Plant Parenthood - Jungle Cat 

Sam Petschulat writes: 

Hey Mark,

Last December I fell in love with someone for no reason and I tried to connect with that person and I wrote them long letters that they never responded to. I was living in Knoxville in a cheap house in a part of town where lots of people abuse prescription medication, right across the street from a Dollar General. The people directly behind me floated in and out of prison and had robbed our house and stole my laptop and some music gear a couple months prior. Our house had some mice and was usually very cold.

I hadn’t played a lot of electric guitar since middle school but my dad had recently bought me a Squier Telecaster as a gift. Like most gifts it was kind of odd and not quite what I would have chosen but also really thoughtful and kind of a weird reminder of some of the commonalities I shared with my dad despite our differences. I started playing it all the time. I would come home late at night and get high by myself and think about the girl I mentioned earlier and sit on my floor writing really sad guitar riffs trying to use only bar chords. I was listening to a lot of 50s girl groups and a lot of Blithe Field.

Halfway through the month I went home for a few weeks to live with my parents and work for my dad while I had a break from school. I pretty much never left my parents house for a month, in a town about 30 minutes south of Nashville. I would sift through computer code all day then work on writing and recording all night, staying up till 3 or 4 am most nights, trying not to be too loud.

In January I went back to Knoxville still trying to forget about a lot of things. Four months later the girl who never responded broke up with her boyfriend so I convinced her to learn how to play drums. We started practicing several times a week. I’m not sure if she knew all the songs were about her but I feel like it must have been pretty obvious. We got a set together and started playing lots of shows. I was still in love with her and I’m not really sure how she felt about me. We recorded an EP on a Tascam 414 cassette 4 track and then decided it was too emotionally difficult to be around each other any more. Whenever i see her now i usually have to go home and lie down on the floor of my room for a few hours and i sleep terribly. Anyway, here is the record. 

-Sam

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