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| Dead Register |
Let's talk about that amazing town, or should we discuss Dead Register first as their own Avril Che will be giving us the skinny on what it's like in Hotlanta.
Dead Register gave us an amazing debut album back in 2016 and a vinyl and cassette release in 2017. This year, they took some time out and released the follow up, Captive.
Oh wait...it's 2019 now, I mean all that stuff happened last year. Let's find out about what it's like to live in the shining city of Atlanta in the country of Spare Oom.
I mean Georgia. Anyway, let's see about the country outside of the airport.
St. Louis City is my hometown. I've lived here for most of my life in and around the city. Where are you from?
ATL, bitches.
I kicked and screamed my way out of the womb at the birthing factory called Northside Hospital in Atlanta, GA. Grew up in the suburbs of Duluth, Georgia, later migrated to downtown Atlanta, took off for a minute to L.A., then Fort Lauderdale, then circled back to the ATL.
We have three things that don't really exist anywhere else: the slinger, the gooey butter cake, and toasted ravioli. Tell me about your hometown delicacy.
My favs are slow-cooked stone-ground grits and collard greens braised with fatback.
We’ve got the best Brunswick stew. A lot of folks love their chicken n’ waffles, but I can’t just get into that combo. We also have hot boiled peanuts, essentially old soggy nuts in a wet paper bag that drunk rednecks sell to other drunker rednecks for meth money.
In St. Louis, though there have been others. Our biggest hometown team is the St. Louis Cardinals (formerly the St. Louis Perfectos, nee: the St. Louis Browns, not the AL team that moved to Baltimore.) There is nowhere you can go to escape it. I'm a hockey fan, not a baseball fan, so it's a bit weird to me. Tell me about your hometown's big team.
Atlanta United is the current hip thing these days. I’m not sure if people actually give a rat’s ass about soccer. (Yes. Some of us do. GO GUNNERS!)
They just want to be cool and belong to a club of black and red stripe-wearing bar flies, and like, check out the brand new Mercedes stadium, bro.
We don’t do sports in Dead Register.
I went to a baseball game once and it was so boring that I didn’t realize that the game was in-play… although the beer and sunset at the Dodgers Stadium was nice.
There’s only so much time that can be wasted on entertainment, and we fill that time with actual creative things: movies, video games, writing music, making food, and exercise (bikes, weights, epic walks, yoga, jogging).
3. St. Louis isn't really known for any one type of music scene. The biggest acts I can think of to get out of here alive were Gravity Kills, Nelly and the St. Lunatics, and Sheryl Crow. There's always been a vibrant concert scene though. What about where you are?
Atlanta has a lot of rap and R&B. Outkast. Usher. Some rock gets out every now and then. I think the Georgia Satellites came from here. I think Mastodon came from here. I think Drivin’ and Cryin’ came from here.
B52s, REM and other crap like that came from Athens. Sick, bro. SICK.
4. 20 years ago, St. Louis had about 300 murders each year, floods, and all sorts of other fun things. You might have heard about us being named the Murder Capital of the USA. Nowadays, a lot here is 150. But there are lots of parts of the city that are returning to former glory. On the whole, St. Louis is a better place to live today than before. Is there anything like that where you're from?
Here Atlanta is called “Hate City”. Just a few years ago a 12-year-old gang banger killed a dude on our street. It’s changing a bit though, weirdly enough, rich yuppie folks are moving back into the city, but not really integrating into the culture, ie: spawning many kids, but not allowing them to touch the public schools.
In our neighborhood, most of the old black folks have been bought out, or pushed out. It’s predominantly a bunch of entitled suburban yuppies here now, that won’t even acknowledge us when we meet on the sidewalk. Deep elitist stroller culture.
Our music venues have been turned into yuppie condos. Our favorite restaurants are being turned into yuppie condos. Our MURDER KROGER (grocery store) has been turned into yuppie condos. All of our in-town band rehearsal spaces have been turned into yuppie condos.
Art and DIY venues have been turned into yuppie condos. Tons of greenspace has been turned into yuppie condos. Some dipshit paved a FIVE BILLION DOLLAR (seriously) sidewalk trail around the city, and they’re constantly tearing down neighborhoods and displacing folks to build yuppie condos.
Despite the gross gentrification, there’s still an active volcano of a crack house a stone’s throw away. Your 24-7 crack rock fantasies can come true with just one wee ring of a doorbell.
One dude shot up the place and ran around the neighborhood for hours, wreaking havoc wearing pink sweatpants. They do a great job of paying off the cops, because from what we’ve heard, it’s been actively selling for 10+ years.
We hear gunshots at least a couple of times a day. Just a few months ago some lovely gentlemen unloaded a few AKs into a guy at the pizza place at the end of our street… directly in front of the police station.
Good times. Pap pap pappapapap.
5. Are you still there?
There you are. Sentry mode activated. Target lost. Goodbye.
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