Rising

My introduction to neurosis came at Houston’s now defunct club, Emo’s. I had heard about the band, and was aware of the involvement Houston’s own Scott Ayers had with some of the recordings for the Neurosis offshoot, Tribes of Neurot. I had heard about their live intensity but it’s ultimately one of those things you simply have to see for yourself. Live, Neurosis performs as if possessed, with every member seemingly lost in the machinations of the music. The only band I ever saw that was more intense than Neurosis had to be Today is the Day. That band’s front man, Steve Austin, easily gave the most intense performance I’ve ever seen from any musician. The guy was so into his stuff that he was spitting visibly with each line; and each line was also delivered in the most guttural and soul searing howl I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t even sure if I liked the music per se. I felt that it wasn’t even important that anyone actually liked the music. The point was to bear witness to the exorcism of the internal ugliness. The way they delivered it was something I could appreciate. It’s not a novel concept, it was simply executed so well I have to give them their due even today. 

The Neurosis show was one of those revelatory nights that ends up shaping your musical future more than you might have ever imagined at the time. 

For some reason it ended up being many years before I reconnected with Neurosis. it was just one of those things. I loved what I heard from them but I never made the leap. 

Eventually I joined a website sometime in the late 90s that was a sort of MP3 laden storage facility for independent bands of all stripes. All the bands that participated in the project added at least one MP3 to the site. These songs were always free for members to download and use as they wished. I learned about a ton of bands through that site. 

I downloaded a trio of Neurosis songs off of there as well: To Crawl Under One’s Skin, and Souls at Zero, from the album Souls at Zero, and A Sun That Never Sets, from the album A Sun That Never Sets. 

A lot of the stuff that I found on that site I enjoyed a great deal, but those three songs had a pretty profound effect on me. Every once and a while I hear some song or some album that has the effect of making me feel as though it has filled a sort of musical gap in my mind. It’s a “Where have you been all my life?” sort of scenario, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with this sensation, let me just say that it is an incredibly pleasurably feeling. Little did I know that those three songs were both off of what is widely considered to be Neurosis’ two best albums, all I knew was that these songs were like musical crack to me and the point at which I was in my life. Many years later and I pretty much feel that way for almost their entire catalog. 

If you know anything about me, then you must know at least a little about the changes I have gone through in the last couple of years. I am a father of two, recently divorced, and I am currently living with the love of my life, also a parent and also recently divorced. These weren’t random unrelated acts, either. The whole thing was undertaken together in a whirlwind clusterfuck of guilt, intensity and magic. 

Neurosis became my soundtrack. 

Assign whatever epithet you need to my name in order to get yourself through the day. Assuage your own fears in life and implant your sense of blame directly on my shoulders. I’ve heard it all, felt it all and lived it all - over and over and over. 

I’ve lost my place at the bar, and I’ve lost my power of sight. In the process I’ve learned to steer in a monsoon so familiar I am now with every last contour of the road. 

Something happened back there, back in the haze of the fading past. Something motivated me to plug in a guitar, to use my hands to create images, to use these hands to put words down, and in the end to let these acts speak on my behalf. On balance they have served me well. And I need serving. I need to know that there are minions, underlings, servants of the burning word spread throughout the landscape. I need to know that there is nothing that lives in the wake of these searing signs of life. 

I need to open that care package and be slapped in the face with you, with your scent, with your love. I need to know that I am not just spinning my wheel in total darkness just to create a shawl to cover the shoulders of all my pain.

I need to stand on the edge of something that is so white hot and explosive that to merely imagine it will cause me agonizing pain. 

I need to withstand the shockwave with my feet in the ground, unwavering, my hair singed away, my skin baked to my bones, my clothes erased. 

I need to swim in a pool of toxic murk from which nothing could ever hope to survive.

To sink to the bottom of an ocean where the light never comes, where the cold is a hammer and the tide is a thing of undeniable beauty. 

Souls at Zero. Yeah, I get that. Souls at Zero.

And this too ... 

Our pain cannot forgive the silent machine of the fatal flaw in man ... that brings us to the end.

Yeah, I get that too.

Come to me.