As a general rule, I hate hippies. They’re dirty, they have bad taste in music and they are often vegetarians. A hippie can talk for hours about the cosmic earth mother and the collective need for universal love without saying a single thing of substance. And god forbid you get a hippie talking about their hemp pants or their hand-blown glass bong. Not even a 2nd grader stuck inside on a rain day is that excited about arts and crafts.
To be fair, I should differentiate between the different kinds of hippies. The ones that I’m talking about - the ones I can’t stand - are the least genuine. They are the kind that come from upper class families in Southern California, who go to the University of Oregon where they subsequently stop bathing and develop an unhealthy affinity for jam bands. They are the kind of hippie that hangs out on Haight Street, asking me for spare change to buy some granola for their dog. They are the kind of hippie that preaches peace and love and then tries to cut me in line at the farmer’s market.
Any hippie falling into or near the above mentioned categories is fully deserving of all my derision. This is because they are all pathetic fakers; uncreative people who have borrowed an entire cultural movement wholesale because they are too lazy to start their own. And they picked the easiest one. To me this just says that you are not only lazy, but that you love armpit hair and the dirty crotch smell of patchouli.
That said, it’s hard for me to really hate on the original hippies. After all, they were rebelling against the square attitudes of the 50s, and they are largely responsible for a lot of the relaxed moral standards we enjoy today. And I can’t lie - the first time I took mushrooms and went to a Grateful Dead show it was pretty cool. Of course, I was 16 and just being out of the house and high on anything was pretty cool to me at the time. But still. I can at least see what the hippies from back in the day were getting out of it.
Fast forward to right now and you’ll find a group of hippies that I actually respect. These are not the skunky gutter punks hanging out in the park and they are not the hacky sack playing douche bags you find at Dave Mathews concerts. These are modern day freaks, stoned on life and happy to let their freak flag fly. It might be more astute to say that these are people who couldn’t be any other way. They are simply wildly creative non-conformists who grow their hair long and like to howl at the moon.
These so-called hippies have loosely cohered around the freak folk movement, but most of them are more freaky than folk. Brightblack Morning Light, Devendra Banhart - these are acts that appeal not just to groovy hippie chicks and aging surfers. They cast a much wider net because what they are doing is genuinely creative and 100% sincere. They can’t be anything else but themselves. I mean, have you ever heard Devendra Banhart talk? That guy couldn’t hold an office job if his life depended on it.
Another group that should be added to this good hippie honor roll is Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. This rag tag posse of Los Angeles based troubadours has a care-free, yet highly musical vibe that rests somewhere between The Band and Arcade Fire. Their songs reel back and forth between camp fire sing-a-longs and full gospel revival. In between they get weird, they get funky and they get loose. It’s the kind of sound that makes me want to grow out my hair and jump on the free love express. It makes me want to share my wine and bang on a drum all day - which is probably exactly what Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros expect of their audience.
Well, I’m not going to stop showering or anything, but I can get down with that.
When I moved from New York City back to San Francisco, I was determined to try and make Bay Area public transportation work as well as the subway does in Manhattan. I had a car, but I left it parked out in front of my apartment. Instead of driving, I walked to the BART station and took the train to work. Both my apartment and the TC offices were really close to BART stations, so it was actually pretty easy.
Yes, I know that BART trains only come every 14 minutes or so and the fares are prohibitively expensive. And the routes and schedules are more geared toward suburban commuters than city kids trying to get from one end of town to the other. And they’re also crowded and unreliable and some times the seats smell like a hobo’s sleeping bag. Still, I wasn’t sitting in traffic every day and I could be self-righteous about helping the environment, which means the pros outweighed the cons.
I also got myself a bike so I would be able to ride to all the places BART doesn’t go (i.e. any neighborhood west of Market Street, most places in Oakland, and anywhere after midnight). Right off the bat my brother said, “So you’re one of those guys who takes his bike on BART now…” like he was describing a leper or a person who’s way too into Burning Man. But I don’t care. I like the bike. It’s faster than walking, so you can actually use it as a viable form of transportation. At the same time, on a bike you also move slow enough to take everything in: sunlight reflecting off the tall buildings, the beautiful girls in the crosswalks downtown, the weird things people watch on their in-dash DVD players - all rolling past you at just under 15 mph. It’s kind of like a surreal music video custom made just for you.
