In this episode, Mike TV discusses his teen years in Palm Desert as part of the community that Rolling Stone Magazine dubbed the "Generator Scene". It was the birthplace and birth...uh...time of Desert Rock which is a sub-genre of stoner rock. Mike TV's band didn't subscribe to the sound of the desert, as they were one of the few hook-oriented bands but even so, his band the Spriggans played out in the middle of the desert, along with all the other desert rock bands, surrounded by sand dunes and hundreds of fellow teens. This episode is a reflection on how that shaped Mike's perspectives on music, on privilege, on authority, and on scene building. This episode features two brand-new recordings from Mike TV's side-project band, Anal Worm. Namely, The Internet is Down and We Don't Like You, We Like Beer. And this episode also features two songs from Get Set Go's newest album, Juggernaut. Those songs are Off With Their Heads and Ride The Tiger. And the last track is a completely new recording of Get Set Go's Flee The Sickness.
Intro: 0:00
Cold Open: 0:24
[SONG] The Internet is Down : 3:01
Main Title 5:26
We Don't Like You, We Like Beer Lead-In: 5:54
[SONG] We Don't Like You, We Like Beer: 9:31
Ride The Tiger Lead-In: 11:37
[SONG] Ride the Tiger: 14:12
Off With Their Heads Lead-In: 17:28
[SONG] Off With Their Heads: 22:48
Flee the Sickness Lead-In: 27:07
[SONG] Flee the Sickness : 29:23
Episode Summation: 33:48
END: 35:15
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Hey, I’m Mike TV and this is Hesitation Cuts. In this episode, we’re gonna be discussing a very turbulent but also transformative time in my life. A period that laid the germinating seeds for what eventually explicated so much of my personal philosophy on being independent, going against the grain, trying things that have never been done before, you know, just pushing boundaries and maintaining a pioneering spirit.
(way back machine piano figure)
Let’s take the way back machine to 1991. And I am freshly graduated from High School. I had attended Palm Desert High, which was a relatively newly constructed school in my hometown of Palm Desert.And I have just recently formed a new band with my close friends in the desert. And we’re called The Spriggans.
Actually, before we get into that, let me just give you the lay of the land. Because Palm Desert, and the entire Coachella Valley for that matter, is a very unusual place. Particularly in the late-80’s/early-90’s. The desert, as many people know, is predominantly a retirement community. With a heavy, heavy emphasis on golf. There are, I think, 125 golf courses in desert right now, here in 2023. And, this is a valley that is like 45 miles long.So that’s, what, almost three golf courses per mile? Now, back in the 80’s, there was obviously a smaller number, but there were, I think there were 33 brand new courses built from 1980 to 1990. So, golf was huge. Seriously just huge. I mean, when I was kid, Palm Desert added legislation that legalized golf carts on city streets. So, skateboards weren’t allowed. But golf carts were.
But, for all the concessions that Palm Desert gave to golfers and to retirees and to their wealthy residents, they did the exact opposite for minors under the age of 18.We had no places we were welcome.Not if we didn’t have money.Which, in a town of 30,000 people, there weren’t a lot of jobs for the under 18 set. So if you were poor, which I was, you were fucked. So, I started working at Dominoes Pizza when I was 12-years-old. And I’ll talk about that in a future episode. But, we were not allowed to congregate outside our homes, without money in our pockets. If we did, we were likely to be harassed. We could hang out in the mall. Like, the Yellow Brick Road, the mall arcade. Or the food court. But, with no money, we were technically loitering. And all it took was mall security to decide we weren’t welcome and we would be booted. We couldn’t congregate at parks. Or swimming pools. Or even the outside amphitheater in the mall without catching the stinkeye from someone. If we were somewhere without adult supervision, we could be and often were harassed by adults, by police, by country club security, by retirees and homeowners, you know, basically everyone. Everyone that wasn’t a kid.
