Ceremony / White Lung / Homostupids / Ultra Ultra

Grog Shop, 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd, Cleveland, OH | Get Directions »
$10.00

Doors 7:30 | Show 8:30

I have a little window I peer out of at my house inRohnert Parkwhere I sit at night and write things down that have come to me throughout the day. Most of the stuff has to do with people, how we treat each other, and our ever increasing ability to hurt one another, as well as unconditionally love. It’s always amazed me, the contrast in which we move and work. While writing “Zoo,” I was confronted with the problem of confining humans, in that – I didn’t want to harp on the fact that we’re killing ourselves, and each other all the time, or fall into the habit of writing things that seemed too pessimistic about our current state – something punk and hardcore bands have pursued many times over. We all have a cluster of emotions in us that are always there, and articulating those many sides was my main dilemma. I think the music reflects that. There are songs on the record that sound fast, slow, eerie, full, or abrupt, each one different, but at the same time very similar. This is what reviewers call “comprehensive.” I suppose this record is our first sort of comprehensive sounding record, in that – each song binds to one another better than we’ve done in the past. The title “Zoo,” comes from the idea that we’re all living in a world that has been heavily structured for us, by us, which feels strange because no other civilization has been so extensive in furthering comfort, entertainment, schedule, and basic living. The problem being – with existing here on earth comes suffering, suffering that often sneaks up on us as bewilderment, and with that suffering brings people who try to relate the state we’re in, in order to soften the blows. “Zoo” isn’t a concept record, or any attempt at changing people’s minds, or exacting the world’s problems, it’s just a pursuit in trying to understand what it means to be a human living in a world that sometimes seems too full of everything, because it is – it’s full of us, an extremely complicated people, and we’re doing all we can to live in harmony, free from whatever it is that closes us in, bars us, and cages the joy of being here. – Ross Farrar 5:52 PM