Tying down the sound that Tobacco uses on this album can be a bit of a challenge. There are so many analog, digital and motocicletic manipulations of good, church-going sounds. I think the cover really is a good place to start. It’s fair to liken it unto a journey untertaken by big bowl of sweet meat beats while being chewed and gnashed by a muscley Pat. Manlady ate all sorts of Legos and carpet earlier in the day so shit gets hairy once everything arrives in Gullet Town.

But I think the best way to describe this is by remembering the first time you tripped some serious balls on shrooms. You remember, you were camping on the bank of the Great Miami River just outside of Harrison, OH. It was early summer and you could hear Edgewater Dragstrip from just outside of the valley. Those blown Mustangs and funny cars sounded like prehistoric beasts fighting for a giant rack of Fred Flintstone ribs.

It also happened to be the weekend of Gravelrama on the opposite side of the river in Cleves, OH. Gravelrama celebrates the tradition of Rednecks getting loaded, playing loud hillbilly music and ramping their 4-wheelers up and around a gravel track in what they call a “race”.

Between the dragstrip and the good ol’ boys’ convention it sounded like World War 3 had broken out over the baby blue airspace blanketing the protected Ohio watershed.

So it wasn’t surprising that soon after you downed your 1/8th ounce of funky cowpoop mushies the sounds of the ‘Rama took you by the cerebelum. Not in the way that a Geico commercial will hold your attention for 30 seconds and then immediately leave you playing the husk of a man role on Law & Order. No, because the thwomp el shroomhammer laid on you that early summer evening knew no time. You were locked in the midst of the nothing, staring into a  tiny cesspool on the Great Miami, observing the mosquito breeding ground and just knowing what they were up to. You just knew.

Suddenly, you heard the ominous beat of a drum, the kind primitive people construct from a hollowed tree stump and stretched hide of animal skin. It became louder and louder, emanating from around the bend…somewhere off toward I-74. And then it appeared, a viking ship, a real life viking ship curling around the bend in all its awesome splendor. You could see the men rowing their long oars in tempo with the terrible pounding of the deerflesh drum. Onward to pillage the awesome treasure of your recently discovered bloodsucker fucking ground. “You can’t have it!” you yelled. “Their diseases are mine!” And you stood ready for a fight, even if it meant tearing your brown Levi’s Action Slacks. But as soon as they rounded that tiny little bend in the supposed Great they were gone.

And it became quite apparent that everything you knew, even the 15-minute-old memory of that Wendy’s JBC, didn’t seem real anymore. You were transported to a scene that you’d only seen on television in the no man’s land of 80′s summertime Saturday programming. Crazy trees that whispered directions to an abandoned trailer at the fork in the trail you dared not trespass. Purple mists that sprang from the gravel, the dirt, thin air and your suspiciously dry palms. Your fellow campers grew three sets of eyes, two mouths, and the ability to spit fire representing every spectrum known, and unknown, to scientific man.

Eventually, you left your party and sat in the forest to think of time and all eternity. Roots and thickets of all races laughed, played and grew from every part of your being. You became a fully functioning, almost necessary part of the forest. If you left, your leafy green friends would lose all knowledge of man, and therefore, the upper hand. The forest’s understanding of empty fiberglass boat hulls, giant tractor trailer hubs, aluminum dishwashers, Appalachian sized mountains of beer cans would all be lost. The forest would again become retarded…no longer a participant in our ugly pissing game.

And then, out of nowhere, your slinky friend showed up. He was obviously lost in some sort of Very Old Barton trance. He saw neither here nor there and, therefore, did not see the Buckeye tree planting its vulgar root at the base of your skull.

So, standing before you and oblivious to your presence, or that of God, he removed his pants und underskins and exposed his soft pleasure to find divine relief from his bourbon laden insides . But, instead of a penis…long, short, crooked, tanned, stove-burned…there was a spinning paisley vortex in its place. Just a terrible choke of tie patterns laughing at the both of you; learning how to breathe and downloading the latest version of Powerpoint to your hard drives.

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