Alaskan Fishermen - "Hands Up feat. Thirtyseven"

Thirtyseven: I spent a long, weird, formative year listening to only two albums: Tool’s Aenema and Alaskan Fishermen’s underground classic, Fire and Ice. I was living outside Asheville, North Carolina — word to Mars Hill! — and walking precisely 2.4 miles every day to get coffee, talk to humans, and steal Internets from the local college.

I’m not entirely insane. Del the Funky Homosapien thought it was a dope album, too. Alaskan Fishermen, that is, not Tool: I have no idea how Del feels about Tool and I don’t need to know, either. Right from the opening track, the album was balls-out, rewind-worthy, non-stop bars.

Meanwhile, I was writing the songs for the first Wombaticus Rex project, Live from Islamabad. The influence is there if you listen for it: the flow patterns, the imagery, and the callous disregard for whether or not the casual listener can follow along.

Years down a tangled & twisted road, and BOY HOWDY: I am one of the only featured guests on the second Alaskan Fishermen album. It matters to me, yet to most folks, it won’t mean a thing. That’s beautiful. I hesitate to offer any Life Lessons based on this small achievement, but the moral of the story is clear…Fuck the Dumb. Focus on what you know is great. Don’t ever stop working.

Also, brush your teeth more often than I did.