So, we did what kids do. Particularly those of us who were latch-key kids.Those of us who had three, four, five hours of unsupervised running around town getting into all the sorts of trouble that kids can get into. For instance, we built a half pipe at my next door neighbor’s house, the Deans, with wood that was mostly stolen from construction sites around town. We stole lumber, we stole Masonite, the whole shebang.And because my house was situated right next to the only full-sized half-pipe in the desert, and because our parents worked til 6 and sometimes later, our little circle, the street where I lived, it was a nexus of youthful, skatepunk chaos. There were regularly 30 kids, of all ages, just skating, and hanging out. You know, just being kids.
Song: The Internet is Down
Oh There's - nothing to do
And There's - nowhere to go
And There's - noone around
And there's - nobody home.
And we - get so damn bored
Oh we - set fire to things
And we - smoke cigarettes
And we - have sex and drink
And life gets pretty shitty
When there's nothing on tv
No money in our pockets
And there's not enough to drink
Everyday is just the same
As the day before
We're bored.
We're effin' bored.
The crazy thing was, by not giving us places to congregate, by not catering to us at all, in any way, the desert just became a little incubator of industrious creativity for a lot of us. We just started making our own entertainment.
Oh, there's - nothing to do
And we're - still stuck at home
And there's - nothing to watch
We want - somewhere to go
And we - don't got no cash
No we - got none at all
So there's - nothing to do
So we - stare at the wall
And life gets pretty shitty
When there's nothing on tv
No money in our pockets
And there's not enough to drink
Everyday is just the same
As the day before
We're bored.
We're effin' bored.
Surrender! Surrender!
The Internet is Down Insert 2: And that was the thing, right? That’s what they wanted of us. To surrender, to acquiesce, to submit to our elders, our superiors, our betters. And we were like, fuck no.
(Main Title Music)
Main Title: Hey, I’m Mike TV and this is episode 3 of Season 2 of Hesitation Cuts.The show where we douse ourselves in gasoline, light a cigarette, hug our neighbors, and bask in the warm light of friendship. Today’s episode is about generators, rock and roll, and the places kids go when there is nowhere for them to go.
Now, music has always been a way for kids to give the stiff middle finger to parents, authorities, and the powers that be.I mean, look at the 1920’s and the flappers and the jazz and all the adventures that those folk had. When you’re a youth, music can give you a sense of identity, a tribe, and also a connection to something larger, more visceral, more holistic than the quotidian perspectives of our parents, our teachers, and our authorities, and even our squarer peers. And for me and my friends, music defined who we were. It was, at least, in my estimation, one of two of the single biggest identifiers of my personal community. Now, one was role-playing games. Which we’ll talk about in a future episode. And the other was music. Actually, there were three because all of us, all my close friends, we’re all part of a martial art as well called Krong Ki Do Kwan. But from the music perspective, I was firmly of the punk, grunge, and college rock tribe.Yes, that’s right, college rock. Because I am of the age, before it was indie-rock, it was called college rock.
So by the time I was a senior in high school, I had my own apartment. I was living on my own. My mom kicked me out at 16. My dad lived in Indio, about 10 miles east of Palm Desert, and while we were living together, he would leave me waiting for hours and hours after I got out of work. Like I would get out at 8. He’d pick me up at 11. I’d get out at 6. He’d pick me up at 11:30. So, when one of my co-workers at the ice rink, at the Palm Desert Town Centre, Pat Sheehey, had a room open up in his two-bedroom place, I moved in. I think it was in September of my senior year.It was $250 a month. Which, alas, along with utilities, was basically, all the money I made.
So, thank god for my friends. One friend, in particular, Mike Clausen, whose family were Alaskan Fishermen and Mike would work with them during the summers, and he would make pretty substantial money, and, thank god for his generosity, because I went to so many shows on his dime. Nirvana, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, the Afghan Whigs, show after show after show. Because, all of my money was tied up in keeping myself housed and fed. But, I and my friends, we all went as a group and, yes, I was the charity case. But, you know, thank god for Mike. Because I will cherish, forever cherish, those rock shows.
