I never like to get too excited about things. Fear of disappointment. The inevitable letdown, comedown, hangover, etc. You know the old parking lot philosophy: “Keep expectations low and the waves are always fun.” That’s a pretty good way to go about everything, right?  

Well, I found myself skipping down the street last Friday night to get a margarita at my favorite bar that just reopened like a giddy school boy on the first day of summer vacation. This place is a dream: one part Mexican restaurant, one part dive bar with booths, sports, billiards, a jammin’ jukebox and lunatics from all over the neighborhood blowing it off. All within walking distance of my house! It is my personal oasis at the end of every struggle I go through. Maybe that sounds dark or sad, but this bar gives me something at the end of the tunnel and when the salt from the margaritas spill and fall to the ground I’m the first one there to lick it up. Its reopening was the thing I was most looking forward to all year. And last Friday, for the first time since all hope was lost, I went. I was far too pumped for this to lead to anything but disappointment. But, I'll be damned if it didn’t live up to every melted cheese, lime wedge, chips and salsa fantasy I’d built up about it. 

All that enthusiasm I left with that night has been stored in formaldehyde and saved and should carry right over into this second issue of Inherent Bummer’s “Fresh Hell.” Flowers are blooming. Swells are combining. Sun is shining. As much as I tried to twist this hopeful intro into something else, gripe about surf contests, or complain about the crumbling society around us, my optimism and that margarita the other night still got me buzzing around like a drunken honey bee. Take your clothes off, go outside, get a sunburn, turn it up and feel good. To hell with the comedown. —Travis Ferré  

 But at home. It’s toast time. 

By Paul Brewer

For the first time in a year, I went to a bar. Bellied up and ordered a stiff drink. Figured it was time…we have next to zero sick people on the island I live on, plus I’ve had this deep desire to support my local bar, see some faces, get out. And you know, it was really great. The lighting, the muffled conversations, the laughing…all great. 

Except one thing. 

When it came time to order a bit of food to mellow out the gin swimming solo in my stomach, my vibe was killed. Why is it all fried, battered? All brown? All frings and things? Why is the offering all so...gross? 

I don’t want to be a negative Nancy, but we can do better, can’t we?

I know not every restaurant or bar follows this great American bar food playbook, but for this article let’s take a tip from the Spanish. They manage to do it right with their bar scene, sometimes even free plates flying out of the kitchen, instead of $14 extreme nachos. How about something bright, something simple, something clean. How about toast. But not toast of the avocado persuasion. Toast of the tapas type. 

And as much as I like to support my local bar, I bet you could go have a drink there, then go make all these at home. 

First, make some toast. I just slice a baguette on the diagonal into 1” slices. Drizzle with some olive oil, and pop them on a sheet in the oven until, um, toasty. 

After you get these, try some other flavors. It doesn’t have to be Spanish flavor, try some Thai stuff, or some Mexican ingredients. You’re not going to mess up, it’s just toast after all. 

Surfers on the Proust Questionnaire  

NAME: Mauro Diaz | AGE: 24 | HOME: Puerto Rico

Mauro Diaz gets a lot of beers bought for him. He’s a young throwback to a time when professional surfers were down. Friendly, and ready for anything as long as it promised an adventure, guys who could bounce back and forth between chatting to the heaviest guy in the lineup and a cute girl on the beach, charming everyone involved. Ya just want to get the guy a beer when you talk to him.  

We met Mauro a while back when he literally hitched a ride from LAX to San Diego to meet up with us on our “So-California” road trip. Straight off the plane from Indo on his way home to Puerto Rico and he pulled an audible to join us. Instead of making someone come pick him up, he overheard some guys who’d been drinking on his flight say they were heading to San Diego when they landed. He jumped in with them and was dropped off and surfing Windansea by sunset with us. Legend (and I don’t say that lightly). 

Mauro is currently enrolled at the art school Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico in Old San Juan studying painting. “I graduated high school and then just went traveling right out of school,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to learn more about stuff and get better at techniques and all that.” And while most people spent the pandemic lockdown making bread, Mauro went back to school.

