The album Warm Springs Night by Joel Phelps is a great album, one I’ve been listening to (off and on, see below) since it came out, about 25 years ago.
It was, afaik, the first solo project after Phelps left Silkworm, and represents a lot of my favorite parts of the Silkworm sound, and sluffing off the rest – Silkworm tended a little too far towards the generic alt rock sound of their time.
It starts with Council, a pretty solid, catchy song with a complex tone but a catchy vibe. It’s the kind of song that would be a radio hit in the world where I’m the king of radio. The rest of the album, however, warms down to a heavy, melodic ocean of an album: deeply powerful, dangerous, and dark. The album feels bass-driven to me – I don’t think it actually is, though – but the guitar lines feel like basslines to me. The beats are also much more important to the sound of the songs than in most alt/indie rock. I can certainly hear the album’s name in its sound – but only those very warm spring nights, humid and thick: foreign, and carrying positive portents, but itself almost overbearing. I prefer the metaphor of the sea, because it tumbles and carries, but that could be me projecting. Regardless, it’s a pulsing, echoing, powerfully dreary exposition on…something? I’m not sure what. I’ve never cared to analyze the words, but I like the way he says them. It sounds to me like drugs, but I could be projecting.
TW: drugs.
Council was, along with My Kimono by Polvo, Dramamine by Modest Mouse, New Partner by Palace, and a few other songs, on a mix tape (yes, a real cassette tape) that I was listening to the first time I did heroin. I did it first thing in the morning; I had bought it, drunk, the night before, but didn’t want to do it in that drunken state, so I saved it, snorting it in the bathroom before heading out. I got some coffee at the corner store and went to a nearby school and sat on the bleachers. There was no one in sight – I think it was a Saturday – I just sat there, drinking my coffee and listening to music, for what might’ve been minutes, or maybe hours.
That was about 25 years ago, but the day still reverberates as one of the happiest days of my life. Getting involved in that drug, that addiction, that lifestyle, etc, was a terrible idea, and it had significant negative effects on the rest of my life, but that particular day, I’m not afraid to say, it was a great day. And of course it was – heroin wouldn’t be such a dangerous drug if it didn’t feel so good.
After Council, the album starts to descend into the depths of the tumultuous sea. It’s passionate, it yells and it hollers, it wails, it whines, and it brings you along with it. For many years it was able to control my mood – bringing me into some very dark places when I entered the album feeling quite normal. It doesn’t anymore – I’m not sure what’s changed, but now I can just hear it, and not be it. This, too, echoes my experience with heroin.
For years after that day, I tried desperately to recreate it. I didn’t want to get wasted, nodding out on the train like you see so many people do – I just wanted to have a normal, peaceful day – but on heroin.
It was, obviously, impossible. You never get that first time back. Part of this is the stance you take towards it – hoping and praying for a specific result sets you up for a different kind of experience than when you go into it not exactly knowing what to expect. I probably had plenty of days that were similar, but each one after was spent spiraling on how I could recreate it perfectly – or arranging to continue trying – rather than enjoying it.
This is how I understand the phrase Chasing the Dragon. I think most people use it to refer to the rush you get when you first take it, but, for me, it’s not about that moment, but about that day. Chasing that feeling, that vibe, that chill, was both compulsive and impossible – I knew it was impossible, even as I was trying – but I couldn’t stop myself from trying.
Well, I did eventually. I stopped using dope a bunch of times over the next few years, satisfying myself with, well, everything else I could get my hands on, from weed to roofies (which are actually quite fun if you don’t overdo it) to K to alcohol – lots and lots of alcohol. Eventually, it was suggested to me that, if I really wanted to stop the cycle of going back to heroin, I would have to stop doing all drugs (incl alcohol), which I eventually did.
March 22nd, 2023 marks 19 years since I’ve used drugs or drank. I did, for a while, use AA as a support – tho I think mostly it was about making friends I could relate to but who also weren’t into getting fucked up. I was never one of “those people” that you think of (or, that I think of) when I think of AA – like every community I’ve ever been near, I always remained a bit on the periphery. I haven’t been to AA in… 5 years? I don’t even know anymore. I certainly haven’t been going regularly since about 2008 or so, with a brief reverse-gap in around 2010, when I went a couple times a week for about a year. I do think my autism is strongly connected to this – I think my compulsion for drugs was significantly imposed by my desire to add heroin to my habits (to which I adhere compulsively), and once I had really broken that habit, it hasn’t been hard to not start the habit again. Due to the relative ease I’ve experienced in my “sobriety” I’m not even sure it’s fair to consider myself an addict or alcoholic – I’ve seen so many people struggle so hard to stay sober, most eventually failing, and for me, after about the first year, it’s been extremely easy.
(These words might strike an AA as words that precipitate a relapse. I can see how someone to think that I might go back to it, having said what I’ve said – and, while I can’t deny that’s a possibility, the reality is, it’s like schrodinger’s addiction: staying off of drugs and alcohol is easy, and not a problem at all, if I’m not an addict; if I go back to it, then, obviously, it’s not easy, and it is a problem to stay off of it, in which case, I am an addict, and need to stay off of it. Either way, staying off of drugs and alcohol seems to be the correct choice.)
Anyway. Warm Springs Night is a great album. I recommend it.