And, there was something magical in those shows. Even waiting in line was a tribal event. The smell of patchouli and the cigarettes and body odor. The band t-shirts. The random meeting of a friend from our high school, even though we all lived two hours away from Los Angeles. All of it only served to cement the idea that this was a magical, powerful, yet also ephemeral moment that I just clung to with all the fervor and passion of a religious gathering.
And so, one day, as I was driving with my buddy, Erik Altendbernd, in his red pickup truck, I proposed the idea of starting a band. Like, what if Erik played bass. And I sang. And our buddy Pat could play guitar. And Rick could play drums. I mean, we had the players. Why forever sit on the sidelines? Like, why be a part of the Holy See of rock and roll when we could, instead, be clergy.
And everyone agreed. And so we wrote our very first song. Pat was on guitar. And we were over at Erik’s house. And I was extemporizing lyrics. And the first lyrics we ever came up with were, “Tami is neat, so I killed. She was sweet but I wanted to fill her with mud and stuff. And keep her in my room”. And with that, The Spriggans were born! Well, not immediately, because, of course, we went through the compulsory 100 band name changes. Julius Caesar and the Slam Machine. Oodles of Poodles. Mikey Mike and the Funky Fucks.The Neo Yahtzee Party. So many just completely absurd but, for my money, hilarious names. But we ultimately settled on the Spriggans, which was an homage to The Pixies.
And we wrote and wrote and wrote. And we practiced and we played. And eventually, we started getting offered gigs. But, they weren’t nightclub shows. Because there was no place in the desert for a teenage band to play but the desert itself.
SONG: We Don’t Like You, We Like Beer
We like beer and we like booze
And we don't follow any rules
We don't like you, we don't like them
We don't like the things that happen
Oh, let's go have fun!
We're so tired of working late,
we want to find a new escape
We're so sick of being here
We wish we could just disappear
We like beer and we like booze
And we don't follow any rules
We don't like you, we don't like them
We don't like the things that happen
Oh, let's go have fun!
We Don’t Like You, We Like Beer Insert 1: And man, we literally played in the middle of the desert. Like, take a dirt road down another dirt road, turn left at a sign, take another dirt road, there you are. Surrounded by sand dunes. Powered by generators, lit by bonfires, and joined by 200 teenagers from across the valley.
We're so sick of doing shit
We think we're gonna simply quit
Oh, we don't like you anyway
We're gonna disappear someday.
We like beer and we like booze
And we don't follow any rules
We don't like you, we don't like them
We don't like the things that happen
Oh, let's go have fun!
We Don’t Like You, We Like Beer Insert 2: Shows happened in Indio Hills, at the Nude Bowl, which was an old, abandoned nudist colony, a place called the Vineyard. Lots of shows in just random desert spots, or at least, they felt random to me. But they were just empty lots, or abandoned ruins, where Mario Lalli of Fatso Jetson and Sort of Quartet fame would set up his generator and then bands would just rock.
We like beer and we like booze
And we don't follow any rules
We don't like you, we don't like them
We don't like the things that happen
Oh, let's go have fun
So, maybe you will find this just as fascinating as I do but, my grade, the class of 1991, out of Palm Desert High School, and the grade that preceded me, 1990, and the grade after me, 1992, there were an inordinate number of musicians that have gone one to make some sort of mark on the world. I’m just gonna give you a tiny, tiny list but I think you’d see it’s pretty compelling. So, there’s Tony Tornay, he was in my class, and he plays drums for the above mentioned Fatso Jetson. And then there’s Josh Homme, Brandt Bjork, John Garcia, Chris Cockrell and Nick Oliveri of what was originally Katzenjammer but became Sons of Kyuss and then eventually, Kyuss. And they were one of the bigger bands in the desert.And, all of them have gone off to do other things, other musical things, and of course, Josh went on to form Queens of the Stone Age. There’s Imaad Wasif, and the Gurgis brothers, John and Brian. I loved Imaad and Brian’s band, Lowercase. There’s Beth Arzy. Who was originally with John in a band called Aberdeen but then she moved to the UK and performed with, and continues to perform with the Luxembourg Signal and Jetstream Pony. There’s Jesse Hughes, who teamed up with Josh Homme to form the Eagles of Death Metal.I mean, the list just goes on and on. My bandmate, Pat Flores, who, after he left Get Set Go helped found Merle Jagger, an LA country-blue-grass-guitar-virtuoso outfit.Rick Vegas, after leaving Get Set Go played drums for the Randies. I mean, just bands and bands, scores and scores of musicians that are still putting out records and playing shows.
