JEFF ROSENSTOCK
NO DREAM

NO DREAM is the 4th studio record from the Death Rosenstock band full of chords, words, beats and more! Tracked live in a big room for that classic "is that a mistake?" sound by Grammy-nominated recorded "Grammy Jack" Shirley, you are GUARANTEED to have not heard this record before you've listened to it! We hope it makes you feel good, but if it doesn't, that's on you sorry.

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1. NO TIME
2. Nikes (Alt)
3. Scram!
4. N O D R E A M
5. State Line
6. f a m e
7. Leave It In The Sun
8. The Beauty Of Breathing
9. Old Crap
10. ***BNB
11. Monday At The Beach
12. Honeymoon Ashtray
13. Ohio Tpke

JOHN DEDOMENICI - BASS
KEVIN HIGUCHI - DRUMS
MIKE HUGUENOR - GUITAR, VOCALS
DAN POTTHAST - ACOUSTIC GUITAR, KEYS, VOCALS
JEFF ROSENSTOCK - VOCALS, GUITAR, KEYS N MORE

LAUREN BRIEF - VOCALS ON 4
CHRIS FARREN - KEYS, VOCALS ON 8 'N' 12
LAURA STEVENSON - VOCALS ON 3, 6, 7, 8 'N' 12
BOB VIELMA - TROMBONE ON 6, 10 'N' 13

VOX N CLAP SQUAD: GILBERT ARMENDARIZ, ANGELINA BANDA, LAUREN BRIEF, SIM CASTRO, LAURA HAMMOND 'N' NEIL SHARMA

RECORDED BY JACK SHIRLEY AT THE ATOMIC GARDEN EAST
MIXED BY JACK SHIRLEY AND JEFF ROSENSTOCK
MASTERED BY THE ONE & ONLY “GRAMMY JACK” SHIRLEY
ADDITIONAL RECORDING BY JEFF, DAN, LAURA & CHRIS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE HOMES
PRE-PRODUCTION AT DISTRICT RECORDERS IN SAN JOSE, CA

ILLUSTRATIONS BY BEN LEVIN
DESIGN JUNK BY JEFF ROSENSTOCK

GREG HORBAL & CARLY GOLDBERG - US BOOKING STUFF
RICK JOHNSON - LIVE SOUND STUFF
CHRISTINE MACKIE - TOUR STUFF
ANDREW SUMMERS - DRIVING STUFF
GANDHAR SUVAR - LAW STUFF
HIRO TANAKA - PHOTO STUFF
ED THOMPSON - UK / EUROPE BOOKING STUFF

Thanks to everyone above! Parts of this record were written in East Durham, NY at Kara Zuaro & Pete D’Angelo’s double wide trailer - thanks again! And while I’m thankin’ away let’s do this thing - thanks Ryan Perras and Stacey Kimura for letting us work the record out at your place and we’re sorry the toilet broke. Thanks to Mike Park for everything ever, Talia Miller for telling people about the last record, Polyvinyl fam for that deep dish pizza, baby. Thanks Skylar & Joa for letting us crash while working on this record. Jason Klein @ Fender, Tim Dove @ Ernie Ball, Chris Brady @ Aquarian, Shirlene Lau & Christian Stankee @ Sabian, Henry Go @ Innovative Percussion, Alex Auxier @ Orange & Mitch Marcum @ DreamEarz yooooo thanks for hookin’ it up!

Thanks to all of our partners, friends and family for being supportive of this weird un-adult shit we’ve gotten ourselves into and welcoming us wherever we land with open arms. Thanks to Lemuria, Roar, Chris Farren, Laura Stevenson, Martha, Bad Moves, Worriers, Sean Bonnette, Remo Drive, Lincoln LeFevre & The Insiders,The Hanny J Experience, Remember Sports & Joyce Manor for sweatin’ on planet Earth with us. Thanks Ben Levin, Creek fam, Mikey Erg Band, Zack Mykula, Amanda Fotes, Jake Katz, Per-Magnus Söder, Nacho & Yolanda, Luke, Tim & Nick, Jamie Coletta, AJJ, PUP Fam, Katie Ellen, Eric & Val & Night Owls Print Shop. Damn I feel like I forgot to thank like fuckin’ fifty people.

Hey thank you by the way, it’s been very cool and good to play music for people who are cool with us being our hyperactive freakbaby selves. We are lucky fuckies.

