East River Pipe - What Are You On?

Genre rock Publisher Merge Records External Links Official Website Merge Records

I think F.M. Cornog read my freaking mind! The one-man bedroom band known as East River Pipe must have been peeking at my journal because this whole album is about drinking, smoking weed, popping the occasional pill and getting deep. Spare the skateboarding, this is pretty much my manifesto.

But it gets even weirder.

Dig, I gave up on trying to find a mate last summer when my ex-girlfriend Gwen threw out one of my favorite bongs. It was a plastic monster with FOUR chambers and a LONG green tube that was bent at just the right angle so that I could set it on the coffee table and pull hits without having to look away from the TV. It was named Swamp Thing. That was the name I gave it, and I don't think I need to explain. But whenever Gwen talked about it, she said "Swamp Thing" like she was talking about a virus or something. I'll admit that she was right about the smell, it got a little pungent between cleanings, but it was a work of fucking art.

Well, one day I came home from skating the vert ramp by my grandma's house and there's Gwen sitting on the couch in the basement watching TV, and what's not on the coffee table in front of her? Swamp Thing.

"Where the fuck is Swamp Thing?"

"Gone."

"What do you mean gone?" I yelled.

"I mean it's gone. I threw it out." Right when she said this, I turned to run and grab it out of the trash. "Don't bother, Billy. It's GONE."

Without getting into it here, I'll let you know that the bong was indeed gone. The very next thing that was gone was Gwen. It wasn't a matter of choosing a bong over a girl, it was the principle. Sure she'd asked me to get rid of Swamp Thing, and sure I'd said no every time, but that's no reason to go drive it off to some landfill on the edge of town. F.

The point is, in the song "Druglife," Cornog talks about someone throwing away his bong, and his pills. Lame, right? And in the context of the song we are left to assume that it's his significant other (I'll bet if you play the record backwards it says, "Gwen, return what you have stolen from me. Gwen, return...").

He also talks about a whole galaxy of other stimulants. The theme of the album is on the title track: "Better living through chemistry/She said, what do you want?" That's what I'm talking about. And I'm not just talking about being stoned all of the time. Just some of the time. Like a Buddhist, taking things in moderation is the way.

So anyway, this is East River Pipe's sixth record. The only other songs I've heard are the free ones on Merge's website, and from what I can tell, his technical approach to songwriting hasn't changed a whole lot. But who cares, this guy is a genius, if not for any other reason than having the good sense to raid my diary for material.