He recently starred in a short film with Balaram Stack called Aqui that Matt Tromberg of Metal Neck made. Tromberg’s soundtracks and underground core surf vids are some of the best things happening in surfing right now. Aqui is just another celebration of that. In a world gone Vlog mad, watching Bal and Mauro duke it out at perfect Deserts is what we all need. 

We caught up with Mauro and had him answer the Proust questionnaire. The legend continues.

Who is your hero of fiction?

Aragorn from Lord of the Rings [laughs]. 

Who are your heroes in real life?

Hector Lavoe (musically). 

What are your favorite names?

JunioL, Papo

What is it that you most dislike?

When someone is just chewing your ear. That’s what I was saying about boundaries too. You give them your hand and they rip your arm off [laughs].

What is your greatest regret?

Not moving out of my place a couple months ago.

How would you like to die?

I would like to die in my sleep...I used to be afraid of dying in my sleep actually. Either in my sleep or if I’m in the hospital drugged out like...who’s that guy? Doors of Perception? Aldous Huxley! The guy who was sick in the hospital and just told them to give him a bunch of acid…[laughs] nah, I’ll stick with sleep. 

What is your motto?

I think my motto used to be, “kill them with kindness.” But I think it’s changed to like, “Don’t forget to look up at the clouds or the sky.” Something more like that. 

Watch Mauro and Balaram Stack go off in Aqui, the new film from Metal Neck and Matt Tromberg.

The current state of the coolest lifestyle in the world.

By Joel van Wyk

“Do I wax the bottom of the board?”

“Sure, why not.”

“My wetsuit smells like pee?”

“That’s because someone peed in it just before you put it on Phyllis.”

And this sad little troop of kook monkeys are all mine. One pretty, neat little line, on their soft foam boards, on their soft pink tummies. How do they get even the simple maneuver of fake paddling so wrong? Totally uncoordinated. Just helplessly flailing arms and legs, kicking sand into each other's mouths and eyes. Some have probably never been in the sea and I’m not even sure if this one can swim. 

“That’s enough!” I growl. This one in whiteface caked with zinc, this one squinting up at me, blinded by the sun and my immense coolness. 

“Why are you all here today? Surfing is the worst thing you can try to do, and even if by some miracle you do it today, your life will never be the same, and not in a good way.”

Exhibit A: Me. A perfect example. More like a perfect specimen. 

They grimace and squirm on the hot sand.

“Most of you will be lucky to make it out of the ocean alive and in one piece today. If you doubt this fact, or doubt me, get up and go home now.”

A stick insect of a ‘man’ wearing a big floppy hat clambers to his feet and slinks away with his tail between his legs. More computer than man. A pasty office supply, like a piece of stationary. He trips over his leash and cries. The rest of the girl scouts hold their own. 

“Now, let’s practice popping up.”

‘Little’ Robbie from Ohio can barely get from his belly to his trotters. The laborious endeavour leaves him greasy and gasping. He has a Rubenesque figure, such as that of an early renaissance female nude. Voluptuous isn’t the right word, but it is the first word that comes to mind. Remember, this is a thirteen year old boy.

“I’ll definitely work on that coach.” He lies. 

“Which foot does the rope go on?” 

“It doesn’t matter for you Becky, just pick whichever one you like.”

Is this it? Surely we can’t go on. Heads, rails and fins collide and splinter. The humanity, the mayhem! Babies screaming in the distance. Surf madness! 

The Four Horsemen of the Surf Apocalypse: Ben Gravy, The Inertia, Catch Surf and Erik Logan. 

Would that this were the Golden Age of Piracy, I would see to it that Ben Gravy was keelhauled from bow to stern and that “Elo” was drawn, quartered and hanged from the yardarm for all to witness. 

That’s why these damp lemmings are here. Here to steal my dear surfing soul. And I’m complicit in all of it.

“What about jellyfish?”

