“To the labels, the artists, the indies, the late night keyboard warriors, the shy bedroom writers that sent out their first tracks….”
Category Archive: Travelling Light
We pitched it, ditched it, decided against it, but closer we got to Vegas the better it sounded. Hell we drove from Florida all way to Colorado taking in and tearing out of every high-end lowlife pit stop on the way and we didn’t die, kill each other or worse. And if we can do that and keep breathing, and manage to not fall out too badly, then we can do pretty much anything.
Including getting prepped up, pretty and primed for a wedding in less than a week.
So our Million Dollar Highway drive took us down and through sights and heights and split-pin turns, we could’ve flown with the eagles if we’d made a mistake on those corners on cliff tops and drops. We sucked in our bellies on the narrowest parts that twisted and fell with the mountains, we paused now and then to regain concentration, to make sure we were keen-eyed for driving…
‘It’s Rats to the Ratrace. It’s Rats on the Run…’ I Guess even rats can get tied up in twists. Hard not to see it as some kind of fail, back to scratching around on the decks going down, kicking hard to keep calm in the water. We’re back in UK with the same burn to go, to be living someplace somehow else.
What went wrong? Almost nothing. Three months in the US driving East coast to West then a month in Saigon, Vietnam…
Here’s the first set of highlights from the state of Colorado… a close to whistle stop tour of Red Rocks Amphitheater, the Million Dollar Highway and Dinosaur Ridge. Queen, natural beauty, sci-fi kicks, claws and warnings all wrapped up in a Rats tour guide wrapping.
With the red dust of Strangeness, Oklahoma behind us, we tacked west and made our way up. My face stung from turps as Texas plains gave way to upended earth and Colorado crept up on us to cover our tracks.
The aim is Colorado with ambitions for Denver. We take an $18 stop at an Air BnB, Oklahoma to step out of Texas just ‘cus. Our hire car runs and rattles down pigtracks, spitting out clouds of dust and kicking out a red mist right behind us. My mind plays out North by Northwest and X-Files movie drive scenes and I have to remember not to have too much fun.
Austin. Achingly hip and alarmingly cool. Coffee bean fetishists, thrift store hi-glam, nu-age craft ales in gleaming clean structures and retro set wide-eyed fresh faces.
Hot dog and burger bars tower their meats with all kinds of sides, only skyscrapers outside match their stature. Weed’s offered out by bar maids and waiters and I don’t feel young, pretty or thin.
Back home I had intent and purpose. I made shapes and sense of music and words and all time was divided, devoted. I made time to draw lines from without to within and direct them back out in new twists. People around me helped me build a home studio and they’d switch out the songs mine to ours. Back home I made time to make something with all of my tools at my tips.
Here we move place to place with a speed and a greed that breeds barely no time to take in. We breathe in the air but don’t pick up the scents, time to reflect slim to none.
We’re still star-fishing our way in and out, back and forth spikes out of Panama City Beach, moving on interstate spines. This is last trip where we go out and back before leaving our friend’s nest for good. Three New Orleans nights and return then it’s not so straight lines to nowhere.
New Orleans is glistening voodoo jewel jubilation with rhythm and heat in the pit of its soul. New Orleans sleeps rough in the dirt of it’s past, it’s disasters and racial divides. It’s truth is a sweet spot between.
Rats on the Run 