Of course, it’s up to you to provide the soundtrack. If you’re brave enough to put on some headphones and tune out all those drivers who are secretly trying to run you over, then I suggest you listen to Soulo’s third and newest album, Sun Valley. The whole album plays like one long, hazy dreamscape. Sweet melodies and vocal refrains drift in and out of the ether. Listening to it, you can’t help but picture a slow, graceful ride down the sunny side of the street. Whether or not you end up at a warm, gleaming ocean or the edge of a black abyss is a mystery. There’s enough tension buried in the static to keep you guessing.
Come to think of it, this could work on the train as well. When I’m crammed into a crowded commuter car at the end of a long day I often take refuge in my headphones. It’s nice to know that even when I am pressed up against a pile of sad and defeated looking office workers, I can still close my eyes, turn on some music and imagine that I’m somewhere else: on a beach, on the moon or even just on my bike.
Not to go and break the fourth wall or anything, but I would like to take a moment to talk about the business of writing a music blog. Most of the writers working in this field rely heavily on the PR people whose job it is to engage said writers - or bloggers, to use a term from 2007. The PR people send out press kits full of tour updates, album release info and mp3s. The blogger then sorts through all of these press releases (or has their intern do it), separating the wheat from the chaff. Then, if the writer deems the material worthy, he or she writes about it on their blog/website/facebook page.
We work a little differently here at Tough Customer, only because we focus on smaller, lesser known bands. Needless to say, we are not on the radar of Kanye’s publicist - which is to say that we have to do a lot of our own legwork to find the bands we cover. But our inbox is still inundated with material from managers and PR people trying to get their band heard. A lot of times the bands themselves write to us, hoping we’ll hype their new record or video. Which is cool. We like that. The more options we have to choose from, the better choices we can make.
This is the basic framework for the meritocracy that the world wide web is supposed to represent. If everybody and their dog records an album and posts it online, then naturally the best stuff will get the most attention. That’s the theory anyway, although in practice you’ll still read way more articles about Radiohead than say, The Significant Figures or Thunders. But whatever. It’s one big, happy party and everybody’s invited. All you have to do is play some cool jamz and keep it real.
These rules are pretty easy to follow, and yet so many people can’t help but break them. Mostly they screw up on the cool jamz part. Seriously, the crap to decent music ratio of the submissions we get is hovering around 50:1 right now. There are a lot of people out there trying to be rock stars who really should be accountants instead. We’ve actually talked about rebuilding this site to include a new section covering all the bad Russian metal bands, wimpy singer/songwriters, and über mediocre indie rock bands who have tried to convince us that their new album is the game changer we’ve all been waiting for. Everybody wants to live the dream, I guess.
Fewer in number, but more egregious in their crimes are those that fail to keep it real. These are the fakers that present their music under false pretenses or convince some poor high school student (aka “member of the street team”) to do it for them. This usually comes in the form of some highly polished promo material that makes it look like the band has toured with Cold Play or written the soundtrack for Transformers 2. Either that, or one of their “fans” writes us a heartfelt letter about their new favorite band that we just have to hear.
Enter Brooklyn’s Courtesy Tier. They’re a pretty cool rock duo that plays guitar rock in the vein of The Black Keys or The White Stripes. Their sound is a little more psychedelic than either of those bands, but they didn’t put much effort into their promo material, so I’m not going to waste too much energy on their review.
What I will tell you is that I received an email from one of their “fans” telling me about this new band that was burning up stages around New York. There were a few other exhortations to check out their music and third person declarations of fandom, including the bold proclamation “I really think they are…taking this two person thing to a whole new kind of level.” The email included a link to their websites and came from the email address of one Omer Leibovitz.
Of course, I clicked the link and checked out the music. It was pretty good, so I flipped over to the bio for more info. Guess who plays guitar and sings lead vocals in this awesome band? None other than Mr. Leibovitz. Come on now Omer. Did you think I wouldn’t look? Did you think I would be tricked into believing you already have legions of devoted fans? Did you think about this at all?
Really I don’t know why this bothers me so much. I guess it’s because the assumption here seems to be that I’m an idiot, and that approaching me with some half-baked con about one of your admirers is the best way to trick me into writing about your music. And what do you know - it worked. Here’s your name in print. With any luck, this will help you score some real life fans (with better grammar) who will send emails to other less discerning blogs and tell them of your prowess. If not, I suggest you get a new email address and some dark glasses before you head back out into the blogosphere.
