If quantum physics is to be believed and there are a nigh-infinite number of parallel Earths existing alongside ours, then somewhere out there is a world where Local H is selling out amphitheaters and where “Gig Bag Road” is the name of their HBO travelogue series. And even though on Earth 41,872,933,111 the great grandson of Joseph Stalin is president of the United States and human-kind had to abandon the Internet after the outbreak of a deadly plague spread by cat photos, we can definitively say that this other earth has got it right.
On reflection, though, maybe WE have the better end of this deal. Because it’s hard to imagine that a mega-unit-shifting Local H could have even given us a song like “Gig Bag Road” in the first place. That parallel version of frontman Scott Lucas would be too far removed from the lost weekends and unpaid vacations spent traveling cross-country in a stinky touring van. That incarnation the of Chicago duo would surely have been too numbed by the prestige that comes with headlining the private 12th birthday celebration of Joseph Stalin V and the evenings spent satisfying their every whim with thousand-orificed pleasure drones grown by Monsanto to remember what it was like to have nothing to their name except the song in their heart and the all-consuming desire to have it heard.
Thankfully, our iteration of the band has found a way, 25 years on from its founding, to stay lean and hungry, and so we have this blues-damaged ode to the working musician, an advanced cut off the group’s forthcoming eighth album, Hey, Killer. Let’s all take a minute to savor that.
• Local H: http://www.localh.com
