Many people ask me “what IS this band?” these people are fools. i draw deeply from my whisky sour and tell them the old story:
there were 3 of us growing up in a tiny town in washington state. earthquakes hit us every day (Cascadia fault line)
drug-fueled zoo trips were our favorite pasttime. though we did not yet know each other.
one summer day, we each found themselves, separately, at woodland park zoo trying to find the f*cking oraganiuans.
i pushed his way past the barriers and tumbled down into the orangutan exhibit. my arm was fractured and the pain was NOTHING to me. i had to tend to the orange monkeys surrounding me. grotesque creatures… eyes gaping, mouths whooping &hollering demonic rapture. u know how they r.
no one around to help. deeding time was across the zoo near the elephants and the crowds were gathered far FAR away. if only i wasn't such a f*ckin loner i'd be safe and sound with my buddy helping me fight these things off. now who knew what twisted abuses these monkeys had in store?
but andrew, aforementioned, had never been much interested in elephants. he was watching Malayan tapirs have intercourse very nearby. andrew was quite attuned to the frequency of screaming men. he came 4 me… he approached the sloped edge of orangutan enclosure.
the fool entered the pit. though andrew was a compassionate man he put it aside and starting slinging rocks at these demonic creatures.
together we screamed, attracting the attention of the nearest zookeeper (robert granfelt, later Bobby Grooves). he was trying to shoot the damn things with the tranquilizer gun but it was chaos in there. blood was flying. i managed to smear a monkey's face on a rock while Andy smashed him with a fire hydrant. chaos reigned until rob got a clean shot. finally the bullet struck and the idiots were sedated. a rope was tossed into the pit. we climbed out to the cheers of a massive crowd. evidently, feeding elephants couldn’t compete with the spectacle of a man-versus-monkey massacre.
when the dust settled and the medics left, Andrew said:
“This reminds me of that song Monkey Man by the Rolling Stones.”
“Or Monkey Gone To Heaven by the Pixies” bobby quipped, nodding toward the orangutan that hadn’t survived the scuffle.
“those guys don't go to heaven,” i said. “but i do like that song… though i saw some idiot post on tiktok saying it sounded like a 1950s song… do you guys hear that???”
“no” they responded
“anyway i do love the Pixies” i said. "and they also said in heaven everything is fine… so i wouldnt worry about that monkey"
of course, we couldn’t be sure that monkey had made it to heaven… not after how brutally he’d behaved. but these were ruminations for other men.
we went to the bar (in those days we were degenerate party animals. we watched the seahawks annihilate the bengal tigers. “somebody should report these animal fights to the authorities” andy grumbled. (he was always very compassionate). as we spoke, we realized we had a lot in common. we all liked good music and hated normies. we started practicing the next day… at the zoo, though that’s a story for another time.
& that is the abbreviated story of how Watson Moon was born.
-watson moon 7-11-24
what is a watson moon?
brian wilson couldn’t render it in sound without losing his goddamn mind. up to the plate steps watson moon, wild eyed silent kid, swinging at at air.
what was it that tarnished brian wilson’s american fantasy and sent him wailing to the deep end of his Mulholland Drive swimming pool? what sent van gogh to the medicine cabinet to snag the blade that the severed his ear? watson moon understands these notions and presents them in stereosound. “i don’t want to lose my mind” he says to me in confidence. it may to too late for the man.
watson moon is a conglomerate snakeskin of identities all cloaking the nervous wreck of me, and in this coastal city i am proud that the cloak is so heavy. worn out by wastelands of his own creation, the watson moon character creates these madcap land-and-ocean-scapes. is he deeply addicted to the trance of creation? i can’t ask him, he’s looking away and burying his head in the clouds now. he says “i want to to back to LA.” but his car is in shambles.