Drugdealer
Can this trip be real?
This is the foundation for The End of Comedy, the debut album by Drugdealer, a new project conceived and conducted by Michael Collins (formerly of Run DMT, Salvia Plath), who guides a group of Angelenos through a whimsical world informed by Jean Baudrillard, social media perception, Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westernvistas and Collins’s endless travels.
At the forefront of The End of Comedy is Collins’ AOR auteurship. It’s a vignette of a record, as lucid and lysergic, as it is organic – featuring homespun explorations of Carol King esque piano ballads, Bacharach-ian orchestration, the psych folk of Ultimate Spinach and Hendrickson Road House and even New York City subway jazz.
Throughout The End of Comedy, Collins eschews the spotlight, in favour letting the ensemble shine. There are collaborations with Ariel Pink (”Easy to Forget”), Danny James (“My Life)” and Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood), who brings Laurel Canyon balladry to the table on “Fictional Pictures.” Not to mention a bona fide who’s who of Collins’s mates, including members of Regal Degal, Holy Shit!, Sheer Agony, The Mild High Club, Mr. Twin Sister, The Memories, and pals from Mac DeMarco’s band, who contribute essential bits and pieces that create the foundations of The End of Comedy.
With that cast, it makes sense that Collins recorded the album over several years, all over North America in places like the Glenn Cabin in Vancouver, the Telegraph House in Oakland, the Drones club in Montreal, Ariel Pink’s house in LA, Baltimore’s infamous Copycat Building, and Mac DeMarco’s house in Rockaway Beach. All the people and places are essential to The End of Comedy, an absurdist collection of songs that plays like a short film in which Collins journeys far and wide, popping in to various abodes, embracing mates old and new, and casting a spell on them.
While the 11 song, 32 minute album is a collaborative statement, it’s far from a mixtape or a genre experiment — it’s a concept record about the absurdities of modern life, our relationship with the 7.125 billion people on Earth, and how humour can heal wounds and open up new doors of perception, perhaps best exemplified in“Fictional Pictures,” when Mering sings “I’m in love with laughter.” It’s clear that Collins is 100% in love with laughter, yet despite his prankster leanings, there are moments when he winks with words — each wink cuts through the mundanity of everyday life and hints that maybe, just maybe, we aren’t living in end times.
Drugdealer
Can this trip be real?
This is the foundation for The End of Comedy, the debut album by Drugdealer, a new project conceived and conducted by Michael Collins (formerly of Run DMT, Salvia Plath), who guides a group of Angelenos through a whimsical world informed by Jean Baudrillard, social media perception, Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westernvistas and Collins’s endless travels.
At the forefront of The End of Comedy is Collins’ AOR auteurship. It’s a vignette of a record, as lucid and lysergic, as it is organic – featuring homespun explorations of Carol King esque piano ballads, Bacharach-ian orchestration, the psych folk of Ultimate Spinach and Hendrickson Road House and even New York City subway jazz.
Throughout The End of Comedy, Collins eschews the spotlight, in favour letting the ensemble shine. There are collaborations with Ariel Pink (”Easy to Forget”), Danny James (“My Life)” and Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood), who brings Laurel Canyon balladry to the table on “Fictional Pictures.” Not to mention a bona fide who’s who of Collins’s mates, including members of Regal Degal, Holy Shit!, Sheer Agony, The Mild High Club, Mr. Twin Sister, The Memories, and pals from Mac DeMarco’s band, who contribute essential bits and pieces that create the foundations of The End of Comedy.
With that cast, it makes sense that Collins recorded the album over several years, all over North America in places like the Glenn Cabin in Vancouver, the Telegraph House in Oakland, the Drones club in Montreal, Ariel Pink’s house in LA, Baltimore’s infamous Copycat Building, and Mac DeMarco’s house in Rockaway Beach. All the people and places are essential to The End of Comedy, an absurdist collection of songs that plays like a short film in which Collins journeys far and wide, popping in to various abodes, embracing mates old and new, and casting a spell on them.
While the 11 song, 32 minute album is a collaborative statement, it’s far from a mixtape or a genre experiment — it’s a concept record about the absurdities of modern life, our relationship with the 7.125 billion people on Earth, and how humour can heal wounds and open up new doors of perception, perhaps best exemplified in“Fictional Pictures,” when Mering sings “I’m in love with laughter.” It’s clear that Collins is 100% in love with laughter, yet despite his prankster leanings, there are moments when he winks with words — each wink cuts through the mundanity of everyday life and hints that maybe, just maybe, we aren’t living in end times.
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