“Jellyfish should be your primary concern and fear. More surfers are actually killed by lethal jellyfish than by sharks within their first year of surfing. The numbers are astounding!”

We’re belly deep now. I see them quaking with terror but complaining about the cold. Suddenly they abandon everything they have learnt. It all falls apart in real time. A pre-teen get’s swept into a rip and dragged outside. A middle aged businesswoman gets smashed by her board square in the puss. Rubenesque Robbie fails to push through the foot of white water. Someone’s little princess is whining that her hair is matted with putrid smelling red seaweed. This is surfing. 

For an hour we struggle against the endless assault of foam. I scurry between them, manhandling both craft and rider through and over swells, swiftly swinging them around before launching them shoreward. I ride the tail in order to try and delay the brutal and inevitable nose dive. 

“Great job, you’re getting so close. Just keep doing that.”

On to the next one. This strange rouze. They can’t wait to tell their friends in Missouri, “Heck yeah, I surfed. I’m a surfer.”

After a few minutes the excuses to quit begin to surface. “I think I’m getting a rash.” “There’s sand in my wetsuit.” “It’s cold and my eyes hurt.” I tell them to go sit on the beach but they know I will disown them if they do.

“Is this one coming a good one coach?” I ignore the question and drive Phyllis into the impact zone.

In case you were wondering, none of this is legal. The health department told us to shut down last summer due to Covid-19 but The Fat Man refused to heed. I don’t get hazard pay. 

The beach is no place to be employed and surfers generally make for pretty terrible employees in my experience. It’s all one big fuck show. Working in the sun and salt water means that I can eat an assortment of potent gummies throughout the work day and people think nothing of my bloodshot eyes. 

By the time class is over the whole thing is a bummer. This romantic beach boy mirage has faded. A blurred postcard: Aloha from hell. No Duke, No Dora.

I never want to see these landlocked, terrestrial hicks again, not from resentment, I’m just over them. But there is one more stupid question to ask and it comes from me.

“Did everyone have fun?”

The sunburnt glow, fatigued gratitude. “Oh yeah!” That was so awesome. I can't believe I surfed. I really surfed!

I feel worse.

Exhausted middle aged women lie comatose on the wet sand. Rashed and pickled children run to ask mom and semi-aloof stepdad if they saw their wave. The schoolteacher asks if I want to grab a beer some time to chat about the WSL. No sir, I do not.

The same barneys show up every day. Figuratively the same one’s if not literally. They sign their life into my hungover hands, ink running on the crumpled waivers from sea water. They show up with a brand new Tuflite under their arm and their uncle’s dive suit from the ‘80s.

“Someone yelled at me out their car window this morning and I think they called me a kook. 

What does that mean?”

“Consider yourself lucky.” I say.

The questions never end. Questions about beaches and tide and wind, boards and wetsuits, types of wax. Until I'm left with no choice but to scramble over the rocks at low tide, paddle deep beyond where they can reach me. But not for long.

Do you see what they see? Five (or so) snaps from this month.

*Every month we’re going to get a photographer to send us five photos from their last 30 days. This month we trip over to Australia to hang with the Modern Collective man himself: Kai Neville — who just so happened to be shooting the new Epokhe ad with Occy. Go behind the scenes and grab some Inso. Photos and captions by Kai Neville.

[And if you need to get the LAVAS wrapped around your skull, check em here. Be like Oc, speed demons only.

Need better style and more power? Skip the gym.

By Brad Gerlach.

I’ve got something radical to say: The next level of high performance surfing will not be reached because a surfer is working out harder or training in the gym. This surf jock’s entrance into surfing has a very definitive ceiling that I’d like to shatter. I’m here to propose an idea that I believe will allow a surfer to reach peak flow by leveraging the gravity-defying positions that exist in a wave while never having to step foot in a gym. I’ll even make the case that all the weight lifting and gym work is too blunt and will lead to square lines in your surfing. I’d like to cultivate an awareness of your body, knowing when to soften, how to be like water and how to use style to cultivate both speed and power. Trudge along with me.   

