The D.A. :: "Pastels"

Four years ago in the dead of winter, on the snowiest night of the year, three of us ventured into the borderlands between Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens. It was an art-space party, the type you are invited to by a bartender and performance artist you know, someone who had recently rebranded herself under a new name to divorce the patriarchy of her old one. It was more circus than party. A heavy-set man, resembling Damian Abraham of Fucked Up, offered to let you staple American currency to his arms, chest and forehead, handing out his staple gun with a smile. Gymnasts twirled overhead and people walked on stilts. I would swear someone was swallowing a sword and breathing fire. Our trio got fantastically liquid, a 3am attempt to sign the band who played the party and a memorable slip and semi-concussion on a low cement wall. The night wound down and we propped ourselves up on one another, trying vainly to find a car who would take us in. Taking pity, perhaps, our eventual gypsy cab driver piloted us through empty apocalyptic streets, melting snow clinging to our sweaty faces. When El Paso band, The D.A. sing, "All my friends are feral cats, hipsters and scaredy rats, hobos and acrobats", it makes me think of that night, a slice of youth and New York that could never be recovered, of things and scenes we were certainly not but wondered at anyways. It was cultural ethnography to be sure, but it was a dark, cold evening in the middle of nowhere and the ladies spinning on the ceiling were unforgettable.

The D.A. - Pastels by Low Life Inc