One of the more nefarious details of the current US credit meltdown is what’s happening at the top of this big, steaming pile. While thousands of people at the bottom lose their jobs and life savings, and while the government contemplates a record bail-out package, a lot of the top executives who oversaw this disaster are quietly leaving the scene. And guess what? They’re doing so with their pockets filled to overflowing.
It turns out that most of these CEOs have a so-called golden parachute that provides them with exit packages worth millions of dollars - regardless of the terms of their exit. Sure, they might lose their job when their company is sold or goes belly up, but they shouldn’t have any problem landing on their feet. Why? Because after several years of clocking six and seven figure paychecks they get an extra couple of million as their parting gift.
Ha! Here’s your “punishment” for fucking up the US economy Mr. Filthy Rich Executive! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Look, we all know that life is unfair and some have more than most, but this is just plainly, blatantly, insultingly wrong. You know what happens to me when I am late on a single payment for my credit card? It goes on my permanent record, archived as a poisonous little weapon that can be used against me for at least seven years whenever some financial institution wants to deny me a loan, charge me a higher interest rate, or make it difficult for me to rent an apartment.
Right now I have a huge scar on my credit report because of an unpaid hospital bill. Four years ago I spent three and a half hours in an emergency room waiting for somebody to look at my broken hand. Finally I got sick of waiting and left. Unfortunately, I had given them my name and social security number when I checked in, which later allowed them to bill me $350 for my visit. Yes, that’s right. They charged me $350 to sit, untreated, for three and a half hours in the waiting room before leaving of my own volition.
Needless to say, trying to get this problem straightened has been a nightmare of paperwork and fruitless phone calls to creditors. I’m sure every one of you knows exactly what I’m talking about, because every one of you has spent some portion of your life on the phone or in a bank or online with your credit card company arguing about some rule in the fine print that allows them to pointlessly fuck with your world. It’s par for the course these days. Everybody who works or has some small amount of money understands the delicate and tenuous nature of their credit rating and how easily it can be used to make life difficult.
So here’s what I propose: First, the above mentioned executives should not receive any sort of exit package. I know their contracts may guarantee it and all that, but so what? You broke the American economy. Entire generations are going bankrupt because of your greed. Let’s see you get a team of expensive lawyers to fight this one when you’re paying for it out of your own unemployed pockets.
Secondly, and more importantly, every single top executive who profited from and/or had a hand in the current economic crisis should have his bank account drained and his personal credit score lowered to 150. After that, it won’t matter how much cash they have stuffed in their respective mattresses. Want to start a new business? Too bad, your small business loan has been denied. Want to apply for a credit card? Sorry, we can only offer you a $250 limit with a 34.99% APR. Want to rent a house, or install cable, get a cellphone plan, buy a car or turn on your utilities? Unfortunately your credit score tells us that you are an irresponsible and untrustworthy person.
I think the country would be a very different place if the people who created this mess had to walk a mile in the shoes of the people who trudge through it every day. I think that if huge corporations and monolithic financial institutions remove the piles of money that stand between them and the people they’re profiting from, they’ll see how rotted out the system is. I think it was their own greed that brought on the fall in this case, but it was bound to happen one way or another. As the great financial analyst/record producer Alan Parsons once said, what goes up must come down.
One of the most rock n roll moments of my life - and there have been many - was when one of my elderly neighbors went ballistic during a band practice in my parents’ garage. This was back in the high school days, when we had more volume than talent. We would practice every weekend in the garage while my folks were out running errands or just generally keeping their distance. They did so with good reason; I’m told that you could hear our smokin’ hot version of “White Light/White Heat” from several blocks away.
Most of the time we tried to keep the garage door closed to limit the noise. But it would get pretty hot in the summer months, and after an hour or so we would roll up the door a few feet to let some air in. It was on one such occasion that we were confronted by the ire of one particularly crotchety old man. He must have come from a few blocks away, because he was in his car. He came screeching into the driveway and part of the way into the garage, the hood of his car just barely fitting under the half open door. He jumped out of his car and launched into one of the most hilarious tirades I or any of my teenage band mates had ever heard.
