bottom. It’s perfect if you like to take pictures.” I told them I had time to spare, thanked them, and said I would check it out. The guy who told me about it asked if I was really going, and I said yes. He said I’d enjoy it. The other attendant he was working with then shot him a look, to which he responded, “What…I like it.”

The drive up to Devil’s Punchbowl is utterly barren. I did not see another car on the road. As I wound up the road towards the San Gabriel Mountains, voices on the radio turned to static. I had no idea what to expect. I finally reached an entranceway after what seemed like several miles. A small parking lot containing maybe forty spots was also empty. I parked, exited my car, and began to walk around the area.

“Devil’s Punchbowl, elevation 4,750, is a titled sandstone formation within the Angeles National Forest on the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains.” A roughly one-mile long trail showcases the geologic features along the 300-foot deep Punchbowl and San Andreas Faults. The deep canyon is folding towards the earth’s strata due to compression. The uptilted rock formations were caused by water depositing loose material in horizontal layers. Later, they were squeezed into their present, steeply-titled form by ongoing uplift action along the Punchbowl and Pinyon Faults, and by pressures along the San Andreas Fault. Thanks, Wikipedia!

There was no way in hell I could make the entire hike before sunset, so I only walked a few hundred yards before turning around and retreating towards the park’s entrance. From what I saw, it looked absolutely incredible. You can guarantee I will be returning there very shortly to hike the entire loop and record some of the amazing natural sounds in the area. I stood at the lookout vista at the top of the canyon listening to the immense, swirling winds and wondered how they would sound at the bottom of the canyon. Birds, insects and small animals were noisily chatting. A rather large sign at the start of the trail warned that rattlesnakes are common along the trail, but they are shy and will not attack unless provoked. Mountain lions and grey foxes are commonly seen in the area. I will return very soon. The pictures and sounds will be beautiful.

***

• I’ve posted my first poll ever on this website. I think. First “official” poll, anyhow. I was talking to my dear friend Z recently and he informed me that there aren’t enough “antics” being posted here. He said I should go out and do some stunts and then blog about them. I think he suggested I steal something or burn something and then blog about it. I’m not feeling particularly destructive or violent lately, so instead I’ve decided to ask my readers which of the Swan Fungus features they miss the most. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted an entry in any of those categories. Tell me which one you miss the most and I’ll do my best to post one as soon as possible.

Note: If you are a registered Swan Fungus user, your votes are logged by Wordpress, and I can see how you voted. The trade-off for registering for a Swan Fungus user account and voting on polls will be that you will receive prizes for your participation. For example. This current poll will close on Sunday night. Your vote will earn you a chance to win a copy of the recently released Iron Maiden Flight 666 live soundtrack album. The 102-minute double CD documents the first leg of Iron Maiden’s legendary “Somewhere Back In Time” world tour, which took them 50,000 miles around the world, playing 23 concerts on five continents in just 45 days. That was the tour where the band has their own Boeing 757 (piloted by vocalist Bruce Dickinson!) called Ed Force One, which carried the band, crew, and 12-tons of stage equipment. I was hoping to score a copy of the DVD or Blue Ray to give away, but you’ll just have to settle for the soundtrack, which features a 17-track setlist featuring some of the band’s best material…if you’re fan of Iron Maiden, I guess.

That said, I’m going to official do away with the “contests” feature. From now on, assume that all polls I post will reward one Swan Fungus user with a cool prize!

John Coltrane - After The Rain
Bee Gees - With The Sun In My Eyes
M. Ward - Today’s Undertaking
Hella - Republic Of Rough And Ready

Nicci bought me three beers tonight and told me to consider it a donation to the website. In turn, I bought myself a $22 bottle of beer. Thanks, Nicci. Now you can all watch me get drunk on beer while I type about what happened to me today. I’ll type very slowly so the story will grow more confusing as it progresses. Right now I’m working on my first beer of the night, the $22 bottle of North Coast Old Rasputin XII. Batch #3. Aged for 9 months in 12-year bourbon barrels. ABV of 11.5%. Seriously, I think this is one of the best beers I’ve ever consumed. It pours jet black with a thick brown head. Aroma of vanilla, caramel, coffee, chocolate. The flavor boasts plenty of oaked goodness juxtaposed to roasted malts, vanilla, and mocha. Super soft, delicate, easy to drink and memorable. One of the best Imperial Stouts I’ve ever had, right up there with the Bell’s stouts. Fuck is it good.