So many musicians. So much music. From a town, at the time that we graduated, was like 30,000 people. You know, I mean, I think the whole school was like 1500 kids. And I do think it was due to this weird alchemical mix of rich kids and poor kids, growing up in an environment that was hostile to the youth. Where there was a pretty significant amounts of neglect. I definitely remember lots of kids congregating at homes and in parks and in country clubs, ice blocking, which is you would buy a big block of ice, and put a towel over it, and then ride it like a sled down the grassy slopes of the golf courses. We had a big wash that ran the length of Palm Desert. And there were lots of golf courses that just covered that wash up in grass. But, I recall big groups of kids. A lot of hanging out. With very little adult supervision. I mean, there were adults. Because we had the 20-somethings and the late-teens, but they were effectively kids, you know. So, very little actual adult involvement, much less supervision.
And it was crazy, because, regardless of your family’s economic status, and obviously, we, my family, were pretty poor, but there were a lot of latch key kids.You know. I mean, some kids drove Mercedes, some kids rode bikes, but regardless of what money your family had, it still didn’t prevent you from coming home to an empty house. I had friends whose parents would leave for months at a time. So, their houses became the places we all hung out.
And it’s crazy, because, when you’re in the company of friends, and there is no real wealth of life experience to draw from, and you are beginning to explore the boundaries of what is and what isn’t possible, it’s pretty darn easy to engage in dangerous behaviors.
SONG: Ride the Tiger
We might die tonight
We're gonna ride a tiger
We set the night alight
We're gonna ride a tiger
Oh, we're gonna ride it
like it's never been rode.
We're gonna let loose screams
As we ride the tiger
We're gonna let it bleed
As we ride the tiger
Oh, we're gonna ride it
like it's never been ridden before.
Oh, we know, we are never gonna be
The sons and daughters of a happy family
Oh, we see, we are never gonna know
The joy of being in a happy, healthy home.
and so...
Ride the Tiger Insert 1: And yes, we lost a few friends to the chaos of adolescence. Heartbreaking though it was. But, it’s amazing to me to see how many of us actually survived and continue to do alright.
We're gonna smoke them out
As we ride a tiger
And we'll know no doubt
As we ride the tiger
Oh, we're gonna ride it
like it's never been rode.
We're gonna draw first blood
As we ride a tiger
And we'll bring the flood
As we ride the tiger.
Oh, we're gonna ride it
like it's never been ridden before.
Oh, we know, we are never gonna be
The sons and daughters of a happy family
Oh, we see, we are never gonna know
The joy of being in a happy, healthy home.
and so...
We come from broken skin and bones
Never will rest, and never will we find a home
We come from bitterness and lies
Never will rest, never, until the day we die.
Ride the Tiger Insert 2: And I don’t think our growing up experience was unique. I just think that, at this time, in this place, it created a lot of amazing musicians. And because we had no place to play, we turned to the very desert itself.
We’re gonna ride a tiger.
We’re gonna ride a tiger.
We’re gonna ride the tiger.
We’re gonna ride a tiger.
