The Small Slate​-​Colored Thing

by Chuck Hoffman

The Small Slate-Colored Thing cover art
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05:03
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07:08
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about

I, Charles Hoffman, fully support paying $0 for music downloads. Enter a buck or two or five if you're feeling generous and want to show some appreciation, but if it means the difference between you listening to my stuff or not listening to my stuff, I'd rather have you listening. Thanks.

Recorded in the Centipede Garage 2008, featuring Poopy Pants Jenkins on drums about half the time.

credits

released 17 September 2009
Poopy Pants Jenkins - about half the drums
Chuck Hoffman - almost everything else
Leah Hoffman - lyrics of "Tit For Tat"

tags

tags: alternative garage indie lo-fi noise postpunk punk singer-songwriter Des Moines

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about

Chuck Hoffman has been home-recording and playing in bands since like forever. Then he started a thing called The Centipede ... more Farm that was a combination blog and DIY label for his own stuff. Lately it's started to turn into a DIY label for some other people's stuff too, and that's pretty interesting. less

discography

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Track Name: Along For the Ride
I got a license to act like an idiot
I got witnesses who can testify that I am one
Why am I here? Where am I going?
Who's driving? Who else is coming along?
What are we gonna do there? When do you think we'll get back?
I'm not sure I can be in control here
Maybe I should just quit asking questions

Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Maybe I should just shut up and get in

Am I being taken against my will? I can't really tell
I'm too drunk to see if my hands are tied, I can't even entirely feel them
In fact my body feels like some stranger's appendage, I hope they'll stop by the roadside I think I'm gonna be sick
Who are you, who is that guy, and is this all some kind of crazy trick?

Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Rip me out of myself
Don't look now, just get in
Maybe I should just shut up and get in

It's all blue like the sky above you
It's all blue like the sky below you
It's all blue and it's blue and it's blue and it's blood blood blood blood
It's all blue and it's blue and it's blue and it's blood blood blood blood
It's all blue and it's blue and it's blue and it's blood blood blood blood
It's all blue and it's blue and it's blue and it's blood

Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Rip me out of myself
Don't look now, just get in
Maybe I should just shut up and get in
Track Name: I Heart My Knife
Hey man I just got some money
What you think about you and me head downtown
Pick us up a bottle of whiskey and a revolver
Head on out to the woods and you know like do what comes natural
You know you make me want to claw my own eyes out now

You understand how solutions are never perfect
That sums up about what everything means to me
I'm not gonna let you down my friend
I heart my knife my heart my knife
Our hero found no comfort even in love, will he find it now?
Track Name: The Toaster Takes Too Long
The day is always long
It's never long enough
The time I wasted sleeping
Would it been better spent
In the sun with you
Or even by myself
On my way I bet I get stuck
Right behind some school bus
I'm always trying to find time
But I don't know where to look

The phone is always ringing
Exactly at the worst time
There's something always wrong
The toaster takes too long
And if I had the feeling
Like I got a lot of time
It seems I'm always wrong
Because even the toaster takes too long

I try to laugh at fate
All it does is aggravate me
I tried to leave my house
Forgot something I needed to take
Some days I just want breakfast
Sometimes I need some fun
But then when I'm not watching
The clock starts speeding up
I'm always trying to make time
But there's nothing to make it out of

The phone is always ringing
Exactly at the worst time
There's something always wrong
The toaster takes too long
And if I had the feeling
Like I got a lot of time
Before I know it's gone
Because even the toaster takes too long
Track Name: Do It Again
Well I wonder what's going on in the next room
If only I could be a housefly on the wall
But something's definitely gone wrong in this bedroom
I'm like horsefly trying to walk on a ping-pong ball

Well a home's one thing that you don't have to give me
Never be a housecat in your lap
So I guess what you got I'll keep quietly begging for
Like a hoarse cat on your front porch for some scraps

Hey do it again why don't we do it again
Hey
Hey do it again why don't we do it again
Hey
Hey do it again why don't we do it again
Hey
Hey do it again why don't we do it again
Track Name: Hell Is Flooded III
Forgotten knights drive midnight trains to collide with teenage apocrypha
Ghosts of drowned industrialists haunt their old vacation homes
You were expecting altars in flames
You find it cold dark damp and quiet
Because the Styx has spilled its banks

