When I was growing up I lived next door to my best friend.
We spoke to each other in rudimentary code by knocking on the walls. One autumn we had a week off school, and I woke up early every day to go round his house after our parents had gone to work, and we’d eat cereal and play Age of Empires. In the afternoons we’d hang around the sleepy town, and as the October light faded into evening we took skateboards to the army barracks and made run after run down a steep, newly-tarmac’d path. The last of the late sun split branches growing bare, as their leaves danced around our wheels in swirling flurries. Once we watched from the attic window as fireworks smashed a kaleidoscope across the night. That week I discovered The Get Up Kids’ Something To Write Home About, Hot Rod Circuit’s Sorry About Tomorrow. Heartache and optimism made sense next to each other.
Had it been written, I would have listened to Donald Domesky‘s crashing Telecasters and soul-hefting horn section on repeat. As it is, I’m making up for it now.
Ships is out now via Topshelf. You can pay what you like for the rest of Prawn‘s back catalogue on bandcamp, ’cause they’re cool like that.