Qua/Sofa King Many Records

This was the first Possum Dixon song I ever heard. Actually, my dad heard it, and bought the album, and I heard it through him. It was 1993, early 1993 if I remember correctly… so I was probably like 11. 

My pops used to subscribe to “Rock Video Monthly” and I’d watch those videos on Saturday mornings after cartoons were over. I distinctly remember “The Chipmunks” was the last cartoon of the day I watched before putting that video on, with the Possum Dixon clip on it.

I dug the song and was happy to find out my dad had the album. Back then, shit was magic. My dad either had what I liked, or I’d save lunch money to get it. This time I lucked out and got to eat lunch that week…

Who knew that they’d tour with The Dead Milkmen, who at the time, I’d never heard of, but would soon enough become my most favorite band ever.

Life is weird like that sometimes. I didn’t like them cos they toured with the Milkmen, as I heard of them before I heard of my favorite band ever. Just a weird chain of happening.

I didn’t really take to that first Possum Dixon album till early 1995, but take to it did I when I did get around to it!

I had just moved to Cleveland, Ohio. I was 12 or 13. I had no friends. I was really odd. I identified with that first Possum Dixon album. Then one day in like, “Huh” magazine I read they had a new album out and promptly demanded my mother take me to the record store to help me procure this second Possum Dixon album, which kinda changed my life.

While it didn’t “warp” me as much as the first Dead Milkmen album I got (“Beelzebubba”, by the way), it “warped” me just the same. I listened to “Star Maps” like it was the only album that mattered, for so long. I’d piss off my stupid friends trying to get them to understand the brilliance of this album, even though I could not explain to anybody exactly why it was such a solid beast of awesome. But it was, and I knew this, and anybody that didn’t get it was just stupid so far as I was concerned. Oddly enough, I ran into this same trouble with trying to convey the genius of The Dead Milkmen to my peers in the age of No Doubt & Bush.

Either way, I studied the shit out of that record and for many years to come, did it help mold the music that I would let into my heart. 

“Star Maps” meant and means so much to me. I think it is one of the finest albums of the 90’s, and personally, one of the finest albums ever.

Normally I don’t get too bummed or freaked out when a dude in a band I liked passes away.

In all honesty, only the deaths of Beatle George, Dave Blood, and now Celso Chavez have ever truly bothered or bummed me out.

Right now, I’m not gonna lie. I’m bummed out. 

Last year I got “Star Maps” on vinyl and it was a magnificent experience cos I listened to it with my spatial enhancer on and I got to hear the record in a way I’d never heard it before. 

Lots of stuff was going on around me at the time, but I didn’t hear it. All I heard was 1996. It was creepily magnificent. 

So in tribute to this fine band, I am listening to “Star Maps” as a whole.

I was drunk when I came home tonight after celebrating my girlfriend’s graduation from college. Now I’m many-a-sheet to the wind. I’m going to be a miserable, hung-over, 30 year old man later on in this day… but I felt obligated to rock this brilliant record and reap the consequences when I next wake up.

God Bless Possum Dixon!

(Source: Spotify)