THE SWAGGERIN’ GROWLERS
All good ideas start by about the fourth drink. In this case, it’s four pints of a strong stout. The local beer variety store, Smiley’s, carried growlers of it, so we figured what the hell, lets try it on draft. After all, we are brewers and musicians – arms manufacturers in the war against prohibition; The front line soldiers in the war against boredom. Therein lies the problem: we were completely fucking bored. The battle was not going well. We were in a band together. It was a good band, a damn fine one, but slow moving. A show once or twice a month, and no chance to tour outside of the occasional weekend out of town. Playing shows at the same five or so clubs. My own tension was rising, between a dead end job, a girl that just left me, and the frustration of a part time band, I was starting to genuinely go insane. I’ve got travelers blood, really. I’d spend whatever time I could burning gasoline and midnight oil, going as far as I could while making it back in time for work the next day. All the while, I was writing all of my jukebox and beatnik dreams down on any random scrap of paper I could find – A proper madman, completely in love with the world and completely in hate with the fact that I hadn’t figured out a way to go see more of it.