Fortunately, we were recording our performance on a cheap boom box, and we captured the whole exchange on tape. It’s been a few years since I’ve heard that recording, but I will paraphrase for the sake of this article.
Loud sounds of distorted guitars and amateurish drumming. All of a sudden the singer stops mid-song and says, “Holy shit!” A car door slams and an elderly voice can be heard in the distance.
BAND: “What are you doing in my garage? I’m pretty sure this is trespassing…”
OLD MAN: “You guys have been making this goddamn racket for months! It’s horrible! You have to stop this noise right now!”
BAND: “Um, what?”
OLD MAN: “I can hear you from three blocks away! Shut it off! It’s too loud!”
BAND: “Maybe you’re just, uh, too old…?”
OLD MAN: “Show some respect! Other people live in this neighborhood. Nobody wants to hear this racket!”
BAND: “Fuck you!”
OLD MAN: “What!? I’m calling the police! They’ll shut you down forever!
BAND MEMBER #1: “Good. When they get here we’ll tell them about how you drove your car into our garage door.”
BAND MEMBER #2: “Old people can’t drive.”
BAND MEMBER #3: “What if we play a cover of ‘Moon River?’ Would you like that?”
BAND MEMBER #4: “Will you buy us some beer?”
BAND MEMBER #2: “He’s old.”
It was around that point we broke down laughing and the old guy drove off frustrated and even more upset than when he arrived. We immediately listened to the exchange on playback and decided it would be the perfect interlude for our first album. We congratulated ourselves on our collective ability to stick it to the Man. In our minds we were the coolest 15 year olds on the block.
Eventually we all found our way to different bands with legitimate practice studios. We learned to play our instruments and eventually our sharp edges softened a little bit. Some might argue that our music got better, but we definitely lost some of the raw energy that we had back in the garage days.
In this context, the label “garage rock” starts to make a lot of sense for that genre of music. Bands that play under this banner may have more skill than we did back in the salad days, but they still embody the energy and insolence that we were so proud of. Take the band Thunders from Indianapolis. Their new EP “The Sympathetic Oscillations” sounds like the reverb was pounded into it with a baseball bat. The songs bristle with the spirit of a teenager high on whippets. When singer Ryan Reidy yelps, “There’s a party in my brain and it won’t end” you get the sense that this band has turned (the) garage into a platform for taunting all the party-poopers and angry seniors in their neighborhood.
You can put this theory to the test by setting up some speakers in your garage. Open the door, throw on Thunders and turn the volume up to 10. If anybody comes complaining about the volume, remember the classic rock axiom: If it’s too loud, you’re too old.
The other day I gave my brother a band-aid for a cut on his hand. Actually, I should say Band-Aid, with a capital “B” and a capital “A” because it was a name brand bandage. Not only was it an actual Band-Aid, but it was one of the fancy ones. They’re called “tough strips” and they stay stuck to your body until you peel them off with a putty knife. It doesn’t matter if you’re sweating, showering, or taking a long walk though a hurricane. These things do not come off.
At the end of the day as we we’re driving home, my brother was astonished to find that his Band-Aid was still firmly attached to his hand. I conjectured that bandages were one of the things that you just can’t buy generic. You’ve got to buy Band-Aids if you want them to stay on long enough for the wound they are covering to heal. This quickly got us listing other things that a smart shopper shouldn’t skimp on when trying to decide whether or not to purchase a name brand item. Not the most stimulating conversation, I know, but a fun game to play when you’re driving across the Bay Bridge and there’s nothing good on the radio.
Here’s our list: Band-Aids, packing tape, soda, home electronics, plastic wrap, ballpoint pens, candy, toothpaste, and bongos.
This has quickly developed into a fun activity that can be used to kill time waiting in airports or turned into a drinking game when beer pong gets old. Basically you just make a list that has one broadly defined, yet very specific rule. For example, things that are better in large groups: games of capture the flag, birthday parties, sex, line dancing, drum circles, the wave, opposition to oppressive government forces, and afro-funk infused retro soul rock bands.
New York’s The Phenomenal Handclap Band has clearly played this game before. For their latest string of shows, they have assembled no less than 24 band members to grace the stage, including Morgan Phalen of Diamond Nights, Quinn Luke (aka Bing Ji Ling), plus members of Antibalas and the Dap Kings. There are also two guys credited as “medicine man” and “witch doctor.” The end result is a sound that is equal parts Fela Kuti, Rare Earth, and Polyphonic Spree.