I want to tell you a story that I think is emblematic of growing up in the desert and the our relationships with authorities of every stripe. It starts with me and my friends Jesse Hughes, who later formed Eagles of Death Metal, and my buddy, Charlie Barrett, who was the singer for the band Asphalt Soul.And I think I was like maybe 16 or 17.And Jesse was 17 or 18. And Charlie was, I think, 15 or 16. And we were skating in cemented over wash. I was on my skateboard, Charlie on roller-blades, and Jesse was just hanging out with us. And we noticed that there was a patrol car watching us as we were goofing off.Now, this part of the wash was pretty far from any residential areas except for a nearby retirement community.And we’re not causing trouble. We’re just skating. Even so, like I said, nothing kids did in the desert was actually allowed. And we were always treated as if we were criminals just about to perpetrate crimes. You know. Doing anything was done only on the forbearance of our…masters. And that’s really how it felt. And, of course, this just engendered in all of my friends and contemporaries, a streak of defiance. You know, being treated as a hooligan just because we kids really began to pall.
So, we see this police officer, who was a part of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, just watching us.So, I suggest that we play a game of casual cat and mouse. Which is something I used to do back in the Bay Area, in Benecia, when I was kid.There were a lot of new developments being built back then and they had their own security guards, and of course, as kids, we would play amongst the construction, and then we would flee the security ala the kids on their bikes during the escape sequences in the movie E.T.And even if we were caught, they would just admonish us and send us on our way. And it was always fun. So I suggested that we do something similar.
So, we move to a part of the wash where the officer can’t see us. And then we scramble. And we walk a different direction until, of course, we see the officer cruise by us, eyeballing us. You know, he has found us again. So, we change directions again, and we cut through the retirement community. Which is not walled off, they have walking paths throughout, and there’s not a single “no trespassing” sign. So, as we’re leaving, walking down a driveway kinda towards the Palm Desert mall, the officer comes screeching up. Slamming on his breaks, lights flashing. So, stupidly, we panic. And just bolt. I head one way, Jesse heads another, Charlie, still on his rollerblades, heads another.
And I end up hunkering down in a bush about 100 yards away. Now, of course, it was stupid of us to run. But, at the same time, when a cop car rushes up on you going 15 miles an hour, slams on his brakes, lights flashing, it’s gonna provoke a fear response.And we were young, full of vim, and, so, we just booked.
Now , of course, the officer that finds me in the bush was this notorious cop known as Officer Woody. I think he eventually transferred to the High School as the on-campus officer, but I don’t remember if this was before or after that.But this man, this guy, draw his gun, no joke, draws his weapon, runs up to me, holds the gun to my head, and forcibly pulls me out of the bushes. He then drags me to his car. And tells me to put both my hands on the scorching hot hood in 100+ degree summer weather. So, you know, I oblige. And in short order, they bring up Jesse and they do the same with him. And while this is happening, more cop cars arrive. With more officers. So, we ask, “why were being followed and why, now, have we been stopped.” To which the cops reply, someone was breaking into cars in the neighborhood that matched our description. Which is complete and utter horseshit. Oh, yes, three young guys that look like us, on a skateboard and rollerblades, hanging out in the wash, were also stealing from cars? Fucking horseshit.
So, they hold us there, with our hands, hovering above the scorching hot hood of the cop car for about 20 minutes, until they bring in Charlie, who has hidden in the local Little Ceasars, where some friend’s of ours worked. So, they find him in his socks, because he had handed off the rollerblades to some friends, and the cops handcuff him, and when he arrives, he’s literally perp-walked out of the car, like he struggles, like “get your hands off me”. As they pull him out. Like such a bad ass. Looking so tough…in his socks. I still laugh at that memory. Now, at this point, there are nine police officers and five cop cars. It was as big a to-do as I have ever seen in Palm Desert. But, of course, we’ve done nothing wrong. We have committed no crimes. I mean, yes, it was stupid to do the whole cat and mouse thing. But, at the same time, why was this cop shadowing us. We were just skating. You mean to tell me there’s no crime happening in Palm Desert?And, of course, the answer is no. There’s not.Of course, there’s not. And, these cops get to flex. And so flex they’re gonna do.
And so, because we’ve done nothing wrong, eventually, the cops disperse, and Officer Woody drives us back to my house.Where, when we arrive, he walks Jesse and I up to the front door and then threatens us with physical harm if we ever do anything like that again. He doesn’t explain what we’ve done. He just threatens to beat us up if we do it again. And then he leaves to take Charlie home, who is still sitting in the back of the cop car. And, of course, a few blocks away, he just kicks Charlie out of the car, who then walks back to my place.
