From the recording Both Sides Of The River
SLAB CITY
“Here we are, kids! Gilligan’s Island has met Mad Max. Scary and funny, this is a post-democracy, late-stage-capitalism party song! It’s the night before the big game, everybody. Let’s live it up!”
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
In the extreme desert reaches of southeastern California, somewhere between Palm Springs and Mexico, somewhere between the Salton Sea and the Colorado River, on the site of an abandoned Marine Corps training base, lies what may well be the epitome of contemporary America. Slab City. The last free place. Squatter’s “paradise.” Bring your own cheeseburger.
Once the three or four surviving billionaires own everything; once their AI’s and their few thousand tethered technocrats do everything; once we are fed up with pretending otherwise, this is all that will be left for us, so we might as well live it up!
Ed Skibbe, Cave Creek
September 2023
CREDITS
Ed Skibbe: acoustic guitars, electric sitar, electric guitar, vocal
Spencer Pyne: bass
Brian McClure: drums
Donny Dark: electric guitar
Glade Wilson: harmony and backing vocals
Kevin Causey: backing vocals
WRITING NOTES
An intriguing demographic has emerged in the Southwest. More and more people are unable or unwilling to live in the conventional urban-suburban landscape. More and more people are permanently unemployed or underemployed. Many of these people have adopted a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle, traveling to follow seasonal temporary work, or to enjoy more comfortable seasonal weather, free of rent, leases, taxes and other burdens of civilization. This phenomenon was captured eloquently in the movie Nomadland.
The Southwestern deserts are dotted with a growing number of “squatter” communities where these nomads congregate and establish transitory makeshift communities of RVs, tents, cars and other impermanent housing. Often there is limited law and order, no public sanitation, water or electricity. These places can be huge. One near Quartzite, Arizona was estimated to have over 150,000 residents during a recent winter.
Slab City, one of the oldest and most established of these encampments, has always fascinated me with its mix of iconoclasts, artists, outcasts and society’s rejects. In an ironic moment I noted how similar the concerns, desires and attitudes of the nomad folk are to those of us living the “straight life.” We party and live our indulgent, congratulatory lives as though the reckoning, the great correction, was not coming. We’re all the same–our property values are just higher. I’m also cynical/realistic enough to believe that the current course our civilization is on may lead us all to such an unrooted lifestyle, perhaps sooner than later. I had it in my head to write about that, when one day I absent-mindedly invented the opening riff of what became “Slab City.”
RECORDING NOTES
We recorded basic tracks–bass, drums and reference guitar and vocal at ESP in Colorado. Gordon Close graciously loaned us his vintage Coral electric sitar (Danelectro) from the 60s, and we tracked that too at ESP. Back in Arizona, I recorded the lead vocal, a couple of electric rhythm guitar parts and the acoustic guitar part. Kevin and Glade came over to Coyote Tongue and recorded harmony and backing vocals. Kevin was great. Listen to Glade just nail the harmony vocals! He really gets UP there!
Mixing and editing was at ESP in Colorado.
Lyrics
SLAB CITY (Skibbe)
© 2022, Coyote Tongue Music (ASCAP)
Cholla Bob had a straight job in LA
Had a house had a pool had a view of the freeway
Wore a brand new necktie every day
But he got sick of that shit turned his back on it and walked away
Tonight he’s hanging here in Wanderland
With Coyote Joe and Sweet Sad Sally
The stars in Sally’s eyes are mad pretty
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up
I dreamed I was back back in Fon du Lac
The grass was green and the summer sun was shining
Had the wife and the kid and the split level on the cul de sac
I finally found the place where the good old days have been hiding
Tonight I’m hanging here in Wanderland
With Coyote Joe and Sweet Sad Sally
The stars in Sally’s eyes are mad pretty
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up
We’ve got Salvation Mountain and East Jesus
The Library and those sweet Salton breezes
We live free and off the grid far from civilization’s id
And you can too if you really want to
Builder Bill built a pallet fire in an old commode
Bingo made a beer run to El Centro
Tonight we’re hanging here in Wanderland
Living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up down in Slab City
We’re living it up we’re living it up
We’re living it up we’re living it up