Let’s think about gymnastics vs. ballet for a second. Two beautiful disciplines with very distinct differences. Gymnastics is about athleticism. Gymnasts don’t move with the same grace and beauty as people who spend their lives doing ballet. Gymnasts are fun to watch of course (this is no dig), but ballet has a depth and flow that is rarely exhibited by the gymnast because of the precision in their training.

The best surfers in the history of our beloved surfing were the most sensitive to the way the board glided on a wave. Miki Dora was called “Da Cat” for a reason. Gerry Lopez was the epitome of ease as he unlocked the sublime on a wave and in the tube. Tom Curren continues to awe with his buttermilk flow. And John John is the new elastic cat. Just watch his YouTube channel with the recent “Slow it Down” footage and you tell me if he looks stiff. 

I have been guilty of falling for the gym route in the past, but when I was a kid none of my heroes worked out  (and yes, I know Rabbit was jogging in Freeride but that’s not weight lifting and it was to build up cardio for Hawaii). My favorites either skated or surfed (most did both), designed surfboards and came up with new ways of surfing critically by using the wave, their bodies and surfboard design to get there. Surfers like Larry Bertleman, Buttons, Mark Richards, Cheyne Horan and skaters like Greg Weaver, Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Stacey Peralta. 

I think all the athleticism in surfing started in the ‘80s with the second generation of pro surfers. And it makes sense: the contests weren’t mobile and had no waiting period so we were all subject to surfing shitty waves a lot. Tom Carroll, Pottz and even Tom Curren were training to get an edge in these conditions. If you go back and look at surfing from this time a lot of it is in sub-par conditions and a lot of it looks forced. Yes, surfboards were not the consistent blades they are now and hardly anyone was studying their surfing on film. But my study of that led me to the belief that athleticism is a barrier to riding in places on waves that nobody has. 

It’s time we acknowledge that. As aerials reach a new level and attract most of our attention, performance on waves seems to be enjoying a bit of a resurgence as well (although I don’t believe it ever went away in the core). Remember the talk of 2018 was how JJF tore the living daylights out of the Margaret River rights? Why was that? It was because it was arguably the best performance surfing many had ever seen: Speed, power, control, freedom, variety, unpredictability, attitude — it was all there. You could feel it through the TV.

Of course, there is a time and place for strengthening the body, balancing out weakness, etc. But only when the body is well balanced, organized and in tune — otherwise there can be serious damage to the body and a high probability of ruining one’s ability to truly produce and use power. This is not just an opinion, these are notes from the field. 

The real jump forward in your own surfing will come after you realize all this and develop the ability to, in the words of Bruce Lee, “be like water.” To be clear: You want to possess the ability to collapse or fold effortlessly and bring the entire body close to the surfboard at the snap of your fingers to keep control of the board no matter how upside down you may be.

For reference take a close look at Dane Reynolds’ famous turn at Haleiwa during the comp. The only way he could’ve pulled that off is by being close to the surfboard. You ever see Dane in a gym? What about Clay Marzo’s surfing? Have you seen how close he gets to his board on the those tube stalls? I could go on but here are some key questions to ask yourself:

Do you think you can recognize the surfers who go to the gym to rip harder and the ones who don’t? What part of ripping is mental vs physical? Can you see the difference in the surfers who stretch and are flexible? Shane Dorian told me in 1999 when we were filming September Sessions that he never stretches. Is he mentally loose? Which one are you? I am not advocating just surfing and sitting on your ass, but just what do the top level performers rewriting the performance paradigm actually do?

I am not saying that Wave Ki is the only way to learn this but all of this softness is in there and its origin is surfing and it is the ethos of what we teach and practice. Come check us out.

Check out Brad Gerlach’s Wave-Ki here and follow them on Instagram @waveki.