Now, it was this casual show of force, the gun pointed at my head, the threat of physical harm, the forcing our hands onto the hood, it was these things that I take significant umbrage with. Yes, we should not have run. But, as I said, he came in as if in hot pursuit. Which is a technical police term, where the police may pursue a fleeing suspect, eschewing warrants, even, if they believe they have probable cause to make an arrest. Although, what gave this fellow the impression that there was probable cause is completely beyond me. We were walking around. I was carrying a skateboard. Otherwise, we had nothing else on us.
So, I say this because, this is a very choice example of the sort of atmosphere we were living under at this time in the desert. And the great thing is, when you subject the youth to this sort of persistent powerlessness and for lack of a better word, indifferent oppression, they find ways to fight back. And a lot of us fought back with music.
SONG: Off With Their Heads
Beat on the kids and the kids'll beat back
They're due to launch another counter-attack
In roll the tanks, so reload the guns
Everybody's beatin' down on everyone
I think you, you could be a star
Just do the unthinkable while the
cameras are on.
Life is cheap, we're all practically dead
They're coming for us
So off with their heads.
Off with their heads!
They're coming for us!
What a feeling?
Can you feel it?
Are we dreamin?
Money is king and jesus is queen
It's the goddamn weirdest thing that I've ever seen.
Blood is cheaper than water for sure
And it spills so black and it feels so warm.
I think you, you could save us all.
If only you were three hundred feet tall.
But no matter, it's already been said
They're coming for us
So off with their heads.
Off with their heads!
They're coming for us!
Chop, chop, chop!
Choppy, chop, chop!
Chop chop choppy, choppy choppy
chop chop chop!
Off with Their Heads Insert 1: I don’t like bullies. I learned this in the desert. And I don’t really have the same sort of self-preservation instincts most people do.So, I will often stand up to people I really have no business standing up to. Because someone has to say, hey, fuckers isn’t right.
Beat on the kids and the kids'll beat back
They're due to launch another counter-attack
In roll the tanks, so reload the guns
Everybody's beatin' down on everyone
I think you, you could be a star
Just do the unthinkable while the
cameras are on.
Life is cheap, we're all practically dead
They're coming for us
So off with their heads.
Off with their heads!
They're coming for us!
Growing up poor in a small community with so much wealth and so much privilege really impacted me in a way that I didn’t fully understand until decades later. Actually, I don’t know if I fully do understand it. My perspective is always changing as I ruminate on it. But, I do feel, in my heart of hearts, that there are significant injustices that need to be righted. I know I’ve talked about it in this podcast, about the homeless, the mentally damaged, the invisible people, which I didn’t see a whole heck of a lot of until I arrived in Los Angeles, but my sense that this place, this reality, this hunk of rock that is hurtling through space with about 7 billion great apes clinging to it, is very broken, and tilted very much in the favor of the selfish, the self-serving, the self-entitled, the people who don’t necessarily contribute but instead exploit the contributions of the contributors.
And all of these perspectives, things that I have written about song over song, decade over decade, all of it was incubated in the little town of Palm Desert. This weird confluence of the ultra-wealthy, the retired, the people that service them, the people that build their houses and expand their communities. And yes, there were significant other outside factors that I think propelled my contemporaries in Palm Desert into music. It was just as Sub Pop and the Seattle scene was in its ascendency. Nirvana first album, Bleach, was out. Mudhoney was the darling’s of the college-rock world.There was a vibrancy and a tribal quality to people’s love of music that I think propelled a lot of us to want to contribute.
But, at least for me, it didn’t feel like the community was looking to reach very far outside of the desert. It was just our world. A world surrounded by mountains. And it was a world that everyone seemed to return to. People would leave, go to LA for a little while. Or college. Or New York. And then, over time, you’d find that they had returned. There’s something about the desert that, for me, simultaneously feels like home, will always feel like home, yet, also is the most foreign and weird and damaged place ever. And that is constantly reiterated every single time I go back and spend even a small chunk of time there.
