The history of racism in America affected the segregation of musical genres, which is a shame. It would’ve been nice, in retrospect, to have music jump those borders more easily. A great example of this for me lately is Planet Patrol’s “At Your Own Risk”, which was made of extra tracks not used in Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock”, so has a similarity to it, like an alternate third jersey version of Planet Rock almost. But there was a time in my life, when I had just gotten my license, and on Saturdays the liquor store in Farmville would close at noon, but the one in Drakes Branch was open ‘til 6. And my dad would get his weekend’s liquor supply Thursday after work in Farmville, because that was payday for him, and the liquor store was usually the first stop. But generally speaking, folks would show up on Friday night to play cards at our trailer, and bottles would get passed, and if anything was left at the end of a long Friday night, it wasn’t gonna go long on Saturday afternoon. So we’d drive to Drakes Branch to hit the liquor store, so he pops could restock for the impending long Saturday night (which would basically be a repeat of the previous night most times, with most of the same characters). If it was football season, he might even have to double up on the Saturday run to make sure Sunday afternoon was covered for the Redskins game.
In retrospect, that drive from our trailer in southern Prince Edward County, to Keysville, then turn by the abandoned factory on 59 to get to Drakes Branch, turning left onto Main Street of a town that was already dying even then, that close to Reagan’s politics of doom that turned the doomed into The Doomed, “At Your Own Risk” would’ve been the perfect soundtrack. And it’s a long enough song it could’ve ate up most of that 10 mile or so stretch on 59. I do recognize and appreciate my dad’s constant wishful thinking back then, that one bottle liquor on a Thursday evening was actually gonna be enough to last the whole weekend. Too bad he never got the help to get closer to making that equation actually work out. That too is the byproduct of all our segregation and division, where we get fractured into our little silos of self-destruction and think we’re out here going through something entirely on our own, when in actuality in that 10 miles we just drove down the road, even out in the middle of nowhere, we just passed 50 motherfuckers going through the exact same shit.
In retrospect, that drive from our trailer in southern Prince Edward County, to Keysville, then turn by the abandoned factory on 59 to get to Drakes Branch, turning left onto Main Street of a town that was already dying even then, that close to Reagan’s politics of doom that turned the doomed into The Doomed, “At Your Own Risk” would’ve been the perfect soundtrack. And it’s a long enough song it could’ve ate up most of that 10 mile or so stretch on 59. I do recognize and appreciate my dad’s constant wishful thinking back then, that one bottle liquor on a Thursday evening was actually gonna be enough to last the whole weekend. Too bad he never got the help to get closer to making that equation actually work out. That too is the byproduct of all our segregation and division, where we get fractured into our little silos of self-destruction and think we’re out here going through something entirely on our own, when in actuality in that 10 miles we just drove down the road, even out in the middle of nowhere, we just passed 50 motherfuckers going through the exact same shit.
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