So, today I worked almost nine hours. I was dropped off at the coffeeshop across the street because my car was in the shop. I had an omelet for breakfast and tried to think of an idea for this blog. Little did I know that my lunch break would provide more than enough fodder for a blog entry. From 10:30am until 3:00pm, I worked. I processed some orders, priced some vinyl, chatted with customers…it was a normal day at work. The only difference was, I didn’t have my car with me (it was at the mechanics — did I say that already? Well, if I didn’t, that’s why I had to be dropped off at work like a fucking two-year old). So, if I wanted to go anywhere for lunch, I had to walk. Sometimes I don’t take a lunch, and I just drink a soda. Sometimes I drive to lunch. Today I decided I was going to walk to lunch…because I didn’t have my car. Did I mention that already? Oh well, I’ll continue my story after beer #2.

Beer number two is Avery Collaboration Not Litigation. It’s a combination of two beers: Avery Salvation and Russian River Salvation. It’s a Belgian Strong Ale. 8.97% ABV. It’s very complex, but after a few sips it is growing on me. It pours dark amber in color with a small white head. The aroma is dried fruit (orange, raisin), cinnamon and cloves. The flavor is very sweet. A little peppery and also fruity. There is a very slight hint of hop bitterness in the finish. It’s a good beer, better than just an ordinary bottle of Avery Salvation, but not nearly as good as the first beer I had. I guess now that I’ve described it in great detail I’ll continue my near-death story. Have I mentioned yet that this is a story about me ALMOST DYING? Oh man, it’s so fucked up.

Timeout. I just went to El Compadre for Erin’s birthday with Nicci, Pat, Nate and Shaun. Nicci paid for my margarita, so it was like a bonus donation to the website! It was a good time. Their salsa flights are fucking spicy! There are chunks of jalapeno in their pico de gallo, which makes it very hot. The margarita wasn’t that bad, either. It’s certainly aided my “buzz”. Now that I’m back, a little over an hour after I left, I suppose I can finish my story.

Lunch break. Three o’clock in the afternoon. I decided that I was going to walk to the grocery store to get a small snack. Unfortunately, the road upon which my job is located is rather busy. There are many, many cars driving by at high rates of speed. What’s worse is, it’s kind of on a downhill slope, so plenty of cars are speeding by at higher rates of speed than the drivers realize. Oftentimes I’ll cross the street to grab a soda and I’ll be shocked by the rate at which approaching cars reach me. Not that I’ve been hit or anything, but cars accelerate down that hill fast.

So, I’m walking towards the grocery store. I cross the street and pass a bank or two. I’m thinking about what the hell I want to eat (knowing that I’m going to be going out to dinner in a few hours with my girlfriend), and minding my own business. I decide to call my mother to tell her that I’ve cancelled my temporary health care plan since my job has offered me a new health care plan. I slow my walking as I proceed downhill. I pass a liquor store. I slow almost to a stop as I dial her number. Suddenly, I hear a sound behind me, like an obnoxiously loud rattle. I stop as it approaches, trying to place the sound. A black Honda passes me at an enormous rate of speed. It was almost a blur — it was that fast. As I’m standing, watching the car pass me by, I hear a loud clicking sound. Before I’ve even processed what I just heard, I heard a loud snapping sound and a CRACK.

Apparently the Honda had a loose hubcap. Literally, the thing snapped off as the car was parallel to me, walking down the street. The hubcap must have become dislodged as the tire hit something in the road. I didn’t notice any potholes or anything, but surely there had to be some kind of…object there, which jolted the car, and in turn dislodged the hubcap. I never saw it flying through the air in my direction. I never even felt the rush of air as it passed just in front of my face. I simply heard the CRACK sound, and realized that, to my immediate right, a hubcap had become lodged in the wrought iron gate sealing off the parking lot I was walking passed. I’ve never seen metal cut through metal like that before. Maybe if you took a powerful saw to the gate you could cut a few inches into it over the course of several hours. This fucking hubcap was LODGED in there. Like, you couldn’t pull the thing out no matter how strong you were. It was stuck. In the fucking iron gate.