There aren’t too many other groups out there with this particular sound. In fact, I can’t really think of any, but if you can then go ahead and make a list.
I’m a mixtape junkie. I’ve got a problem, I acknowledge it, but I don’t see myself quitting any time soon. Talk to me about music for a minute or more, and before you know it I’ll be forcing a CD-R on you, chock full of esoteric songs that perfectly match your taste in music - or at least what I imagine your tastes to be. I’ll be all, “You know how we were talking the other day about the Black Keys? You said you kind of liked that one song with the guitars. Well, I made a mix for you. It’s all songs that feature heavily distorted blues guitar riffs played with a slightly tongue-in-cheek garage rock sensibility. Let me know what you think.”
It’s hard to say whether this behavior is more dorky or annoying. Probably both. Like I said, I have a problem.
One of the things I really like to do is make mixtapes for hyper specific occasions. Anybody can make a compilation of 80s dance hits. In fact, that theme is so far-reaching that they sell those compilations on late night TV. I like to aim a little closer to the bull’s eye. Recent projects for me have included such mixes as Drinking All Night In A Cheap Motel Room Outside Of Reno, Tropical Disease: Songs For The Central American Jungle and The Eagle Has Landed - which refers to an inside joke between my friends and I that I won’t elaborate on, for fear of legal repercussions.
One of the mixtape themes I struggle with though is BBQ music. There are just so many different ways you can go with that. I live in Oakland, and if we’re grilling in the park it’s pretty much got to be West Coast hip hop. I’m not trying to get shot for encouraging the ballers down at Mosswood Courts to listen to something other than Mac Dre. Here in San Francisco, most bar-b-quers (SP?) like to keep it old school - either soul, punk or rap, depending on whose backyard you’re in. Back in New York, rooftop BBQ decorum dictates that you try to please everybody, so you don’t really make a mix as much as you just load up your iPod and hit ’shuffle.’ Either that or you get an indie rock band from Brooklyn to drag their shit up the stairs and play a set over by the water tower.
In general BBQ music is a pretty amorphous category. You can go with something gritty and urban, or you can just as easily go with something twangy and rustic. Classic rock works too, particularly after every one’s been there long enough to drink a few beers. It’s with this in mind that I plan to add Pearlene to my next BBQ playlist. They started out back in Kentucky as an acoustic Delta Blues band, but quickly added sweat and electricity to their sound. What emerges on their latest album For Western Violence and Brief Sensuality is a smoky mix of stoner rock and hipster Americana. Granted, this kind of music would sound good in a lot places, but I’m willing to bet it satisfies my BBQ (mixtape) craving in particular.
One of the things that sucks about living in New York City is grocery shopping. Not only is it expensive, but chances are you don’t have a car, so whatever you can afford to buy has to be lugged in a cab, on the subway or up the street to your apartment. That right there is reason enough to get take-out every night of the week.
Another reason is that shopping for groceries is generally not fun in New York City. The aisles are too small, everybody is on a cell phone, absent-mindedly groping the produce, and the shopping music is loud and annoying. In some stores they just play commercials at rock concert volume, hoping to entice you to buy some processed food treat that you might otherwise have passed up.
The one exception to this rule is St. Mark’s Market in the East Village. That place embodies everything cool you’ve ever heard about New York. How is it cool, you ask? Let me count the ways. First, it’s open 24 hours. If you think that may seem like a given for any store in Manhattan, try going to the Met after 9pm. Second, even though it’s pretty small, you can get almost anything there. They have a fresh sushi bar, a sandwich counter, and all kinds of weird candy and drinks imported from Asia.
But the best thing about this market is the music. According to the guy at check-out, they all take turns bumping their iPods over the house system. On past visits I’ve heard everything from Talking Heads and Public Enemy to John Coltrane and Tuvan throat singers. It is bad ass. People actually take their headphones off when they come into the store and sometimes you’ll catch hot girls singing to themselves over in the canned goods aisle.
One of the things I like hearing best in the store is a long instrumental jam. I’ll walk in sometimes in the middle of the night during some epic Can track, and I’ll spend the next 15 minutes just looking at the labels of esoteric snack foods while I nod my head. Before I know it, I’m playing a drum solo on the cans of dried wasabi peas.