For Britt.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

 



PROCEEDS FROM YR DONATION WILL GO TO FOOD NOT BOMBS, WHO FOR 40 YEARS HAS PROVIDED FREE VEGAN/VEG MEALS TO THE HUNGRY IN PROTEST TO WAR, POVERTY AND DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT!

NO TIME

Did you learn to make amends with your pile of flaming shit? Gain the patience to deal with total idiots without losing your composure? Oh please, tell me how it is!

I didn’t have the time.

Did you learn to forge a path towards existing comfortably in a total nightmare concurrent with legal weed? Did you harness the inner fortitude to present gracefully?

I didn’t have the time.

When you wake, does it feel like you have a purpose?
When you wake, does it feel like you had a purpose all along?

Exploiting all my deep narcissistic tendencies.
Basking in the fruits of my soft complicity
Did you turn into a person that you really want to be?
I didn’t have the time.

Nikes (Alt)

Looking down the barrel of a shitty future, throwing back whatever we can to avoid the dread of what’s been said but there’s just no escaping it.
Trying to find the words to explain what it feels like.
Buggin’ out like “Wait, did I say something weird?
But that is just the price of faking like we’re innocent.

Chasing bliss
Chasing bliss is only numbing it.

Looking for a dream that won’t morph to a nightmare
Lying to myself about things that I love
Cause I’m distracted by public displays of happiness
So I scour the internet for a new pair of Nikes
Status symbol shit that I say I’m above
Disown control
Oh no
Oh no
I’m fucking full of shit

Stinkin’ rich hypocrite
No it’s not gonna bring no happiness
No it’s not gonna bring no happiness

There’s no vacant bliss.
There’s no vacant bliss.
There’s no vacant bliss.
There’s no vacant bliss.

Scram!

I’ve been told for most my life
“Wait until the perfect time”
By people who have been defined by
Skipping spots in line

Don’t you wanna go away?
Don’t you wanna go away?
Don’t you wanna go away?
Don’t you wanna scram!

I’ve been told for most my life
“Try to see the other side”
By people who have never tried to
See the other side

Don’t you wanna go away?
Don’t you wanna go away?

Don’t you wanna scram?
Don’t you wanna hide?
Don’t you wanna get away tonight?
Don’t you wanna run?
Don’t you wanna die?
Don’t you wanna get away tonight?
Not hearing all your shit
Don’t waste my fuckin’ time
Don’t you wanna get away tonight?
Go kick rocks and die.

Everything you say is to make me feel stupid
Everything you say is to make me feel bad
Everything you say is a distraction,
So I’m not listening to you.

N O   D R E A M

They were picking up the bodies on TV
when I caught a reflection of you and me
staring back at us while frozen on the screen.
Crank the white noise and pretend
that we’re asleep
that we’re asleep
dream dream dream dream

They were separating families carelessly
under the guise of protecting you and me.
Jailing innocents, no hope of being free.
Crank the white noise and pretend
that we’re asleep
that we’re asleep
dream dream dream

They were lining up the unsuspecting teens
for a violent moment of celebrity.
Golden bullets blessed by lobbyist money
Splash a tidal wave of blood into your stream
Weaponizing what’s left of your empathy
Trapped inside a void that zeroes out the screams
It’s not a dream
It’s not a dream
It’s not a dream
It’s not a dream
It’s not a dream
Not a dream
Not a dream
It’s not a dream

The only framework capitalism can thrive in is dystopia. Fuck all the fakers acting like they’re interested in hearing us when we yell, “Hold accountable the architects of hopelessness and neverending violence!”

They’ll be like “whatever, idiot” and fuel their brand of power incorruptible like it exists. Saintly fronts in a system that rewards only the greediest.
The only endgame for capitalism is dystopia and we know all about but we just don’t know what to do.
What can we do?
What can we do?

“Nothing more to see here y’all.
Good night, start heading for the exits.”

FUCK VIOLENCE.

State Line

So long!
I’m staying home less than leaving.
Anxious more often than lookin alive.
Stoned more than feeling.
Drunk more than sleeping.
Too loud in Sweden, they turned off the lights.

Can I take a piece of you swerving through mountains
after the night shift?
Pull off in traffic and let me outside.
Carelessly plant it
Sleep mask and wishing,
“Turn into something, don’t let it die.”

Can I take a piece of you ‘cross the state line
like the rhythm steals my body
like the summer steals my mind?
The feeling that follows you from a past life,
when you lose it in a moment
can you tell yourself it’s fine?

