2013: Russian Tsarlag - Gagged In Boonesville

I began listening to Gagged In Boonesville by Russian Tsarlag when I was in a real rut. It was during a period while I was buying reefer around the block from where I worked. At the time, I worked in the hood of Westbury, NY and bought it from a co-worker’s cousin, who was hooked on codeine, bad. But he really never looked at me, nor did I look at him or his friends. However, this co-worker and I would smoke mad blunts for hours after work just chilling because I wasn’t in a good place with my girlfriend at the time, and I didn’t want to be home yet. It was a sex thing. So as long as I kept eye contact with the people I knew, we were all square. Backup to: this co-worker called me weeks before on speaker with another co-worker (who later became my manager), called her a “bossy-boss” in front of my bother at a party, and probably thought I was fucking this co-worker whose cousin I bought weed from around the corner from our work. I was not, but we did have unaccounted-for fun times baking up clouds in our cars.

At any rate, this co-worker was always so impressed by me, and I missed this feeling, enduring it from her, falling further into its gaze. Frozen. Stoned. She also had a great laugh, and I told her that a lot and told her a lot of my secrets because she never spoke to other people at work. Work was horrible and soulless. I was writing there for 12 hours a day. Money was mad, though, and so was the reefer. I’d watch various seasons of television shows in the corner of my PC one-by-three inches above the [Start] menu from start to finish. Sometimes just straight up watching porn after hours. My co-worker was also the only person there, grinding away words for the dollar — double time — because it was pay-per piece, which meant triple or quadruple pay-per hour, realistically. Nobody was watching.

This co-worker thought cameras were following her, btw. Cameras owned by the person who owned our company. Who owned our paychecks. Who could buy our lives. Who were buying our lives but not even watching us. They weren’t even watching us (!!!!) with all the cameras set up in our office turned ON. The constant reminder that this security is for them from us. If someone came in shooting up the office because of our product, they’d have evidence for insurance claims. Nobody watching to save our lives. The corporate office; our owner’s office; somewhere a computer mainframe of 12 computer monitors framed a desk. I’d made a zine at the Westbury, NY office on Saturday, using loads of ink and paper the company bought; nobody noticed our existence unless we weren’t working. And we were high on the job, forever. Huffing duster while driving, jerking off to porn on my phone via screen-on-screen w/ Google Maps while my care blares “One Way Out.” A semi-truck trying to turn into a gas station during rush hour.

Listening to Gagged In Boonesville by Russian Tsarlag, listening to the depravity in the vocals, the minimal instrumentation, the half-ass 100%… I was up until 2 AM on a Tuesday crying into a bottle of waterbong tequila pissing cough-medicine meth into the toilet, on my girlfriend’s rabbit turd, foot on the sink, cleaning a scab on my knee at 3 AM, and the warehouse cemetery-shift siren goes off. My girlfriend runs out the bedroom claiming a tornado is on the way (as one had recently torn through Queens), telling me to put pants on because we’re heading to the basement. But everything is fine. I calm her back to bed. Huff every last bit of fake air we have canned in the house. I go into the living room, turn off all the lights, take off all my clothes, and play Gagged In Boonesville. Eventually, “Become Solid” slithers through my three-piece shit-sound speakers, and I’m immediately erect and soaked in tears.

One of the many nights my co-worker and I were smoking — it was around 9 PM after work — and we were blowing down the rest of this thick blunt; our third blunt: she was laughing at something I said, which (always) took me off guard. She was paranoid about people hearing us in a car together, parked, because she had an echoing laughter [which I still can hear and adore], but she was also nervous being seen sitting next to a white guy in a car parked within a predominantly black neighborhood. Nobody was watching. We weren’t watching anyone. Until this man walks out his Corolla across the road, opens the trunk, and took out a large bag that made a *thud* on the ground before dragging it in the middle of the street. He dumped out the bag, and cats from all corners of the neighborhood came out. Bushes, trees, garages, sheds, fences, from under cars, etc. And my co-worker was bugging, which was relatable, but also cute at the time — I think she lives in Washington DC now. I stopped going back to her cousin for reefer after I witnessed a large gang fight, around the time he and I both lost our front teeth, only he lost his from a bottle breaking over his face, all during my girlfriend’s birthday.

DeLorean

There’s a lot of good music out there, and it’s not all being released this year. With DeLorean, we aim to rediscover overlooked artists and genres, to listen to music historically and contextually, to underscore the fluidity of music. While we will cover reissues here, our focus will be on music that’s not being pushed by a PR firm.

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