white rabbit by the ovaltines

the purity conflict

the purity conflict


I don't know who to believe
the soothing drones with a history of new thought
or
the leather licked walls
of times I never had

the touch of a seductive tongue,
lights smeared on black hallways

blinded by the glare
of things you will never see

or you could follow the slow motion
of amber colored smoke

allow it to cloud your reality
and drift in and out of consciousness

it is always safe, you land on the soft buzzing drone
of sleepy emotion

this mono tone world has no judgment
no game to win
no answers
and no questions to ask

the money queen

the money queen


we all cower to the screams
of the mad money queen

she holds a court of contempt
and the sky above her is frightened with rain

the clouds swirl with a force above nature

her foot soldiers receive a sliver of her corrupted compassion

and small chocolate bottles of liquor
are passed out to the new followers

the death of hope

the death of hope

I can not fight this war
it blazes all day long

I remain silent,
a monster with a sad stare

my insides are hard at work
twisting and protecting
while the burning continues

but the enemy is growing
hidden in the blood mud trenches

the ground still smokes
from past destruction

hope skeletons hang
from charcoal trees

slipping

slipping

I let my head fall back but my mind keeps going

smaller and further I descend
through a painted universe

through far off galaxies
now just orange smudges
finger printed over a vast
black plum sky

I start to spin slowly
but I could look back up my spiral path
back through the celestial smears
right in to the back of my head
in to my vision
and back in to the night

head

head

jello head
fuzz head
space head
flower head

god head
future head
closed head
ocean head

silent head
christmas head
memory head
happy head

changing head
balloon head
candy head
elephant head

glass head
lost head
rain head
drug head

out of my head

have the drugs have lost their atmosphere?

have the drugs have lost their atmosphere?


I want to hide in stairwells
and become a ghost
to avoid corporate casual conversion

I board and set sail on the kp-2

I wear my caffeine crown with sugar jewels

then I hit the sugar crash

I re-adjust my crown

I reach the green hill of freedom

I arrive mildly harmed
and in the swirling amber glow

days in the cube 2

days in the cube 2


oh the weight of floating

I drop contact after the third ring

I must guard myself
the world would rather stab me
before they know me

I'd rather be drifting in space
than awake and hurting

BOOM 11:00 hits

I just have the rest of my life to go.....

days in the cube 1

days in the cube 1

I have to slip away
in to the madness
so I can correct what change had started

I don't want to feel anymore
the hunt for purity is to exhausting
the prizes to rare

I have now ingested small towers of tablets
the windows in today's city are my glass eyes

level three of space has begun
but the stinging still exists deep inside

there is so much work to be done
to clean my soul
so I may finally own it

guitars

guitars


I lay helpless
surrounded by my
self awarded trophies

each one a beautiful sculpted tombstone
marking my incomplete dreams

each dream was a heart driven path
to a chosen future
now faithlessly out of reach

another lost morning

another lost morning

slowly sliding down
the grey funnel
once again

waiting to heal
so I can continue to heal

if I was fit as roman solider
I would still be
a wandering poly-directionalist
forever searching
for acceptance

"Tomorrows Tulips" lo-fi coolness

So i got the record for my birthday, "eternally teenage" by Tomorrows Tulips. Its a great lo-fi record with a good vibe.
This is the album that should have came in between the 1st and 2nd Velvet Underground records.
It hits me as the kind of album fans of the Velvets wished Lou Reed would make.

I'm drawn to this lo-fi recording for a few reasons. I feel the modern lo-fi recording is a symbol of conscious or unconscious rebellion (like all great art) against the way the world is now...so money, fame and technology obsessed.
In this day and age when bands have access to many ways to use "pre-fix" recording programs like Garage-band that makes the shittiest song sound like it's good enough to sell, it's cool that some bands choose to not focus on the new technology.
Just like Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided by Voices and early Elf Power, the "shit recording" becomes its own cool effect and even an honorary member of the band and crucial to the sound and vibe of what comes across in the final product.

One very important thing to remember is that the bands that make good art have recorded a great performance of what they do....just in a lo-fi way. They don't even have to be great musicians, just be true to what they are doing. I think it is a cool concept when a band has great tunes and a great vibe and some of it is lost in the style of recording....(excluding crap pop recording styles). Example My Bloody Valentine's Ecstasy and Wine, it has a great sunny 60's vibe but is destroyed by the production....intentionally.
It sounds like a bad AM radio station from the 60's, but since the melody's are strong it makes your ears want to fish for the catchy tune.
It's a bit of work but once you extract the tune from the nasty warm fuzz that lays on top it, is very rewarding.
Now you have a cool melody to enjoy and some buzzing fuzzed out noise to get lost in.

Much like this record from Tomorrows Tulips, it takes a few listens but will stay with you for longer and if you are like me it will dominate you turntable or ipod for the next 2-3 weeks.

The album echos bands like early Jesus and Mary Chain and the newer band Crystal Stilts with the reverb louder than the vocals, thin twangy fuzz guitar with catchy simple pounding drums. The mix could use more bass but that may tip the delicate balance of the sound that was created.

This record even went as far as to have some songs get cut off for lack of space left on the tape.
Now this doesn't serve the song it self but it's cool as shit to literally record the technology limitation to the point were there is no recording to be heard anymore!
This leads me to believe the band was so in to their playing that they didn't notice the tape ran out.
I don't know if this was planned or not but it really adds to the audio visual and vibe of the production!
And it raises a huge middle finger to the excessive "i want it now" generation and culture that is killing art.

VIBE ABOVE TECHNOLOGY!

Above all I feel the record speaks to people and my self because it brings back better times..."the good old days".
The sound brigs me back to a time when the newest tech gadget wasn't so import to your way of life...it was the content that was import and pushing the limited recording gear to its max.
When a band does that, their excitement comes across however it was recorded, like the feeling they are doing something that was never done before......and that feeling makes great performances.

So do what you do to space out or reach another level of existence and pop this record on your turntable and listen.

Tomorrows Tulips "eternally teenage"