Soundtrack to My Demise (or What I've Been Listening to Lately): On An Upswing, Wishing for Summer...

2 TY SEGALL - MELTED I am a sucker for raw, reverb-heavy, fuzzy garage rock. With the bass turned up to its max and my headphones on, it feels like two boulders pummelling my skull from both sides, rendering me into a giddy, blissful state. The catchy melodies and sentimental, slightly off lyrics...sounds like summer: unwashed, reckless, up to no good, and not giving a fuck about anything.

"...talk talk it's all you do, so I never talk to you oh no....cause you're in my head so I never go to bed oh no...cause you, you are Imaginary Person, you're in my head but I am certain you are real..."

3 THEE OH SEES - WARM SLIME

In a similar vein - this album alternatives between making me bop and pony like an idiot, and disintegrating me into a meditative, thoughtful trance. It reminds me of a summer a few years back when I spent a couple of sick, doped-up weeks in Fresno, California, during a record-setting heat wave. The sweat evaporates off of your skin as quickly as it appears. Everything about my surroundings seemed ridiculous and surreal. It was an absurd and memorable experience. I kept a journal at the time, in the attempt to keep apace with my thoughts. I can't follow a single strand to the end - they all just get tangled into a giant knot. All of my writing is in alternating hues of neon ink - most likely due to the influence of a certain prescription drug known to cause hallucinations.

The five palm trees on the edge of the parking lot are five skinny punks leaning, hunched, cross-armed and mohawked.
Another tree has leaves large and glistening like so many metal chandeliers hung atop one another - a pyramid heap of kitsch discarded, dumped, glinting and giggling in the sun.
Flower heads bob lazy and drugged like sprung Jack-in-the-boxes.
The sun preheats the sky to a scorching blue. A hot wind scrapes the crumbs of baked foliage off of the surface. Worms grill on a cement hotplate, crispy and still twitching, and are scavenged by ants and birds.
The heat prickles beneath my skin. It bubbles and boils red and sore along the top of my arms, on the backs of my knees.
My bones, body agitate my skin, shake and rattle me. The old layer of flesh shingles off, weeks after my foundation shifted and cracked.