We’re back at Nicci’s now, enjoying the last of the bottle of Avery Collaboration Not Litigation. It tastes better now, after a strong stout, a strong ale, and a margarita. I’m pretty sure this is one of the better Strong Belgian Ales I’ve consumed — not that I’ve consumed many — and maybe i’ll try it again someday. More importantly, there are two beers left to consume, and they certainly aren’t going to drink themselves. Nicci bought me a bottle of Stone’s 13th Anniversary Ale (which has just at liquor stores), and a bottle of something called Angel City Rahsaan Roland Kirk Stritch Imperial Stout. Both of them sound amazing for entirely different reasons. One is a Stone Anniversary Ale, and one is an Imperial Stout.

If I hadn’t stopped to call my mother — my mother — I’d be dead right now. I would have been one of those embarrassing news stories where they find a decapitated head on the side of the road. I’d be fucking dead, people! There’s no way I would have survived. I came within an inch of my death today. What a surreal fucking feeling. God, I think it’d be perfectly karmic — a totally hilarious joke — if I’d died that way. People would show up to mourn the loss of my life and they’d hear how I died and they’d say, “Oh yeah, of course. We didn’t expect that he’d die any other way.” My enemies would laugh. My fucking friends would laugh! I’d be the guy who got decapitated by a fucking hubcap while he was walking to the grocery store to buy a shitty bowl of soup and a fucking Smart Water. It’d be the most embarrassing death since the guy who died because he ran towards an oncoming train in an attempt to prevent it from hitting his car. Even in death I’d be too embarrassed to face my family and loved ones.

For minutes I stood and stared at the hubcap. I thought about how it would have felt for that thing to cut through flesh and bone. Would i have even noticed? Would I have simply dropped like a bag of cement? Who would have found me? Is that thing about losing control of your bowels upon death true? What if one of my co-workers had to identify my body and I had shit my pants at the time? What would my mom have said had the call to her gone through, and then I died. Would she have heard my death rattle? So many thoughts. I couldn’t possibly remember everything that passed through my head as I stood there, on the side of the road, staring at the fucking hubcap. I feel like I immediately looked up to the skies and thanked God for keeping me alive, but I also feel like I almost broke down crying, and maybe I also just snickered and continued on my way towards the supermarket. It was a complete out-of-body experience. I remember realizing I was in buying a pre-packaged sushi lunch several minutes later, but I have absolutely no recollection of how I got from the hubcap to the grocery store. It was like I suddenly projected myself into the check-out line and that was the moment my mind began to actually process information again. To put it as bluntly as possible, it was totally fucked up.

We’re still finishing the Collaboration Ale. There is a sip or two left in our pint glass, and Nicci is watching a television show called Dance Your Ass Off. I think it’s about weight loss, but I’m not paying attention because I’m trying to relive the moment I almost died today. She didn’t even care that I almost died. When I told her what happened, she laughed. I’m not kidding, either, I told her the entire story, just as I’ve told you, and she stopped me and said, “There’s no way a hubcap could become lodged in a wrought iron gate.” I told her that’s exactly what happened, and she laughed and said it was impossible. So, I did the only thing I could think of, and I told her she was right. It was impossible. I told her, in fact, that I had made the whole story up. And to tell you the truth, it is impossible. I made the entire story up. It didn’t happen. There was no hubcap. There was no wrought iron gate. There was nothing. It was a joke. I wrote this story around a few beers and a tequila-based cocktail at a local Mexican restaurant. Quite frankly, the whole story was made up. The only true statement was that I walked to the grocery store to buy myself lunch today. Everything else — except for the beer reviews and the bit about celebrating Erin’s birthday– was a lie.

Did you fall for it? Did you think I almost died today? Did you know from the start that I was completely full of shit? At what moment did you realize that I was a) drunk or b) lying about the events of my day. This will help me in the future as I construct more stories about near-death experiences. Please be honest with your feedback. If you thought the wrought iron gate detail was entirely implausible, I will happily accept that I pushed it too far. If you thought that the story was true until you reached the point where I dispelled the story, let me know so that I can laugh in Nicci’s face and show her that I convinced people that I almost died via decapitation by a hubcap. Either way, if you comment you’ll be changing the way I write future blog posts about drinking beers, accepting donations from readers, and nearly killing myself.

