Mark Lager’s Summer Vinyl: Rose City Band – Earth Trip (2021)

Novalis once wisely wrote, “Philosophy is really homesickness: the urge to be at home everywhere.” This same truth is found much more deeply in music and poetry. 2020 – 2021 will be remembered as the homesickness years. We were separated from loved ones and quarantined inside our homes and, during this trauma, some of us passed away while those of us who survived were faced with a radical revision of what “home” itself is- an illusion. Is “home” an environment or location, a physical place? Is “home” another person? Is “home” a state of mind?

I never felt at home where I was born. I always knew my life’s purpose would be to search for home elsewhere- to be a rambler, a traveler, a wanderer. I finally left Missouri during the summer of 2019 and moved out west to New Mexico. Although I prefer the climate (dry instead of humidity and miserable mugginess) and the geographic landscapes of northern New Mexico (the forests and the mountains), I realized during the two years that I have lived here that New Mexico, although a liberation from my Missouri past, is not home. My dad was diagnosed with cancer only two months after I moved to New Mexico. May 20, 2020 was the last time I saw him. We sat outside, masks on and chairs spaced apart. He said, sadly, “I wish life was the way it used to be.” June 7, 2020 he passed away. I attended his funeral on June 12, 2020. I did not revisit Missouri until over a year later and after I had received the vaccine. I did not feel at home in Missouri before, and Missouri in May 2021 felt even less like home, a melancholy mood. Where is “home”?

Ripley Johnson asks this question in a variety of ways throughout the course of his new album Earth Trip. Ripley moved from California to Colorado to Oregon, his group Rose City Band is named after a neighborhood and park in Portland. Ripley, as a guitarist and songwriter, was deprived of being out on the open road and playing his music during the pandemic. So, while he was at home, he spent more time in mother nature, hence the name of the new record. Earth Trip is 45 minutes of Barry Walker‘s aching and adventurous pedal steel and Ripley Johnson’s meditative, mellow lyrics plus poignant and psychedelic guitar guiding the listener to an epiphany that is quiet and revelatory- “home” as a human is a lonely place to trek your tired bones to the solace of the woods.

“Silver Roses” was the soundtrack to my reluctant return to my hometown. (“Fever broke / I won’t hurt anymore / I come home to stay / Feeling sorry / I’m so alone / All alone.“) The choke in my throat as I think of how I wasn’t there when my dad died. Thinking about his ashes floating on the waters of his favorite lake.

Steel guitar teardrops.

“In the Rain” is less sad, yet still wistful, the harmonica is a hobo hearing the birds, “life’s sweet song“, as he wanders through the local park. He is “innocent like the flowers“. Ripley sighs the line “I can breathe“- I experience the same sensation when I listen to this song. It’s that feeling you get when it’s been hot temperatures for almost a month, for weeks, then there’s a refreshing summer shower. You open the door and step outside. You’re relieved.

“World is Turning” is a stoned shuffle “down this old road“, Ripley rejoices in the simplicity of things (“pull the wine off the shelf“), the folky mandolin and echoing piano give the song timeless vibes.

“Feel of Love” is the slowest song, a stroll through a sunset soundscape. The first time I felt like I was hearing this track in all of its subtle transcendence was when I was cruising around after toking with my cousin. We had not seen each other in a year since his dad’s funeral (his dad passed away one month before my dad passed away). My cousin has always been a fan of The Band and the Grateful Dead but some of the music I’ve shared with him through the years he thought was too “out there.” This hit the sweet spot for him, too. We drove slowly through the dusk’s golden-orange light spilling upon the sidewalks and streets of St. Louis.

“Lonely Places” is a track that is surprisingly upbeat, considering the title. This track is a country-fried tribute to “wide open spaces.” In the last minute, Ripley’s guitar soars into the cumulus cloud-covered blue skies.

“Ramblin’ with the Day” is another cosmic country song, a glorious and joyous love letter to the highway (“Roll another smoke for the ride“) and an ode to the vernal world (“feeling of the dirt in my toes / wandering in the cold morning dew… / springtime in the mind of a child…“)

Where “Silver Roses” and “In the Rain” feel gray and overcast, “Feel of Love” has sunset soundscapes, and “Lonely Places” and “Ramblin’ with the Day” are morning and afternoon, respectively, “Rabbit” is 24 hours in the consciousness of this creature, it’s a drowsy feel, the hand percussion and hazy guitar cocoon the listener.

I had an interview with Ripley before the release of Earth Trip where I described the album as more grounded and less psychedelic than his previous Summerlong. For several weeks, I listened to this album on repeat and realized how wrong I was. The proof? The closing track, the 9 minute “Dawn Patrol”, where Cooper Crain’s production completely captures what Ripley described as “that feeling you get when you’re walking in the woods and the acid starts to hit.” Every time I reach this closing track, I become profoundly aware that Ripley strengthened all the lyrical/musical outpourings on Summerlong– now I dig Earth Trip even more than the brilliant Summerlong.

Ripley’s glimmering guitar is the instrumental equivalent of his lyrics of the “sun rising on the sea, shining in the fog“. Ripley’s guitar is kaleidoscopic and shimmering.

Your heart is light. Your soul is shadow.

by Mark Lager

(Earth Trip is out June 25th. Trash Amazon and order via Thrill Jockey or Bandcamp)