[Editor’s note: I’ve had the greatest time chatting and collaborating with Gerr the past few months learning about Wave-Ki and talking surfing. I encourage everyone to scope the site and check out his philosophy. There’s a lot in there we can all apply.—Travis]

Nothing Makes Sense Except Insanity

By Eleanor Sheehan

The more I read, the less I know, and as I gaze at the little paper airplanes of knowledge fluttering down from the rooftop of my mind, I feel not concern, neither regret, but satisfaction. The more I mark meaning — giving names to my emotions, my hopes, and my fears — the more meaning eludes me. I envision myself climbing up onto one of those flimsy paper wings and gliding over an anonymous city and into a field of total blankness. There are no corners, no grooves with which to construct answers. There is no meaning. There is only meaninglessness.

“The acts of life have no beginning or end,” writes Tristan Tzara, vanguard of the early twentieth century’s Dada art movement. “Everything happens in a completely idiotic way. That is why everything is alike. Simplicity is called Dada.”

To read or to shred and blend into a smoothie? Up to you.

WEEK 7

Literature Is Dead, But Reality Is Better Than Fiction

Reading Assignment: Don DeLillo’s Mao II

Turn on the news and watch it as if the anchors are actors, performing a highly choreographed stage play that requires inter-network participation and an audience desirous of increasingly dazzling dramatic forms. Desensitize yourself to violence and assess the theatrical faculty of terror. Change the channel. It doesn’t matter what you watch, just as long as it’s not another panel or live broadcast—preferably a scripted show. Make a basic mental map of the new presentation’s plot points, its climax and dénouement. 

Switch back to the news and do the same. Assess the possibility that live-action “midair explosions and crumbling buildings” impress more potently upon the human psyche than what we used to call art. Transform reality into a performance: everyone is a character in your diegesis; when exterior influences inevitably alter the direction of your story, reshape your persona with new neuroses and sufferings that protect your position as leading man or woman. The world is a stage. Whatever happens, wherever it happens, there is always a way to connect the chain of events back to you.

WEEK 8

Keep Your Identity at Arm’s Length and Wear Someone Else’s

Viewing Assignment: Mark Leckey’s Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore

Accept DeLillo’s eerie augury, “The future belongs to crowds.” Every crowd is a chorus, filled with characters independently acting out their own stories. The crowd is also a character, swelling and undulating with collective energy. Temporarily lose grasp of your plot and dance with the ensuing dissociative fugue. Drink the soma. Play toss with the vibes. Pleasantly slip under the spell of generational hypnosis.

WEEK 9

The Truth Is a Lie If You Want It to Be

Reading Assignment: Simone de Beauvoir’s The Woman Destroyed

By this stage of the exercise, it should be unclear whether you are living or acting or unwittingly placating to the directions of an elusive cosmic force. You are experiencing the cusp of the crack up. All of the earthly archetypes are conferencing inside you. They are discussing the meaning of insanity. Consensus fails to emerge, but one idea remains fixed: when the story assumes ultimate eminence, it only makes sense that unplanned disruptions, minor disappointments, and competing narratives trigger total internal collapse.

WEEK 10

Puzzles Are Always Missing Pieces, Just See What Happens

Reading Assignment: Jean Jacques Schuhl’s Dusty Pink

Cut-ups of your fragmented mind are floating in the ether, coalescing and fissuring at random, like jelly fish in an aquarium. You reach out, thinking you might take hold of one strand, only to be stung by another. Sometimes their tentacles scar the supple surface of your gray and white matter. Recognize these scars as stories.

WEEK 11

In The End, Stories Are All That Exist

Viewing Assignment: William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm

Every story has multiple subplots. Every subplot has its own subplots and spinoffs. Every story is a story within a story within a story and, in fact, when you depart the only thing that will be left of you is your story. And yet the story never ends, never even begins and there is only one way out: extricate yourself from linearity.

