It was Autumn of 1986 when quite a few of my circle were in Austin visiting school friends. We were staying with everyone’s favorite girl Laura, who shared an off-campus UT apartment with a bright blonde-haired dreaded white self-proclaimed Rastafarian. They were listening to classic reggae while rolling spliffs when we arrived. Together we proceeded to hang out, day-drink, smoke out into the early evening whereupon our travelling group decided that we should go clubbing in Downtown. Billy the Rasta offered us some good psilocybin, which we all dosed in differing amounts. Somehow, I was voted in as the chauffeur, probably due to the fact that I ate the smallest amount of fungus and was the most “together” in our group at that moment. Laura and Billy stayed behind not wanting to venture into public high on psychedelics.

We all piled into Meredith’s car for our journey into the unknown night. Earlier in the day, I purchased the brand-new album by The Woodentops called “Giant” at the Record Exchange and was dying to hear it. As we departed, I slid it into the car’s tape player very much to her immediate chagrin, “Don’t!!!! It will get stuck in there and I just got a tape out of it last week!!!”. Too late, my new cassette was sucked into the void of her soundsystem, trapped forever until someone with a skillful butterknife could eject it later. “Now we’re screwed…we can’t listen to anything else when a tape is stuck in there. It takes over the radio!!!” I was soon driving her classic BMW all around the unfamiliar city with a Mapsco book on the dash in case we got lost, as people were calling out directions that they knew, all the while the new tape cranked up loudly. Mere and Steve were in the backseat laughing their asses off, making jokes about everything that we passed, while Sam laughed like a loon. “Microscope people. Looking tiny but feeling a hundred feet tall TALL TALL!”

We dropped by Mark’s house in Manchaca first to pick him up and smoke more grass. Then, back on the road to everywhere at once. The sunset faded into night, sodium road lights flashing by in monotony over and over on beat with the music. Meredith, Steve, Sam, and Mark now howling at the moon, giggling like small children at the dumbest things. I was driving very well, charting every turn and road to memory, my brain fixed on the task of being the mover of my people. The Mapsco was barely used for the entirety of the night as the grid of the city made it easy to navigate. I figured out that Lamar Street got me anywhere I wanted to go eventually, as did Congress. I was compiling the lyrics and pushing it to street names and areas as I drove calmly, carefully, and smoothly like a parent taking the kids out for a stroll. “It’s about time we were happy…” The Woodentops were driving us at this point.

We parked outside the club and I could see the bouncers were checking people at the door, so I decided to put my bag of weed inside the knothole of a nearby tree for some odd reason. Gibby Haynes was there harassing the front-doorman like old friends do to one another. “My band wouldn’t play this shithole for a million dollars, man. We’re too much for this place. Fucking posers everywhere, they wouldn’t understand!” Inside the club, we buy drinks and watch the proceedings for a while, high out of our minds. Bad Mutha Goose is playing their elastic brand of acid funk punk as absolute Austin weirdness abounds. The place is an insane scene of loud vibrant pulsing sounds, noise from all directions, and cacophonies of vocal Saturday night pleasure. Everyone continued getting completely out of their minds on beer and vodka, while I tried to maintain the pulsing fever inside my brain, barely touching my single Heineken. At some point, major paranoia kicks in among our entire group one by one as everyone suddenly wants to leave. Too many people freaking us out in public. We stand outside of the club for a few minutes collecting our shit, watching these campy men from the gaybar next door making fun of the women walking down the street. They were miming their exact movements behind them, as hilarity ensued.

Not knowing where to go, we get into the car. “Last Time” instantly starts up. I ended up driving everyone all around Austin while this cassette continued to play over and over, with theories being found in song lyrics the longer we listened. Driving through Lost Creek, back up and down I-35, up to North Loop where we purchased Slurpee’s at 7-11. The tape has flipped and played again now rounding the bend, none of us cared as we embraced it like OUR soundtrack. This music is a major part of this trip. “Love Train” rewound over and over, driving our load of manics back into downtown again. “Travelling Man” is going to “Move Me” because he’s having a “Love Affair With Everyday Living”! My god this is “So Good Today”! We were working song titles into our conversations. Meredith thinks the music is telling us to ride around the highway Loop, out to the lake and back while absorbing the pace of the night. She then takes over the wheel and proceeds to get us lost somewhere near Lake Travis. Sam starts freaking out that this music is telling us to “Give It Time”. I take back over the wheel and magically get us back to our friend’s apartment with no maps. Just memory. With Rolo playing and singing over and over endlessly flowing through our jellied brains.

We immediately stormed back into our friend’s pad, their little psychedelic scene, taking over their world for a few moments of lysergic bliss. But we all knew something was missing though. My bag of pot that I life in the tree by the club!!!! And Woodentops!!!! We piled back into the car at 4am. Back into downtown. Love Train. Those rhythms driving us onward. We get back to the club which is now empty, find the tree with the stash, and dash back home. Then back at apartment to smoke out into the dawn. We barely slept that night. The drive back to Fort Worth the next afternoon was reliving the night over and over song with each song moment by moment. Meredith never gave me back the tape and left it stuck in her car for over a year, and I ended up buying it again, this time on vinyl. I still flashback when I listen to it today. I now live outside of Austin, and every time I drive down Congress Avenue at night, I swear that I can still hear that beat…Benny Staples smashing that tribal rhythm as Frank de Freitas slams out the core bottom end…Rolo telling me to SHOUT…

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS ALBUM.