If Hell is flooded that's not my problem now
A little corroded I could muddle through somehow
But I'm a lost soul, an abandoned fifth-wheel rusting on an off-ramp
And it's hopeless, another chance is no good with nowhere to take it

The burning couches and TV sets are all extinguished
The spray paint fumes have floated away
I sit on a cinder block, the ceiling is all stained brown from the rain
And the radio says it's time to go
Because the Styx has spilled its banks

If Hell is flooded that's not my problem now
A little corroded I could muddle through somehow
But I'm a lost soul, a stray dog sleeping beneath a railroad track
And I'm homeless, another chance is no good with nowhere to take it
Track Name: Buffalo Sweat
Your disregard for your own body is appalling
But I envy your ability to escape it
Because the warmth that's spreading from my stomach
Will only make me cold, and the shivers can't shake it
Track Name: Understand (You)
I want to know
What do you think about everything
What do you think about when you're alone
What do you think about me

I want to know
What do you think about anything
What do you think about this thing
What do you think about that

I wanna understand you
I wanna understand you
I wanna understand you
I wanna understand you
Track Name: Tit For Tat
If you want to stop complaining
Rearrange what you can't change
Identify the problem
Do an apathy exchange
Do an apathy exchange
Do an apathy exchange
Do an apathy exchange
Do an apathy exchange

Your unconcern for everything
Is amusing nonetheless
Decide what doesn't bother you
Eject your carelessness
Eject your carelessness
Eject your carelessness
Eject your carelessness
Eject your carelessness

You hauled away your sofa
And your kitchen table too
Pity on the cold cold floor
Was adequate for you
Was adequate for you
Was adequate for you
Was adequate for you
Was adequate for you

If life for you so bitter
Renders boredom in your day
Make a list of all you hate
Your cares will go away
Your cares will go away
Your cares will go away
Your cares will go away
Your cares will go away
Track Name: Institutional Green
I'm one of several hundred rats in a maze
I don't think the other ones are real
Automatons programmed to provoke me and monitor
How can they force me to feel

My eyes and my lips are
Too big for my face
And this food makes me ill
That they serve in this place
But I'm told they're preparing me for the Real World
Apparently by keeping me shut away from it
Inside of walls painted Institutional Green

Nights away from here haunted by
Surrealist dreams
In which I wander through dilapidated houses
In post-apocalyptic B-movie scenes

Succumb to pressure to be bored
I hate the very idea of ideas
I'll be a good boy the rest of my life
I won't try anything smart
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down before I get beat down
I'm gonna get dumbed down and forget how to try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Try
Track Name: Drunk at the Library
Hey where's the devil where's the devil when you're looking for him?
I ain't using my soul anyway

Come on you know come on you know you never bargained for this
Dim lines dark lines have fenced us in

Artisans, partisans, athletes, aesthetes, we've all been blind
If you're looking for somebody to follow you'll be left behind
Track Name: You (Song)
Ceremonies with good luck toasts
Ancient rituals in basements full of ghosts
Orbits elliptical and eccentric
Recognitions and exaggerations
A man should be evenly round like the sun
Simple logic under pressure of fusion
It was all I could do to keep talking in those circles
Feeling all square until there was you

I look to you
What else would I do
Closest thing to perfect you know I know you know I know oh no
Fatalistic expectations all blown

A long time ago in a dirty old hole
In an above ground box full of bleached out souls
In self-immolating creatures of dust and smoke
Inconsequential and dry to the last drop
Throwing bottles at the passing cars
Burning ourselves to get armored by scars
I kept dreaming of a sleeping angel
Hadn't recognized it as you


I look to you
What else would I do
Bitter fun gave way to something sweet
Broken things got fixed up all complete
Track Name: To Day, With Bonus Cosmic Debris
Sometimes all these emotions just seem engineered
Youth that I may have missed out on, or so I've feared
I find that my mind wants to rewind me back to that day
Fate was in motion, an invitation astray
But with nothing to lose I was afraid of losing anyway
Where would I who would I what would you and I be today?