Words By Maya Eslami

Nick Winfrey is a perfectionist. Over the course of the last five years, the man behind Adult Books has been meticulously etching away at an album that would turn out to be his sophomore full-length, “Grecian Urn,” which recently dropped on Taxi Gauche Records. Containing new and old songs reworked into a cohesive energy of focused sound, the album is self-assured and seemingly flawless, which makes sense once you find out that Nick side hustles as a copywriter. The vocals, in classic Adult Books style, are evocative and pleasantly haunting, as if echoed through the lava lamp of my teenage bedroom. It’s stripped down yet booming with intricate details that reveal themselves more and more with each listen. So how did Nick get here? Releasing an album after this long, on the tail end of a pandemic? Perfectionism. And dedication. “The whole course of the band's history has been this process of streamlining down to what I really want to do,” Nick told me over the phone a couple weeks ago. “I definitely feel more confident than ever in my own songwriting abilities.” And it shows. In technicolor. 

INHERENT BUMMER: Tell me about the album. When did you guys start working on it? 

NICK WINFREY: Well, I guess I would say it's been a long time coming. We started working on it probably in 2017. We were doing edits on it up until 2019. 

Why’d it take so long? 

Just over the past couple of years there’ve been a lot of curve balls, but I’m glad it’s coming out now. It's the record I've been wanting to make for a long time, because some of the songs go back even farther than [Adult Books]. And they didn't fit for whatever reason on past records, and I wanted to really do them justice. So I feel like this album... I think it does that. And I'm glad we waited and I'm glad that they're coming out now.

So some of the songs on the album are old? How old?

It's a mix. Half are new, and then half go back as far as 10 years, before the band was even a band, when I was recording at home. At that time I didn't really have people I was playing music with, and I entertained myself by making music a lot at home. And so it's honestly special to me in that way.

How does it feel putting these ten year old songs out into the world? 

It's exciting, for sure, just because my home demos are so different from what they became. I think the reason it took so long to put them on this record is because we were learning how to play them as a band, and getting the vibe right. Not sacrificing the original quality.

Where did you record the album?

We recorded with Johnny Bell, at Jazzcats Studio in Long Beach. He's got a really cool set up in a back house. He's got lots of cool gear. And he's got chickens.

When did that start? 

We started in 2017 and then it just ended up taking a lot longer than I expected. I have a hard time letting things go and being done with something, so it kind of dragged on for a while.

Well you were trying to make it perfect. When did you know you were finally done?

I think at a certain point, things had to be done. There's things still that are here, in the mix, like "Oh, I wish I would have done that differently," but at some point it gets a little obsessive.

What was it like in the studio when you first started recording? 

The whole band was in there for a couple of days. And then a lot of it was just me and Johnny, doing stuff together. So that's why, you know, the three-day recording session turns into weeks of recording. I underestimated that. The same thing happened with the first record. I'm not a fast studio person.

Why is that? 

I prefer it that way. Because of my job as an editor, I'm naturally really nit picky about things. That carries over to music as well.

So how does it feel to finally release it to the world?

It feels good. You know, it's a funny thing because I felt so wrapped up in it, for so long, that it sort of stifled my creativity in other ways. I went through probably a year, two years, or more, where I wasn't really writing any new music because I was just so obsessive over this record, and editing it, and getting all of the other random stuff involved with it squared away. So already, since it's been in motion with the label and it's out of my hands, it feels awesome. It’s a huge weight off my shoulders. And I've been writing a lot of new music.

What’s it like writing music during this time?

Honestly, kind of awesome. I mean, I've just probably been at home more than I have been in–

Ever in your life?

Yeah, probably. And it's nice to have lazy days where I can just play guitar and record demos. And it's nice to take a step back from social things, too, in a way. I mean, I definitely miss hanging out with people. We have a small group of friends that we do hang out with, but I have so many more free nights where I can work on my own creative projects.

Are you putting out the album on the same label as last time? 

No, we're doing it with a label called Taxi Gauche Records. It's run by my friend, Piet, who lives in Zurich. Piet is an awesome guy. He books shows in Zurich, but he's also a pilot for Swiss Air.

What. That’s insane. 

We've gotten to know him really well over the past few years, because up until a year ago, he was always in LA flying and stuff [laughter]. But he's the nicest guy, he's been a huge help. Up until the pandemic, he was in LA fairly frequently. Not all the time. But yeah, it's funny because we... I was out in Zurich a couple of years ago. And hanging out with him there, he was just the dude in Zurich. He's this big tall guy. He's just front row at shows and he knows everybody. He's a pretty classy guy. 

