WHEN I GOT WORD that Hot Spring Water was putting out a new album, and it was to explore the inner-workings of the main songwriter’s childhood memories as a metaphor for getting older, I jumped at the chance for a four hour road trip to explore the album through the backroads of that songwriter’s childhood home of Joyce, Washington.
I grabbed the promo CD, filled up the tank and hit the road. Twenty miles or so into the trip, I realized my car doesn’t have a CD player.
Well, shit.
Maybe I could score a discman at a secondhand store and plug it into the aux cord like we used to with that tape adapter back when cars didn’t have CD players on the other end of the time spectrum. If nothing else, I assured myself, somebody in Joyce must have a CD player.
The new Hot Spring album ‘Of A Morning’ lists an influence of ‘The Allman Brothers and Neil Young meets Big Star or Joe Walsh’s Barnstorm.’ So I dialed up some Allman Brothers from 1969 on the google machine and drove on across the Hood Canal Bridge. I stopped at a secondhand store in the next town and scoured the cluttered bins in the electronics section. There it was! The relic I needed. Didn’t have a price on it. The lady at the register called over the pricing manager. The manager looks at me and asks, “Does it work?”
I said something stupid like, “we’ll find out” and she said, “$6.99.” Bit steep, I thought. But my hands were tied. I picked up some new AA batteries, loaded them up, popped in the disc, plugged in the aux cord and watched the CD start spinning through the plastic window on the lid of the discman. Success! That was easy, I thought. However, while the CD kept spinning, no sound was coming through the speakers. Well, shit. I repeated my mantra for the day: somebody in Joyce must have a CD player. I went back to google machine and listened to some Big Star from 1972 for the last 20 miles as I drove down highway 112.
When I got to Joyce, I drove from one end of the town to the other, and decided to start at the general store. The lady at the register looked at me like I was a crazy person when I asked if the store had a CD player.
I held up the jewel case, as if that would make me seem more legit, and told her I was writing about a musician who grew up in Joyce. She said she had a CD player in her car and immediately regretted it as my eyes lit up. She said she couldn’t take a break to listen to a couple of songs because she was the only one there. Maybe I could try the post office, she suggested.
Post office, retro! That sounds promising. I thank the clerk and head to the door to go look for the post office when I see that the post office is located in a cubicle to the left of the front door inside the general store. Knowing the post office lady had likely overheard the entirety of the prior conversation, and probably also thinks I’m crazy, I hold up the jewel case and ask hopefully, “CD player?”
“Oh… no, sorry,” she says, looking around her desk like she’s searching for a lost stapler. “You could go ask Paul though. He lives in that first trailer over there. I don’t know if he’s got a CD player but he’s got guitars and drums and stuff, and he likes loud music. I know because I live next door to him. He’s got a big, scary German Shepard that will probably bark at you but he’s nice. Paul’s usually outside. Tell him the post office lady sent you.”
Ok then, off to a stranger’s house in Joyce in search of a CD player.
But Paul’s not outside. There is an old pick up truck in the driveway with the driver’s side door wide open. But nobody is around. The neighborhood dogs start barking as soon as I set foot on the dirt road leading to the trailers. I’m contemplating walking up to Paul’s front door when I see the ‘No Trespassing / Trespassers Will Be Shot’ signs in the yard.
Maybe I’ll check the cafe.
The restaurant and lounge across the road looked a bit more promising. The place is like a pre-fab modular home that has been split into a restaurant on one side, bar on the other. The specials are written on a whiteboard posted in the window. This looks like the kind of place that might have a CD player… But they’re not open until 3.
I sit out front of the place and read the album’s liner notes and track listing a few times over, trying to trick myself into thinking I can wait it out while I try to devise a plan for approaching Paul which won’t get me shot or in a scuffle with a German Shepard. Now, I’m starting to feel like a crazy person.
Maybe I’ll just walk down the road a bit. I’d seen a fitness center in sort of strip mall across from the general store. It’s a long shot but most likely no guns or dogs to deal with. The desk lady is on the treadmill directly inside the front door in an otherwise empty fitness center as I walk in. She looks at me like ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ And I make eye contact with the CD player surrounded by speakers and stacks of jewel cases across the room! Despite her reluctance, she put on the CD and hit play.
We awkwardly listen to the first two tracks. Her at the desk. Me on the other side of the room, trying to make small talk as she scrolls through her phone. She didn’t know of the band or the songwriter from Joyce. “I’ve really got to get going,” she says after the second song, looking for any excuse to get me out of there. “I’ve got a lot of chores to do.”
No problem, I say, what did you think of the music?
“I liked it,” she replies. “It reminded me of the 90s.” // NICK SLEDGE
Hot Spring Water plays June 2 at Bigfoot’s House of Vinyl and June 24 at the Bridge Blast and the Manchester Pub. ‘Of A Morning’ is out now streaming plus a limited release of vinyl and CD. More at hotspringwater.bandcamp.com.
