Redux/ Crawl Up and Die

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Redux/ Crawl Up and Die

October 24, 2021 by redtreetimes

This post ran several years ago and I felt that it was fitting for today since, as we head into the week before Halloween, I was looking for a somewhat creepy song without going full blown psychobilly. This seems to fill the bill:

It’s Sunday morning which means I usually play a little bit of music. This morning I didn’t have anything in particular in mind so I went to YouTube and just punched in something general then let myself be led by randomly choosing from the selections that come up on the right side of every video. It’s amazing where this will sometimes take you, down rabbit holes of all sorts. Sometimes it takes you to music that you know really well and other times to people and places that are totally new. Today it led me to a song that I have always liked by the Stray Cats from back when they were leading a little rockabilly resurgence in the 1980’s.

It wasn’t one of their hits from the time and I’m not even sure it is on any of their widely released albums. But it is one of my favorites from them. It’s called Crawl Up and Die and has a nice build up and finish, the perfect thing to kick off a sleepy Sunday morning despite the somewhat gloomy title.

While trying to find an image to accompany this post and song I came across the old piece above from back when I was still forming a voice and working on processes. This is among my earliest attempts at my reductive process where I put on a lot of very wet paint and pull off what doesn’t belong. I usually describe this process as kind of like carving in paint.

I wasn’t sure at this point what I wanted to say or where I was going with my work, or even what it should look like. I was still considering straight representation. While I don’t think this is a bad piece, especially from where I was in my evolution, it didn’t have enough to make me want to move further in this direction. So I moved down a different path and, fortunately, I believe it was the right choice I. do like the mood of this piece however and feel it fits the title here.

Have a great Sunday!