How’d you guys get connected? 

I actually reached out to Piet. He had just done the last Tracy Bryant record, and Tracy had nothing but good things to say about working with him, so I thought it might be a good fit. I think he immediately agreed to do the record without even listening to it, but I told him to check it out and think it over. Thankfully, he loved the record and we got the ball rolling immediately. It's been a super easy process ever since.

I haven’t heard the record yet either, but I’m hearing positive feedback. [I have since doing this interview and it rules.]

Yeah, the feedback has been good. It's kind of funny because it's been a while since we released anything new so I was a little unsure, you know, would anyone still care or listen? But it's been really good. It's different than the last record, but I think it's also a continuation. I think it’s a more thoughtful record.

Why do you say that?

The whole course of the band's history has been this process of streamlining down to what I really want to do. [Adult Books] started out as this loud, fast, punk band because it was a safer place to be [at that time]. And now I feel like three records in, we can do something. We have the ability. We're willing and we're able to make something that's more adventurous. And it feels good to do something that has a little more space to be free. It feels more personal.

Almost like you guys are finally creating...not creating your own sound, but coming into your own? 

I definitely feel more confident than ever in my own songwriting abilities. So in the end, I feel like, yeah, I think I have kind of found my voice. I found what I like personally, and I think it works for what I want to do.

Do you feel like you just came to that realization, or has it been building?

I mean, I would say for a long time, I've had this feeling when I write a new song, like, "Oh, that was the best thing I ever wrote." You know? If you don't feel that way, then I don't know what you're doing.

For sure. You need to be stoked on yourself first and foremost. 

The whole fun of music for me, and the reason that I love it, is because writing music is this sort of cathartic thing where I can write the song that I want to hear, and then just listen to it, or play it, and feel good. I would say in the past couple of years I feel like a little bit of that struggle of songwriting has left. I mean, it's still there, and I think it should be a struggle in a sense. It’s not easy. But I do feel like I've come to a place where I can say, "I know what I want to do and I know how to do it.” 

[Adult Books Grecian Urn is out now on Taxi Gauche Records. Click here to stream it on Spotify or click here to order vinyl on BandCamp.]

Thinking about another time. Modern Collective time. A time when a rhythm collision like this schizophrenic mash up would make sense and annually collide with us in the great outdoors, sweaty, maybe a little drunk and restless too. Yeah, music Festivals. It's that time of the year and it made us miss 2008 a lot. Thrash your way through this little snapshot of a stage around 3pm when the substances begin to take hold…

Listen to:

Electrotrashdancerockshow

(Rave Tent Remix 2008)

playlist on the Inherent Bummer Spotify here.

Our ongoing quest for the perfect beer.

Here’s how to achieve the hotel sink ice chest beer, AKA the Dolce Vita beer: Check into a hotel room. Take the elevator up to your room, insert the key card and listen for the slide of the deadbolt, then walk inside. Take in your surroundings with a big smile. Isn’t this nice? Immediately fill the sink with ice and beer. Walk over and open the blinds to let in some atmosphere. Go back over to the sink to turn on the water and fill the sink three quarters full. Let the beers soak and chill in the ice and water for a few minutes. Walk over and look at the bed and really think about how good it feels to know you won’t have to make it tomorrow morning. Find the probably vintage/modern hybrid attempt at a speaker or radio to play music in your room and put on “Do Nothing” by The Specials. Turn it up loud enough to create a nice little vibe in your room. You’ll know it when you hear it. Walk back over to the sink and grab an “already colder than you thought they’d be” beer, go look out the window at whatever view you might have, snap that icy beer and sing along:

I’m just living in a life without meaning

I walk and walk, do nothing 

I’m just living in a life without feeling 

I talk and talk, say nothing! 

And there you have it: Your very own Dolce Vita beer!