KINGS, hello.
Forever in my life, until this year, I have been in the rhythm of taking a long, long, long drive in a car, at least once a year. On my way to a lovely place full of beautiful people, be it up to Boston or down to Atlanta, or out to LA. And speaking of LA, being here is wonderful but one of the real downsides is how crippling it is for me as far as travel goes. It is much farther away, which means longer drives, long to the point of impossibility, or flying (which I fucking hate, we all know), it means more expensive travel, more time off work which is harder to get, it means that loved ones are spread more all over making it hard to justify a trip to one place or another or another. Basically it means that traveling, for me, for the moment, is on hold, and it's hard. It's hard not to see the people you want to see and go to the places you want to go and it's hard to be filled with that mania that I am filled with several times a year, that feeling that what I would like more than anything is to just be in a car, alone, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, listening to The Magnetic Fields of Modest Mouse, hurtling towards life, hurtling away from life, destination and escape and return all in one, on my way to ANYWHERE. We row and row, we stay the same. We're clutching oars. We row and row, and reach distant shores, the same as where we left, and we're the same weaklings, hesitating to give in.
There is only the grace of wind...
Sigh.
So today, here is a little tribute to that. I was just now standing outside my front door, looking at the Hollywood hills and feeling full of WANDERLUST and melancholia (and the infinite sadness).
I've been trying to put together, for everyone, some photo essays about some things/some KINGS. The one that should be coming next is a little commemorative one year later for the trip to Allston last year. Turns out I took like close to 3000 pics and videos on that trip so it's taking me some time to process that and get it into some manageable chum. So this actually works in service to that. Trying to represent a series of long drive pics in tribute to this mania/to try and quell this mania. The following were all taken on the way TO Allston (from Atlanta), almost exactly one year ago.
So, throw on some Modest Mouse or Magnetic Fields or Silver Jews or Pavement or Jets To Brazil (I'll be attempting to make at least two or three KINGS mixes themed on this subject, in addition to ones already themed on this trip, recently finished, 298 and 299) and imagine yourself in a car, god knows where, going god knows where, far from home/on the way home. I suggest, if you have them, mixes 254, 270, 271, 272, 277, 278, the Ryan Adams Appendix, and I suggest if you don't have them, finding a way for me to get them to you. Also, side note, one of the great list mixes in KINGS history was one built on this exact feeling and on these exact bands. I don't recall the number, but I would say it must have placed somewhere in the late 40's to early 50's. I just remember it being one of the first times that I intentionally used a lost of the same one or two bands over and over on the same mix, to the point that Zoe actually "something to the effect of" (DRINK ZOE!) "soooooo this mix is basically juuust Modest Mouse and Magnetic Fields songs... ok"
Anyway
away we go
ENJOY!!!
it is 5:25 am
this is the seance.
xo.
