Musicians Featured:

• Parc Crecelius - acoustic guitar and lead vocals

• Philip Glenn - fiddle, mandolin, acoustic and electric pianos

• Stephen Hodges - drums, percussion (1,6)

• Nathan Hubbard - drums, percussion (2,3,5,7)

• Jeremy Long - pedal steel (3,5,10)

• George Madrid - pedal steel (1,8)

• John Miranda - drums, percussion (4)

• Jessie Payo - lead vocals (3), backing vocals (1,2,6,7)

• Elijah Peters - harmonica (7,9)

• Chris Schlarb - acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals

• Leeann Skoda - backing vocals (1,2,6,7)

• David Tranchina - electric and double bass

• Alex Vo - electric and acoustic lead guitar (2,3,7)

Cover Artwork:

• Cover Photo by Larissa Jaks

• Back Cover Photos by Devin O’Brien

• Layout by David J. Woodruff

Liner Notes by Gabe Soria:

I Dreamed I Saw St. Yoakam (and Others)
Or
Notes on a Trailer Parc Record

This might have happened when I first spun Beer & Skittles. It might not have. Either way, what follows is all true, and that’s all that matters.
It was a dream, the ones that come with an unexpected afternoon nap, where one moment you’re upright and the next your head nods and the next you’re laid out like a has-been boxer. The feverish, unexpected kind, where you wake up more tired than you were before, shaky on your feet and uncertain for if anything is real for the next twenty or so minutes.
In the dream I reached into the pocket of my trucker jacket and withdrew a bar napkin. Unfolding it, I could see writing scribbled on the back. The words were smudged by a ring of condensation left by a beer bottle or a glass of whiskey; couldn’t tell which and I guess it didn’t matter. They were directions.
“Take a Left at the Armadillo World Headquarters, go straight on your way to San Antone, drive to Lubbock (all the way), then aim the hood ornament towards Bakersfield (by way of Terlingua) and you’ll get to where you’re going.”
Cryptic, sure. But dream logic confidence led me to believe that I could follow them well enough, so I recruited a crew of ne’er-do-wells and reckless characters and we started driving, driving, driving, listening to a magic AM radio station all the way, a station that faded out with the best kind of static as we got further from where we began and faded back in with even sweeter static as we got closer to our unknown destination, and that station was jockeyed by a saint of an announcer, a kind soul who knew exactly when to pluck the heartstrings and when to drop black hammers.
Then, suddenly, in the way dreams go, dusk was approaching and we pulled off the road as dusk settled and decided to have ourselves a lie-down. To keep warm, one of us scratched out a circle in the dust, then placed some found cinder blocks onto that ring and tossed some dry mesquite therein. Soon--thanks to some matches from a strip club and a few years’ worth of old bills that we found in the glovebox--we had the kindling for a proper blaze. Night took hold, and though we weren’t trying to channel nobody and weren’t trying to do any spells or the like, visions began to form in the woodsmoke as it filtered the great rivers of stars above us.
“That sure looks like Townes up there, tipping his hat,” said one of us.
“No, I do believe that’s Jerry Jeff,” said another.
“Nah, it’s Levon!”
“It’s Gram!”
“Heck to that, it’s Dwight!”
Irreligious though we all were, we still made the sign of the cross and offered up prayers for Dwight, ‘cause he ain’t dead yet. But you get the point. Something about that trip and that radio station and that night had gotten into us and spooked us in the best way. We all saw what we wanted to see and we all heard what we wanted to hear, and all of us were right with the world, in our own way.
Shaking out of our reverie, we realized that between us we had boosted a couple of cans of chili from the last gas station we had stopped at and another one of us had stuck a pack of hot dogs down their pants. Thus blessed, we had ourselves an evening, singing songs, feasting and toasting to Mr. Yoakam’s eternal health. In the morning, we kicked sand and poured our almost-empties over the coals of the fire, then we piled back into the car and turned the radio back on and drove off with the sun at our backs…
And that’s when I woke up, groggy and confused, this record by Trailer Parc still playing. I scratched my belly, stretched and began to write it all down and puzzle out what it all might mean. This is what I figured:
Nostalgia is a killer, and pining for the past can be as effective as poison, sure enough. But that doesn’t change the fact that heartbreak is eternal, loneliness is a constant, and, to paraphrase a wise fool, beer is the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. Imagine a white highway line painted through history: that’s a line that Parc walks in the glare of headlights, steady like someone who’s been here before, but with a bit of an insouciant wobble if you’ve got the eyes and ears to notice it.
But everything checks out. He touches his nose, does the backwards count, and he’s back on his way, driving in that liminal space between tradition and new myth, turning that radio up. Herein you’ll find shuffles and two-steps, duets and ballads, rave-ups and laments, and all these songs...well now.
They’re new twists on old tales.
Road trips to bar rooms at the end of the world.
Visions through the smoke.