I didn’t almost die today. I just thought about what it’d be like if I did. Does this make me “dark” or “Goth”? Maybe. Does it make me a creative writer and a silly drunk? Definitely.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment of Getting Drunk On Your Donations. If you’d like to read more stories about me being drunk and not knowing what to blog about, submit a donation to this website and you will:

01. Receive a care package “Thank You” note.
02. Have an almost personalized blog entry where I write about how I spent your money.
03. The satisfaction of knowing you are helping your own personal education about the finest beers in the world while also perpetuating my decent into alcoholism.

Nicci says not to joke about alcoholism, as it is a sad thing, but she was the one bought me this beer and that “strong” margarita, so she has to deal with whatever I write. Sucker!

Bellini - Wake Up Under A Truck
Mayo Thompson - The Lesson
Fikret Kizilok - Just As Long
Arbete Och Fritid - Dagen Lider

If Howard Stern can spend this week airing a documentary series about his history as a broadcaster and media icon, why shouldn’t I do the exact same? I’m about as influential to the blog medium as he is to radio, right? I should go back in time and revisit old posts and add in some color commentary about what was going on in my life back then. Maybe I’ll intersperse music from the different eras in order to show how far I’ve come in the last four years. As I’ve ascended the ranks from “complete nobody” to “pretty-much unknown,” my life and this website have both undergone many changes. So, if you follow Howard Stern on Sirius/XM radio this week and his “History of Howard,” you can click onto Swan Fungus after hearing about the history of his talk show, to read about my history, too! I’m sure the parallels between his life and mine will astound you. Especially the part about how he became a multi-millionaire celebrity married to a model/actress, and collected unemployment while living with my parents until I was 24 years old.

Oh yeah, and I’m going to write the whole thing in the 3rd person, because I deserve to be spoken of in the loftiest of terms.

On Thursday March 10th, 2005, Evan made his first “blog” post. It said, “hello world. this could be the start of a beautiful felationship [sic].” The very next day, the rookie blogger laid out his rules for this website. Evan wanted it to become the place where his life’s direction, his one big idea, was formulated. Addressing his supposed readers (all three of ‘em) he decreed that there would be lots of vulgarity, plenty of hate-inspiring posts, and promised laughs all the way…all the way to the bank! His bank!

That same day, Evan received his first reader comment. A person named Anonymous wrote, “You totally love me. Let’s make babies. A lot of them.” It wouldn’t be the first time a reader — male or female — expressed interest in starting a family with Evan.

The first week was an event-filled trip deep into the darkest corners of Evan’s mind. Evan’s high school chum Matt once said that Evan was a very secretive person, hiding his innermost thoughts from friends. They never knew which girls he liked, or what he was thinking at a given time. His small circle of friends were only privy to his good looks and his quick wit. Now, for the first time, Evan was bearing his soul to the world. He talked of a screenplay about a “coming of age” story that would expose Garden State for the nauseating dreck it was. He pitched five reality shows. Six days after starting this blog, Evan penned the first of what would become the longest-running theme on Swan Fungus: a top ten list. “The Top Ten Steps To Bedding A Hilton Sister” was the very first of what is often discussed as the most popular Swan Fungus feature. To complete his first week as a blogger, Evan called out his peers — members of his own generation — for being too reliant on communicating with each other through electronic channels. Decrying instant messages and social networking sites, Evan laid the groundwork for what would become another common thread on Swan Fungus: hypocritically attacking the medium he was using to communicate with friends as well as strangers. It wouldn’t be the last time Evan wrote something intelligent, timely, and yet totally bullshit.

In the early days of Swan Fungus, Evan would take off on Sundays, refusing to post entries because, he said, “How the fuck am I supposed to think of something funny to say every day of the week? I can’t do that. Nobody can do that. Literally nobody works for free saying funny things seven days of the week. That’s fucking ridiculous. So, I’m taking Sundays off — after all, it’s the Lord’s day of rest, and I’m the lord of this website.”