Pictures of toilets across the planet.
Stuff this in your pocket and wait in the line to trade it for chocolates, cough drops, some weird chips, coffee or something.
I don’t have the time.

Can I take a piece of you ‘cross the state line
like the rhythm steals my body
like the summer steals my mind?
The feeling that follows you from a past life,
when you lose it in a moment
can you tell yourself it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine?

f a m e

Did you lose the magic?
Did you make it tragic?
Did you form a habit?
Did you lie about it?
Did you know the reasons
but ignore the reasons
like the dopes believin’
that we kept the seasons?
Well, line up to watch it crash and burn.

Be a nonconformist
Be an aging tourist
Hustle like a tortoise
Show me where the floor is
Latent psychoactive
Feeling apparatus
Like if you seem alive they won’t know that you’re dead
I mean, if you feel alive then you know you’re not dead
(uh oh)

Line up
to watch it
crash and burn
the fame
the fame
the fame

You don’t even know me
You will not control me
Go ahead disown me
You will not control me
You can give the roasting
You can have the trophy
You can have it all
You can have it all
You will not control
You will not control
Alone alone alone alone
Alone alone alone alone
Leave me the fuck alone.

Leave It In The Sun

Don't let me know all the reasons that it probably shouldn't work or let me know all the things I'll never do. Don't go reframing my truth in a context versus you, 
all aggressive like I got something to prove.

If you knew that I think about you every single day, would it make you feel like I'm too much for you? Or would you kinda wanna say, "You don't have to feel that way. I've been trying not to think about you too."

Leave it in the sun
To melt away
Leave it in the sun
To melt away
Or burn the skin

Subconsciously stacked an empty beercan pyramid on a shaky table in a stranger's home. When I hightail out of town, someone else will knock it down because I'm too proud to do it on my own. The hardest part of growing up is letting go.

The Beauty Of Breathing

Sometimes I wanna take the car out on the road, flip it into park and smash myself into a million little pieces. I’m tired of knowing what about myself is wrong but never mustering up the resolve to really try and change it. I walk outside and people say “hey” and sometimes I just wanna say “hey, go away.
Go away.”
So I guess I better stay inside.

I’ve read that if you just sit in a chair and think of focusing your nervous energy on the beauty of breathing you could live a life of real tranquility. But I just thought of every stupid thing that’s been keeping me from sleeping.

I close my eyes and it won’t go away. I plug my ears but they’re ringing out,
“HEY!
HEY!!!!
HEYYYYY!!!!
HEYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

It keeps me from believing
that maybe someday the thing will work.
Maybe I won’t feel like a jerk.
Maybe the words I say will stop coming out weighted.
Maybe someday I’ll want to breathe and
Maybe the people that I meet won’t lead to a certain future where I’m betrayed and I’m so jaded.

& that’s why I’m so fucking sad.

Old Crap 

Go back to the old crap
To the things you tell yourself you’ve gotten through.
But it’s just been a week of
Desperately trying not to sweat off the glue
‘Cause the body wants to do things
that the body wants to do.
It’s a shell coated in candy
for the ground that waits for you.

Rip your friends off.
Write a new song,
Call it “Shame” and claim its indelible truths,
Play the victim,
Be a shithead,
Throw the blame at anyone coming for you
‘Cause the brain’s gonna do things
that the brain’s gonna do.
I’m the worst kind of person
And I’m still in love with you.

Howzit animosity can just cut right through the fog of a pixelated memory that you figured was long gone and it shapeshifts into guilt that corners you into rights and wrongs ‘cause you told yourself you’re the kind of person who knows how to move on and the only way to trick yourself into not feeling insane are the negative impulses that you struggle to restrain? You know that nothing’s real but you sink your hooks into mistakes anyway and you’re paralyzed by the how’s and why’s because people never change.

You can call it "angst" but I ain’t seen proof
That the world ain’t fucked
And we ain’t just doomed to the truth.

I’m still gonna do all of the things I want to do
But the truth at the moment is
I’m tired of the truth.
Yeah, I’m tired and I’m through.

***BNB 

Sam,
Your mom has secretly been renting out your home. I used the shower sponge when you went to Spain alone. She told us it’s been rough and you deserved a break and marrying that guy, obviously was mistake - you had a couple kids but now he’s always gone and you’re stuck sweeping hair at your mommy’s hair salon.

