Daytrotter Session - Feb 28, 2012

Feb 28, 2012 Daytrotter Studio Rock Island, IL by SIMS
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  1. Welcome to Daytrotter
  2. Burn In Down
  3. Sink or Syncopate
  4. Hey You
  5. Future Shock
  6. Lighthouse
It's one of those mornings that come after a bout with a few days prior and you're unsure if you've accomplished anything, if you're any better off than you were before those handful of previous days. You're tired and exhausted. You're sure that you've missed out on some things. You've missed and been missed. You've slept horribly. You've awoken in a sweet. You've become resigned to something that's similar to a hollow pang and a white and glowing screen that you still sit positioned in front of you whenever you close your eyes. It's the oracle and it's the nightmare that guide you. Last night, you spent some time talking with some friends and some strangers about the craziness that you're feeling and they've got it too. It's the same shit that they've got. It's that inability to turn anything off, to let go of anything and just be something like a human being is supposed to be. It's a conversation that we could have roped Doomtree MC SIMS into and he would have felt as comfortable as could be.

The Minneapolis native writes lines that come at you like the hyper-descriptive and contemplative scripture of a high-level poet who is having the gnarliest time with all of the humdrum, easy stuff that keeps getting harder and harder to figure out, for some reason. In a way, he's mostly writing about fate and the cruel nature of it. He's writing about the ways that we all allow ourselves to get completely out of control - the ways in which our legs and our twitching eyes get motoring faster than our poor hearts can take and we wind up decimated, shaky and cold. Andrew Sims says that he just reflects smoke and it seems that it's his way of suggesting that he's calling it as he sees it, commenting on and bouncing off the exhalations and the deceptions that are put out there so that people can deal with their complicated lives. Feeling good in a day sometimes only amounts to a thought like, "He might smoke the whole pack," as if the cigarettes were a victory, a treat for good tidings and self-satisfaction. It hardly seems like that should be enough. Is that all you want out of a day that feels good - getting to smoke the whole pack?

A song like "Sink Or Syncopate," is a prime example of the fogginess of depression and resilience, of someone slagging off the tough times, but still knowing that not much of anything you're going to do is going to correct them or lessen them. He raps, "She took a pull of whiskey and said I pray the hand I'm dealt/I'm gonna get there you know, even if I have to put the feathers on myself/One stitch at a time." It's enough to buoy the woman in question, believing that there is another side to the shitty deal, that there is still a way to get off the ground. But first, some whiskey, because there's no telling when all of the feathers will be affixed. SIMS, even at what seems to be his most downtrodden, believes in the human spirit even though its fires often burn low and scarily cool. He says, "I walk with you/You walk with me/You won't find what you want/But you'll find what you'll need/And it's funny how you'll stumble into the right thing and then it's just like/It feels like stumbling."