The making of texas was based on a bet. One I made between myself and the universe. The wager was that at the turn of the twenty first century, with culture gatekeepers struggling to keep the ground under their feet, there would be a sizable number of listeners who hoped to find artists speaking a language that neither reflected the mainstream nor the officially sanctioned 'alternatives' to it.
This turned out to be true, although it took quite a while for that revolutionary reality to firm up. In the meantime, it was perhaps quixotic to level my javelins at GenX alternaculture whilst trying to establish a musical nom de guerre in the new online marketplace. In 2026, it's a bit amusing to hear lines about the Church of the Subgenius alongside anime and John Coltrane, but all of those things were part and parcel of the High Fidelity record store/backstage at the black-walled club authoritative cool kids scene I slogged uncomfortably through in the '90s. Emerging on the back side of that, maybe I was feeling a bit fighty.
That said, this song is among my most vulnerable, revealing a depth of unhipness that most would have hidden, but which to me felt like a rallying cry. On the occasions when someone connects with it, we see each other clearly, there on the outside looking in.
Here's to the misfits.