The flat you have upstairs, tucked in the suburbs safe, is running low on bread and other amenities ‘cause your mom’s been secretly renting your place.

Al,
Your elevator looked in hella disrepair but I’m not fuckin’ with a dozen flights of stairs. I tenderized my legs somewhere in Germany trying to convince the bored to pay attention to me. The absinthe that we drank? I’m not sure it was real. Massage place in the building? We know what‘s the fuckin’ deal ‘cause fratboys wait outside, pretending their not there, avert their glassy eyes, but I don’t really care.

I don’t wanna lay in bed and stare at the ceiling
While chasing the fleeting
There’s too much in my head to sleep
And I did the thing that movie said,
“Foot on the floor beside the bed”
Still too much in my head to sleep tonight.
Get fucked up, break your stupid bones again.
Get fucked up, lose your telephone again.
Get fucked up, bother all your friends again.
Get fucked up, shame your broken heart again.

I really gotta leave, but I just wanna stay. I’m only a real person for a quarter-dozen days until I gotta scram, until I go away and turn into a person that I didn’t want to be - cultivating mold on my laundry and becoming so afraid I’m honestly placing bets on a chemical crapshoot with my brain.
Cleaning for the dealer so I’ll black out on the plane.
Mumbling in the dark and living vicariously
Through a photo album in a stranger’s BNB.

Monday At The Beach

If the weather stays as good or better
I might wake up early and escape
If the terror of our end together
Can sit still enough to wake up late

I don't know if it will take
Four hours there and back by train
I don't know if the whole wide world is
Gonna end while I'm away
I don't know if I
Deserve to go

But it's a Monday at the beach
Monday at the beach
Monday at the beach
Monday at the beach

If the weather
Can keep it together

Honeymoon Ashtray

Early afternoon at the souvenir shoppe, bought a funny ashtray for a couple bucks and we ate pizza under the moonlight (or we ate french fries? under the moonlight.) “Why would any hotel have a bearskin rug? Why would they assume I’m cool with where it’s from?” I murmur to you soaking in the sky.

Soon enough it can’t get any darker, we’ll toss and turn once it starts getting hotter.

You could give me an ultimatum with a loaded gun, I still can’t tell you what day of the week we’re on. Some days I blink and suddenly it’s night and I broke my promise - didn’t go outside. Dust collects the second that you wipe it off. Too late to vacuum but not too late to toss the roaches I discarded late at night that piled up in the ashtray over time.

It feels indicative of a disaster
A manifestation of ambitions shattered
And I’ll lean into it, keep getting sadder,
It doesn’t mean that it really matters.

It doesn’t mean that it really matters.
Yeah honestly, it doesn’t even matter.
Everything’s not just a fucking omen.

Under the blanket in our messy home let’s remind each other what we’re doing right ‘cause seek for cracks and surely we will find. Yeah, seek for cracks and surely ye will find don’t seek for cracks when everything is fine.

Ohio Tpke

Ohio Turnpike
Another hour or two
Counting the dashed lines
Bringing me back to you.

Another short night
And our summer is through
So pick a good song
To usher you through the gloom.

When I see your face after the flight home
I know I’m not alone
When you call my name through the modern snow
I know I’m not alone

I ditched the rental
Grabbed the receipts off the dash
Threw out the baggie
Of coffee grounds and ash

I’ll let you go now
That’s all I’ve got to report.
Sorry I didn’t get
Better at being short.

When I see your face after the flight home
I know I’m not alone
Can you call my name through the modern snow
Because I don’t want to feel alone.
No I don’t want to feel alone.

Prepare for the landing and
Prepare to be vaguely accused
By the sad and underslept
In their royal blues
Pettin’ the window, cuz
I wanna know what it’d feel like
If I got to go outside.

And at the bag claim
With eyes peeled for tatters of tags
Flying half-mast
like the flag.

And through the families
We wade in a quest for a cab
Nobody wishes for the things
That they already have.
We relive every misstep that we’ve made in our lives
And hoard our scary secrets til they wake us at night
And we think we can’t escape from it
But maybe we might
If we try to just acknowledge we can do anything right.

You know
You’re the only person that I wanted to like me
You’re the only person that I wanted to like me
All these other motherfucking dipshits can bite me
You’re the only person that I wanted to like me.

I miss coming home to you.
I miss coming home to you.
I miss coming home to you.
I hate coming home.
I hate leaving home.