High

What is it about the Pacific Northwest that makes
it’s residents so crazy
and weird? What is it about this mildewed patch? One
doesn’t have to walk
far from the backyard to experience the creeping
menace found in the woods,
the soul-cracking expansiveness and desolation in
the desert, or the hollow
feeling in the stomach one grows accustomed to when
living between angry
volcanic peaks and the hopeless eternity of that
cold ocean. Perhaps it’s
this residence in an area where four distinct
ecosystems wallop into one
another that fucks up the brains equilibrium. Is it
any wonder that the
music emanating from Earth’s wet end is instantly
recognizable as only being
able to come from here?
High comes from a time before kids needed to wear
psuedogoth makeup to
identify themselves as practitioners of pussy
emoting punk. They aren’t
about to fake a suicide on some broads lawn to find
attention. Likewise,
they aren’t about to dress like Mexican Hip-Hoppers
while crying like
Coldplay. Music isn’t about therapy. It’s about
moving the body, moving the
mind, joyous ecstatic journeys for the soul. There
was a time before
post-grunge, emo, nu-metal and Bright Eyes when kids
took drugs. And had
sex. And practiced occult rituals, that usually
involved drugs and sex. That
was a good time to grow up. No one cared about
fashion. To look like
everyone else wasn’t cool. Punk was the ability to
have good taste, not a
store at the mall. A time when a good night involved
hot unprotected sex on
acid with psychedelic rock playing loud on the
stereo, not limp handjobs
with tears for lube and the drug of choice is
swapping each other’s SSRI’s
while reading passages from each other’s internet
diaries. Youthful hedonism
versus the pussification of young adulthood. High
says fuck that and fuck
you.
So let’s explore the sound of High. They ARE that
psychedelic band on the
stereo when you pull your teenage panties down
around your ankles. They are
there to put images in your mind, images of heat
waves rising from the
desert , a desert space-ritual, where your naked
mud-caked body detaches
from your brain. Your essence leaves your dying form
and you are pure, as
pure as you were at birth. The electric-erotic
tingles your non-physically
bonded form, and you are able to become the
superhuman you always wanted to
be, ageless, powerful, sexy and violent.
But all good things can never last, and this
self-induced gnosis comes
crashing back down to earth, its dark now. Your
boatman knows what must
happen. get the fuck out of the desert, WE MUST MAKE
OCEAN BY DAYBREAK. You
barely remember the trees on that mountain pass ,
speeding to that icy
expanse, cleanse the gods’ fingerprints from your
body, there is hope in
haste. Smokestack Lightning, the city passes like a
hazy frozen ghost and
sleep takes hold.
“eat some more, let’s get strange.” You’re dancing
on string you porky
fucking puppet, what did you think, you could
control this? You better keep
swaying in the breeze like a swamp tree before your
mind shatters. And when
it does you might like it. You found the candy under
the dancer and the
ocean beckons with a cleansing. Twirl with all your
might until the sun
shoots stars into your veins and the trees are
backwards, you have reached
madness, your eyes are gone, looking into the back
of your pink skull.
The beach is empty, you scared the birds away. You
stink, confused and
alone. Now you have an excuse to eat Prozac. To
write internet poetry and
see a shrink. Not because the TV tells you, but
because you really are
damaged, according to society. High welcomes you to
them. Just know what
it is that you really want before you hug back.
It was a great time to grow up. A great place too.

“Buy the ticket, take the ride. - Hunter S.
Thompson”

“It will make you a stronger human”
Dr. Meyer ‘06