It is because of this that I’m giving St. Mark’s Market a shout out. I don’t know if anybody from the store ever checks out this site, but if they do, I’ve got a recommendation for them. Listen up employees: you should play some music from the Philadelphia band Public Record. They play a unique blend of music that, in their words, ranges “from early-disco to shoegaze; Afro-beat to Scottish Postcard pop; and northern soul to Factory Records funk.” Their compelling instrumental jams bounce from trance-like summertime rhythms to sweaty, third world funk with an easy grace.
It’s the perfect soundtrack for ordering a hot reuben or squeezing some melons with that girl you just met in aisle two.
Can we talk for a minute about bad band names? Choosing a band name is a delicate art. Besides writing a decent song and keeping the guitar player’s girlfriend from breaking up the group, choosing a cool name is the hardest thing a band has to do.
Some go with a name that’s bland or innocuous in a pre-emptive attempt to deflect criticism (see: The Shins, The Bees, The Cars, et al.). Others just try to put together a couple cool sounding words and hope that the resulting name will be twice as cool. This hardly ever works out (just ask Vertical Horizon). Still others go for something intentionally goofy, which is actually a pretty clever tactic. For example, what can a critic say about The Butthole Surfers? They call themselves The Butthole Surfers for chrissakes.
We’re guessing that Australia’s Tame Impala adheres to this latter school of thought. Originally traveling under the moniker The Dee Dee Dums, they recently changed their name to the even goofier, more obtuse Zulu antelope signifier. Given the band’s affinity for all things psychedelic, we can only guess that this came from some drug inspired walkabout through the Outback. They must have bonded with some huge amplifiers too, because in addition to the swirling psyche rhythms, Tame Impala lays down a good dose of classic heavy metal thunder. You can tell these kids also got their hands on a Cream record at some point in their adventures. In fact, Tame Impala are a bit like what that 60s super group might have sounded like if they had lesser musical chops but stayed together long enough to get more experience with LSD.
Wait, we forgot a category of band names: punk band names. These are an art unto themselves. Somebody could devote an entire list or website to punk bands names. That would be awesome. Hey look! Somebody did - and it’s not only awesome, but disgusting too.
I once heard a crazy statistic about the difficulty of parking in San Francisco. It was something along the lines of there being five cars for every public parking space. In other words, parking is a huge bitch. Unless you have your own garage or can afford to pay $50 a day for parking, you’d better get your ass a Geo Metro or a Vespa or something else you can squeeze into that semi-legitimate half space between the bus stop and the loading zone.
A few years ago an old lady t-boned me at a stop sign and totaled my truck. I was forced to look for a new car and everybody kept reminding me about the parking situation, telling me I should get something practical. But flaunting conventional wisdom was kind of my m.o. back in those days, so I did the opposite: I bought a 1981 Cadillac Coupe De Ville with chrome rims, tinted windows, and a sub-woofer the size of a love seat. It was as long as three Geo Metros combined and got about 11 miles per gallon. But it was awesome. When I asked the guy who was selling it if it helped him get girls, he said, “Are you kidding? I just turn up the stereo and drive by the high school.”
One of my favorite things to do was to throw on a punk rock CD, put the system on blast, and drive over to Oakland for some BBQ. The car was so pimped out that people expected it to be driven by a guy wearing a fedora and a shark skin suit. When they saw a skinny white boy with a mohawk get out of the ride, they always stared. It was like they couldn’t connect the image in their head with what they were seeing. I was even profiled by the cops; I was pulled over three different times, but when I rolled down the window and they saw that I wasn’t a pimp, a thug or even a famous rapper, they’d just shake their heads and say “never mind.”
The car turned out to be a lemon and I eventually traded it for $600 cash and a digital 8-track recorder. But if I still had the Caddy, the band that I would have stuck in my stereo this week would be Tweak Bird. In fact, they might be the band that perfectly sums up the aesthetic I was going for: loud and aggressive, but with enough funk to make it nasty, and just weird enough to keep you guessing. Their new 7″ doesn’t come out until early next year, so you have enough time to go and get a record player installed in your car. That way you can listen to Tweak Bird while you drive around endlessly, looking to blow some minds - or just trying to find a parking spot.
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