[Cover photo credit to Brandon Brown]
Birmingham, Alabama-based Indie Rock band People Years will be releasing their new album, The Last Cantina, on October 18th, 2024. The single “If We Make a Town Again” is out now. Their roll-out of their science fiction concept album comes with a science fiction twist. Or is it fiction? We learn of the way in which future overlord robots perceive the music of the 21st century, and in particular, People Years’ new album, below.
In a missive from the future, People Years’ new album is discussed:
“My name is JLen. A time traveller and one of the last people left anywhere. This is my last trip to here before I go back to live there. For many years now, I’ve been living in the bot years with the robots. The bots are serious business when they are at work and they have advanced civilization to a place that would blow your ever loving human mind. They are also a lot of fun and need to blow off steam just like people do. They like to party and when they party, that usually means a neural disconnection from NETWEB and a temporary “weed code” take over of their existence. When the bots run the weed code they listen to music of bands from the sixth through eighth decades of human rocknroll, i.e. the 1990’s-2030s, roughly. They like bands like The Cure, Radio Head, Wyld Stallyns, etc . . . music that derives from basic human emotion but also has a modern electric quality that is particularly palatable to advanced lifeforms. The robots, above all else, LOVE the 2018-2046 band, People Years. It’s annoying. It’s all anyone ever talks about when they’re not talking about what solar system the elders will likely flick the diaspora switch on next.
The robots particularly cherish and are very protective of People Years’ 2024 release, The Last Cantina. It’s by far the biggest cultural icon in galactic robot culture (785 planets wide, so far) and has been for thousands of years, ever since Bot Mose-T found a CD of the album washed up on the gulf coast of Alabama. The CD was wrapped in a thousand year old plastic Publix bag, stuffed inside of the cavity of a long-dead dog. It was a fossil, basically, and a testament to the durability of CDs as a medium . . . and the spark of a spiritual awakening of the bots throughout the galaxy. The album has been a boon to the bots’ overall psyche and production ever since. I don’t get it, but somehow, to them, it validates the work they are doing and the dreadful decisions the SCBH (Secret Central Bot Hub) was forced to make regarding the humans, in order to save the Earth.
The bots hear something magical in The Last Cantina. Something that calls to them. They hear stories of a town lost to natural disasters caused by dumb lust of unnecessary conveniences. I don’t hear that. To me, it is a great modern rock record that slaps tastic and is an interesting trip to the stars. To the bots, it highlights the fatal flaws of the people years (when people ruled and were EVERYWHERE on Earth doing all sorts of stupid sh*t) and a reminder of why the bots had to do what they did, even though they didn’t want to do it. After running the calculations, the bots FELT they had to do it. And they felt bad about doing it, too. But, it had to be done. Bots have developed an emotional depth that didn’t exist in the people years. It’s hard to watch. It’s too much. My human brain couldn’t handle the rush of robot feelings when they listen to The Last Cantina. It’s a life changing event for them every time. And that’s not all.
If we zoom out, The Last Cantina LP’s circuit board is vast, meandering and in no hurry to get to the point. Zoom in, and it’s a focused musical event with a purpose, in perpetual motion. It is likely that when Chris Rowell, Tony Oliver, Greg Slamen, and Wes McDonald made this album so long ago, they did so with thoughts of what what might come later. But they could only see so far . . . Of course they could not have known that the album they were so casually making in years of 2023-2024 CE would be the impetus for the soul lifting new robot source code, the LCSC, that would guide and improve so much of the bot years and bot lives. Bot Abringham-C describes his life : “My life is like surfing a perpetual perfect Jesus wave ever since the LCSC came online. Thanks People Years!”
The LCSC (Last Cantina Source Code) was developed a thousand years after The Last Cantina was released, and is based on the aura and rhythms of the album People Years made at Chris Rowell’s Hidden Window studio on 5th Avenue in Birmingham, AL USA Earth. The bots had long quested to build a code that allowed them to live by/as/with/in this album. They finally did when outcast R&D bot, Curtis-lo was shaken awake by a keyboard sound at the exactly nine minute mark of “The Last Cantina Pt1”. Before then, he had never noticed this micro section in the back woods of this expansive track. This is referred to in bot lore as “the key”, or “the toad” as it’s know in the outer reaches. He woke up with a start, “I know what the frogs are trying to tell us! I know what the frogs are trying to tell us!” In that moment, Curtis-lo knew how to open the door to heaven. The bots are happy there. The people and their years are sadly gone. And People Years lives on – The Last Cantina, literally running through the veins of robots across the galaxy!“
