a surreal hour of normalcy

good morning ~

(click the link / sun streaming through the trees to listen)

My Big Breaka surreal hour of normalcy

today’s track is an experiment I thought of while swinging in a hammock at the rave - two boomboxes playing asynchronous recordings of the same piano improvisation, played back and accompanied by another playing of the piano

fun show announcement - I’ll be opening for Japanese folk legend Sachiko Kanenobu at Tubby’s in a couple of weeks - tickets here and if you don’t know this album, your life is about to get better :)

also - at work we are crescendoing towards Basilica SoundScape next weekend and it would be cool if you bought an advance ticket or two (and don’t hesitate to ask for a discount)

The days are getting shorter I say out loud to no one chasing sunset, barreling down route 209. Then I spill a lukewarm drop of awful grocery store coffee directly onto my crotch. If I drive quick maybe I can get my tent setup before it gets too dark.

For five years now I have oriented my life around a Thursday - Sunday rave at a summer camp in Monticello, NY. They bring in these enormous, punishing sound systems and eight hundred thousand dollars of lighting gear and fog machines, turning an indoor basketball court and a grove of pines into laughably sick places to listen to DJs and be fucked up. Plus there's a pool party and a basketball tournament - wholesome but hedonistic, just a little danger.

At first it felt as close to a religious experience as I've ever had - as my feet shuffled back and forth I felt true, worshipful, druggy bliss. I have cried real tears of joy on the rave's various dance floors. I was there before the DJ when the dance floor collapsed, empty bottles of mate rolling toward the maw. It's fun to run into people, it's fun to exert yourself, it's fun to go camping with your friends and share your little fanny pack treats.

But my party boy mania has ebbed considerably and the hem of the garment feels further away than ever. Last year, having contracted a hefty case of COVID at a Godspeed You! Black Emperor concert that already felt like it was trying to kill me, we had to skip the party. And you know what? Staying home felt great. And then this year there's Clara the dog, an extraordinarily sensitive beast we're taking care of for a minute. Gracelee had no choice but to stay home, plus Max was out on a shoot.

I will admit that I hawed a bit at the prospect of rolling solo - maybe getting a refund and relaxing wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But I couldn't accept missing out two years in a row - part of me knows that if I sat this one out, I might give up raving forever. And I'm not ready to live that life. So I replaced the batteries in my headlamp.

By the time I get to Camp Kennybrook the much more convenient nearby parking lot is full and I immediately run into a couple of buddies who need a ride to the far away lot number 2. They hop in my CRV and I am immediately folded into their crew for the weekend, such is the way of the party. We wait an extraordinarily long time for a school bus to come and bring us back to the party, but it's fun to wait and chat and when we finally get to our little rave village in a welcoming gesture of benevolence Sarah immediately starts helping me throw up my tent. I rush to get into the spirit and I'm just barely able to hear the end of Pascale Project's set at the Grove stage. A couple of hours later I happen to catch James K. singing live, standing tall atop the DJ booth, backlit like a vanquishing angel. It is insanely, arrestingly beautiful. Avalon Emerson plays a real crowd-pleaser of a set with an incredible encore: the disco mix version of "Run Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross. I stay until the overhead lights come on, pleased deep with exertion and camaraderie.

On Friday I am once again the first person in the pool. I enjoy a solo 20 minutes or so of basking in the perfectly warm sun, paddling around in my little shorts. I catch some of the basketball tournament, I walk around, I chat, I take a nap - it's a super enjoyable day and I'm glad not to be looking at emails. I go to check out the new third stage which appears to be more of a chill out zone and am greeted with a semi-demonic, chopped and screwed version of "Go Bang," a tiny bit of audio terrorism for me specifically. I run into rave mayor Dan who blesses me with a couple of caps and off I go. The x3butterfly set was excellent with textural, dubsteppy low end that wiggled the individual hairs in my eyebrows. At the late night food option the person running it recognizes me from two years ago and asks me if I still live in Troy, a very trippy moment - apparently they came to one of the last ever shows in Tortoise Town. Beyond that my memory is hazy but I uncharacteristically call it a night well before sunrise - after getting super cold dancing outside I curl up in my sleeping bag trying to get warm. Before I know it the sudden 7:30am silence wakes me up, reverse alarm clock.

Saturday morning and I'm paying six dollars and forty four cents for a hot drip coffee, worth every penny. The pool party is always a highlight - the music tends to be goofier and everyone tries just hard enough to be the hottest person alive, many succeeding. Incred outfits. At around 4pm or so I'm sunburned and I consider packing my stuff up and leaving early, but again I find that I can't live with the version of myself that skips the party. Instead I sneak out for a drive through town, a surreal hour of normalcy.

Saturday night starts with, I hate to report, a truly cringe set of music and I almost regret my decision to stay. It picks up from there, though, and I snag an unbelievable beanbag spot for the Laurel Halo ambient set, the doze of a lifetime. After a truly inspired CCL outing I fall asleep for a few hours, rousing myself early enough to really savor DJ Fart in the Club's culminating set. Yes - I can confirm the rumors that there was a person pumping breast milk on the forest dance floor. I go for one final dip in the pool - again I am completely alone in swimming - and suddenly realize that I wish I was home already. Overhead, a V of geese honks by, headed south. I roll up my shit and go north. 

But what about you? How does staying home feel? When was the last time you stayed up until sunrise? Is it worth it?