March of 2005 was an exciting half-month, establishing Evan as one of the brightest young voices on the blog…web. The blog-o-sphere. The world wide web. Whatever the hell it’s called, Evan was seen as a rising young star by the four people who read Swan Fungus daily. To conclude his first month as a blogger, Evan listed the ten best albums released since his birth (ooh, how Christ-like!), shared a private free-writing exercise, created a new series of rules for television commercials, expressed disdain for those who start “careers” after college, got really high with a friend and tried to write something for a reputable magazine, overshared his vulnerabilities as a writer, responded to the eternal question, “What are your plans for after graduation?”, and addressed the then-hot issue of illegal file-sharing. In just 21 days — 19 blog entries — Evan set out on his path to blogging stardom. His interest varied, his comments always on point, there were few people who doubted his ability to succeed.

It would seem after the first month that there would be few obstacles in Evan’s way to fame and riches on the Internet. But there was one very large and very imposing impasse that stood in his way, and that great barrier was Evan himself.

Stay tuned for Episode 2…

American Analog Set - Immaculate Heart
Calexico - History Of Lovers
Songs: Ohia - Farewell Transmission

Today was one of those “I hate my life” days, but since I came home from work things are slowly turning around. Maybe a little Sunday Mix Tape will help sooth my frazzled nerves.

RULES for uninitiated noobs: With roughly 100MB of webspace, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I’ll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. Today I had a feeling like I wanted to build an entire mix tape around the Tom Waits song “What’s He Building?”, so that’s what I did. That song came on twice at work this week and it always makes me crack up when I hear it. The rest of the songs attempt to capture the mood of the Waits tune, but none of them can come close to replicating it. The goal of this endeavor, as always, is to pique your interest in these artists so you’ll support the artists and buy their albums.

Sunday Mix Tape - Number 150
What The Hell Is He BUILDING In There?

01. Ativin - Interiors
02. GHQ - Radiance Illuminate
03. Oxbow - The Valley
04. Tim Hecker - October
05. Autistic Daughters - Rainy Day In June
06. Earth - The Dire And Ever Circling Wolves
07. William Basinski - Fringe Area
08. Tom Waits - What’s He Building?
09. Fly Pan Am - Arcades-Pamelor
10. Angels Of Light - What You Were
11. Hochenkeit - Smoking Skin
12. Einsturzende Neubauten - U-Haft Muzak
13. Songs: Ohia - One Harrowing Night
14. Set Fire To Flames - Omaha
15. Mark Hollis - Westward Bound

You know what this page hasn’t featured in a long time? A genre-melding rock band from Chicago. Frontier (guitarist Steven Wessley, bassist Kevin Ireland, drummer Michael Tsouios) formed in the early nineties, and quickly garnered buzz for their intense live performances, which would include a blinding light show followed by the trio’s choking out everyone in the room with liberal use of smoke machines. Never underestimate the power of a smoke machine at a rock show. When attempting to bring an audience into your world of dub-infused, feedback-drenched postmodern rock music, I suppose there’s no better way to achieve your goal than to subdue your audience before dragging them into whatever aural chasm you’ve created on stage. Frontier featured a killer rhythm section, upon which some amazing ambient, textural guitar parts were spread. Pull out any of the band’s work from their 1995 self-titled LP to their live recordings from The Empty Bottle, and you’ll swear you are listening to two distinct albums layered on top of each other, two parts experimental guitar noise with lots of time-delay effects, and one part drums ‘n bass.

In 1997, the band recorded Heater with Steve Albini. Not to be confused with the album of same name recorded by Louisville underground legends Crain three years earlier (bonus cool points if you knew that album was also recorded by Albini!). Spaced-out, abstract guitar feedback ensued. The sound of Heater — if one were to disregard the bass and drums — is what it must feel like to be sucked into a vortex. It is so very far out there. Some call it a mixture of Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Kraftwerk. I just prefer to call it wild. They would have made a perfect twin-billing with The Complex. Long live The Complex.

Frontier
Heater
MediaFire DL Link

Tracklist:
01. Heatstream
02. Now
03. Space Invaders
04. Automatic
05. Manual
06. G.F.A.
07. Lakewood
08. Rival
09. Dualflame
10. Bundesbahn