Stan’s Story
At least two important things happened since Stan Sobczak’s last musical release: he
briefly went off his medication; and, with the money he saved, he bought a Roku.
Over a single two week stretch, Stan watched Broadchurch, several times. He also dug
into The Falls, Five Days, Veep, the first season of Twin Peaks, Game Of Thrones,
Boardwalk Empire, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Forever Knight, Mad Men, the
remastered episodes of the original Star Trek, and several Ken Burns projects.
Stan had to be hospitalized at the end. For a few reasons. For many reasons.
When he returned (to his parents’) home, he discovered that a raccoon had quietly
settled into the record collection room. Whenever Stan attempted to enter the record
collection room, the raccoon would hiss and claw, making impossible for him to grab
any of the CDs, cassettes, and records he had stored.
The only pieces of music Stan could access were balanced on the small table on the
other side of the basement: a Free Design compilation and Tangerine Dream’s
soundtrack to Michael Mann’s Thief.
Every day, Stan would get up around two o’clock in the afternoon and give serious
thought to getting rid of the raccoon. Yet, he never called the animal control officer, the
Department Of Environmental Management, or a pest control expert. One time, he
called his sister, but she just kept asking question after question, which was useless.
Unable to enter the record collection room, Stan simply listened to the Free Design and
Tangerine Dream records, endlessly. Those became the biggest influences on this most
recent Stan Sobczak record.
Sometimes, Stan would call up an installment of Space: 1999 on the Roku, and try to
get it to sync up with The Free Design record. Sometimes, Stan would listen to the
raccoon constructing what was likely some kind of makeshift fort out of his old records.
So many things became part of the creative process.
In January, Stan’s uncle arrived to blast the raccoon apart with a shotgun. He’d heard
about the strange creature from Stan’s sister. The weapon reduced the entire Pousette-
Dart collection to fragments. Both Stan and his uncle were deaf for several days,
afterwards.
With the raccoon being deceased, and the police being very angry about a firearm
being discharged within town limits, Stan decided the album was finished.
Here it is.
Maybe you won’t be disappointed.