I’ve never fully belonged. I don’t think I ever will. Certainly, I don’t make enough money to be able to enjoy the desert the way most of its residents do. I mean, I have. Once on Universal’s dime. A few times with friends. But, it always feels like the place I knew has been replaced by something very similar but cut from very different cloth. But, even so, it’s still feels more like home than anywhere else. And, as such, It is a place I am drawn to, even as I run away.
SONG: Flee the Sickness
I’ve been looking for a way back in
Said the prostitute to the comedian.
Things are getting too weird out here
There’s too much pain and too much fear
So, they busted down the prison gates
But no one escaped
Instead the inmates said
“Let us make you up a bed.
Oh, oh.“
There’s a clerk locked away somewhere
That calculates the price of air
Some people like to sell their loves
Just because they hear the price is up
Everybody’s gotta pay the Man
But not everyone can afford to pay in cash
Oh, they often pay much more.
If you’re beaten every day,
You won’t feel a thing.
If you’re lied to every day
You won’t hear a thing.
If you’re blind, how can you see?
You won’t see a thing.
(counter melody)
Come on lover, let us get away
Before this sickness overtakes us. (2x)
Come on, lover, let us get away
Before this madness finally does us in.
Oh, let’s us get away, oh, oh.
Flee the Sickness Insert 1: You know, as kids, we don’t get to choose where we grow up. And if I had my druthers as a 10-year-old, I would stayed in the Bay Area, in Benecia. But, instead we moved to the desert. And I went to private institutions until my sophomore year of high school. So, I wasn’t really introduced to most of my life-long friends until much later in my school career. But oddly enough, growing up in the desert very much made me who I am today.
The price of kids is much too high
Said the leaders on the left and right.
We don’t like their music anyhow
It’s too damn fast and too fucking loud
So, they aimed their forty million guns
And with a smile they said you better run
Oh, we’re gonna count to ten.
One, ten!
If you’re beaten every day,
You won’t feel a thing.
If you’re lied to every day
You won’t hear a thing.
If you’re blind, how can you see?
You won’t see a thing.
(counter melody)
Come on lover, let us get away
Before this sickness overtakes us. (2x)
Come on, lover, let us get away
Before this madness finally does us in.
Oh, lets us get away, oh, oh.
Flee the Sickness Insert 2: It’s funny, I don’t really consider myself a desert musician. Even though my roots are there. I’m an LA musician. Who now happens to live in Austin, Texas. But, the idea that you can do what you want if you have the temerity and the endurance to pursue it. Which is my utmost driving principle. That was definitely born in the desert. Definitely.
Episode Summation:
So, that’s the episode.A little piece of my history supported by the music I have written. You know, normally, I record five completely brand-new songs for each episode. But on this episode, I used two songs from Get Set Go’s brand new album, Juggernaut. Because, a) they’re amazing and b) I felt like I would be disrespecting the album versions considering their so new if I were to sit down and record completely new renditions for this episode. So, if you dig them, Off with Their Heads and Ride the Tiger, can be found on Bandcamp. You can buy the whole album right now for $7.
But, it’s pretty crazy to discover that no matter how many layers of the onion you peel back, no matter how deeply a person digs into their own history, there’s always new insights to discover.There’s always new perspectives, new meanings, new takeaways. So thank you so much for coming along for the ride. I hope you’re having as much fun listening as I am telling the story and making the music. And if you want, you can help support this podcast. Go to Patreon.com forward slash Get Set Go. You know, I hate to say it, but I am slowly going under. I have a family. And I make so little money that it is embarrassing. I’m trying to change that but I feel like I am trying to course-correct the Titanic with a really, really, really, long oar. So, hopefully this plea does not fall on deaf ears. A tiny amount of your effort, in exchange for my effort, goes a very, very long way.
I love you all!
Be well. Eat your veggies.Live forever!