Highway Hypnosis by FULLSCREEN

Highway Hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which an automobile driver can drive lengthy distances and respond adequately to external events with no recollection of consciously having done so.

This album is largely about my experience in the service industry. As probably 90% of bartenders, bar backs, servers, chefs, cooks, managers, dishwashers, delivery drivers and everyone else involved, I didn't approach the job as a vocation.

I have endless love and admiration for the all of the beautiful, vibrant, unique, hard-working, and absolutely batshit-crazy people I've met in almost 10 years of serving and bartending. It's an experience that has fundamentally broke me down and rebuilt me several different times.

There are hundreds of quotes by Anthony Bourdain that echo similar sentiments but there are two that resonate deeply with me:

"With all due respect to my former professors, I've long believed I gained more knowledge in kitchens, bars, and dining rooms than any college could even hold"

"I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life, the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work. The professional kitchen is the last refuge of the misfit, it's a refuge for people with bad pasts to find a new family"

While these quotes aren't the deepest cuts (ha) and any line cook worth their salt would laugh and/or sneer at the inclusion of bartending in "kitchen life", there's something so touching and resonant about these sentiments. Most people I've met here, especially the real pros, hate it exactly as much as they love it and yet they can't get away from it. Many say it's the thrill of a rush or stockholm syndrome that keeps them in, but I think it's the community of misfits. It's a broad term but I think it covers a lot of ground. Artists, party animals, stoners, goof-balls, addicts, college students, pessimists, narcissists, criminals, broken people, fixed people, single parents, teachers, comedians: they all end up here for one reason or another. And there's not much to do on slow days or the end of the night besides listen to people's stories.

While the affection I have for this world is as endless as a 14-hour Saturday shift, so can be my grievances. Highway Hypnosis is a manifestation of both. The pace and rhythm are meant to illustrate the steady franticness of a shift and the ensuing night out, and the infinite cycle that can become.

"Highway Hypnosis" is the shift that flies by. You only realize it happened once you're sitting down polishing silverware and talking shit about the evil raptors that ordered food from you earlier.

"Lost to the Sauce" is meeting up with a "more successful" friend afterward. The ways that your lives relate and differ is not what you expect.

"Barrie" is the following meetup with your divinely charismatic and insane coworker that never seems to come down. When they do you learn more than you might've wanted.

"Aperitif" is the experience of disappointment of everyone involved. Whether it's a romance or a career or a friendship it's easy to feel like a side-character.

"Avoidance Disorder" is the throbbing realization of waking up to your problems in high definition. You can't run anymore so the solution: run faster.

"Make No Mistake" is when the inevitable emotional beer bottle in your pocket on the drunk run home explodes. You just lie there in the glass and stale liquid as it sinks in.

"Party Revival" is a friend finding you and unhelpfully offering you a pick-me-up, your mind just spirals more. You might be finding the root of your problems, when your friend says he's totally good to drive.

"Heaven's Waiting Room": he wasn't though.

Our first album, Labyrinthitis, is about the descent from naive optimism and imagination to the crushing disenchantment of the pain and difficulty of This World. It's definitely sheltered, but trying it's best to be sincere and true. Highway Hypnosis picks up where it left off, it's dealing with this reality in a way most closely available: the booze in its hand. In some ways it's approaching it head-on and dropped-in, in others, it's skidding right through.

I know this is a lot of writing, and ideally I'd like people to dig through this album and find this meaning (and their own) in it themselves. But I understand that there is a lot of life and media to compete with, so I thought I'd lay out the groundwork. I love albums that have a narrative that weaves through (The Who's Quadrophenia, Andy Shauf's The Party, Pink Floyd's Animals, etc.), and it's a way I enjoy organizing thoughts, emotions, life and fictional stories.

Thanks for reading all of this. My dearest dream is that the meaning I have attempted to put into the album translates to an experience that is any way meaningful to you. And most importantly I hope you have fun.

-K

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