∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞ bad goody goody! ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
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Very Scary
by Cripsy Duck 11-8-00
(printed in C-VILLE Vol.12, No.46)

DISCO BISCUITS - CRACKER

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"Hey Duck."

A tap on the shoulder swung me around to face a friendly drinking aquaintance.

"You wanna get spun?"

"Naw, I can't eat ecstacy."

He raised a mocking eyebrow and held up a small bottle of cinnamon breath drops.

"Always like to keep that breath good and fresh..."

It didn't take much arm twisting. I'm not big on ecstasy-- don't like the emotionless backlash that haunts the days after. But L.S.D. is the original psychedelic nectar of the gods and, well... that's a whole different story.

The shiny red bottle in my friend's outstretched hand contained pure liquid L.S.D.-- the real McCoy-- and knowing this particular buddy, it was sure to be very high quality. Besides, it was Halloween and I'd already endured a blistering non-stop two hour first set of the Disco Biscuits while stumbling around the over-stuffed, steamy, stifling crowd in Trax and had been considering bailing out anyway. Why not dose and see how loose my marbles could get in this already wierd environment?

The Disco Biscuits were amazing both before and after the acid began relighting the cold torches of my mind's rarely explored deepest recesses. Not the crappy Phish-head band one might expect, the Biscuits major in excessive psychedelic extrapolation, layering, relayering and stretching every musical idea to its furthest reaches-- often jamming for 45 minutes between a song's choruses. Philosophically they might owe something to the Grateful Dead's early hour-long "Dark Star" explorations, but the Biscuit's new world kookiness stands on its own as a thoughtful, spacey, very high-quality psychedelic music modernized, reorganized and injected with techno's alien spacecraft noises. It's no wonder they're poised to take over the helm of Phish's recently relinquished roving jam band circus and lead the thousands of touring "heads" it holds in tow.

"They are way too much!" was the only opinion I could coherently utter. At the end of the night the band took tire irons to a bunch of jack-o-lanterns while jamming on the Smashing Pumpkin's "Cherub Rock" before playing a very sinister rendition of Pink Floyd's "Run Like Hell." Very Scary.

But I was still rolling hard. Really hard. Far too hard to go to any crazy half-inflated Halloween parties. I went over to a friend's and played a little guitar but ended up waddling home alone where, fully reclined and strumming the same chord over and over for the better part of three hours (more fun than it sounds, I assure you), I decided that in 2023 I would reveal the Universe's God-nature and cause it to disappear.

"I am the Saivite Anti-Messiah," I intoned.

I knew it was an absolutely absurd hallucination, but it all made perfect sense to me. Eventually I forced myself to sleep.

Four hours later I was giving a eulogy for a close friend.

"He was an ex-Marine hardass," I reflected from the podium, "and..." the swollen red apple of my anguish stuck in my throat, "a beautiful... hippy."

I sobbed a deep and lovely heart-felt sob and... woke up. My eyes were dry, my eulogized friend was still very much alive, and I still remembered everything that had happened the night before. (I was, of course, still quite high.)

L.S.D. is a strange drug. Its little "expeditions" often lead you to feel that you've attained some sort of "priviledged understanding"-- a state where the minute intricacies of Natural Law Itself are somehow visible to your high naked eye. You may not be able to express it, but you sure can see it. This "knowledge" is usually significantly diminished the next day and will fade to obscurity in the days following, but this particular morning I remembered it all clearly: the cosmic one-tone guitar playing, the temple I'd realized I need to build (I only need like $20 billion.), and the fact that I plan to blow up the Universe in 2023. (--that's the Universe, not the Earth, mind you.) Cool. No problem.

That night I saw Cracker at Starr Hill and told my friend I had eulogized him. I also shared my whimsical plans for the "Chapel of the Universe."

"Maybe Capshaw would want to pitch in..." I speculated. He advised me not to tell Capshaw about the temple.

"But it's a rock temple-- the world's greatest performance venue-- he'd love it."

Cracker was good. I've dug David Lowery since back in his Camper Van Beethoven days, but I've never been big into Cracker. Their hits are always catchy and the band is slick, cool and laid-back, but a bunch of the material is just too Americana for me. I prefer Lowery's slow rock, ska and Beatlesque stuff. When the groove goes country, I just get bored. And I really can't track his affection for Kitty Snyder, the Pitch-a-Tent record label-mate who opened for the band on their ten month tour. (Starr Hill was the final night of the run.) Her stuff is more predictable than George W. Bush's stutter: stock rock and roll guitar chick crap with a good voice and sexy stage presence. Two or three good melodies, the rest disposable. There must be 30 songwriters like her in every major city. We've got a few around here.

I am not a vengeful god. Just an ornery one.

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