BEAST FROM THE EAST (2018)

Could’ve Been Great

This could've been great

But we'll never know

I carry on

I will survive and grow

But it'll never be the same as it is right now

A stream can only flow when it's allowed to be

Strength is not a trait that you can teach

Focus on yourself and I'll worry about me

But I just think you should know

This could've been great

I guess the grind

It ain’t for us all

The wind against

Your face during the fall

Can be too much for some men to take

But staring down from the top can be its own mistake

Strength is not a trait that you can teach

Focus on yourself and I'll worry about me

But I just think you should know

This could've been great

Strength is not a trait that you can teach

Focus on yourself and I'll worry about me

But I just think you should know

This could've been great

*

City by the Bay

Wanderlust claimed my soul

When I was twenty three

I've roamed and rambled

But knew home would always be

A city by the bay

Where cobblestone lines the streets

And the smell of the tide is carried

By the breeze of the Chesapeake

Where we could busk for cash

Down in the market space

And we would share a flask

Til we made enough to buy a case

Where we knew a couple bars

That were easy on ID's

Or we could always grab a bottle

And start a fire on the beach

No matter where I go

I'll always come back home

To my city by the bay

City by the bay

Our city by the bay

City by the bay

Now I am a man grown

Most of my friends have moved away

And the bars we used to sneak in

They all go by different names

Life became so fast

Boys grew into men

Making money for the bills

Replaced house parties that would never end

But gone it ain’t forgotten

And I'll keep moving like the tide

And home it’ll always be

Any bar where we can share a pint

We were legends in our time

Making the most out of our youth

We grew our separate ways

But we'll always share our roots

No matter where we go

We’ll always have our home

Back at our city by the bay

City by the bay

Our city by the bay

City by the bay

*

Crazy

Girl you drive me crazy

And I'm addicted to the high

One minute you amaze me

And the next I want to die

You're looking for attention

When you say that you need space

You storm away in anger

And then you expect for me to chase

Tell me what to do

Cause I haven’t got a clue

I’m begging darling please

Girl you drive me crazy

And I'm addicted to the high

One minute you amaze me

And the next I want to die

I never know what you'll say

Because it varies day to day

Girl you drive me crazy

I guess I shouldn't be surprised

See I'm stubborn and I'm loud

Arguing out of spite

I think I know it all

But where is the logic in a fight?

Darling I confess

I'm a testosterone fueled mess

It's running through my genes

Girl you drive me crazy

And I'm addicted to the high

One minute you amaze me

And the next I want to die

I never know what you'll say

Because it varies day to day

Girl you drive me crazy

I guess I shouldn't be surprised

Passion is a double sided sword

A vicious beast that cannot be ignored

Whether lion or lamb

She's always in command

But hey, at least we're never bored

Girl you drive me crazy

And I'm addicted to the high

One minute you amaze me

And the next I want to die

I never know what you'll say

Because it varies day to day

I said I never know what you’ll say

But I love you anyway

Girl you drive me crazy

I guess I shouldn't be surprised

I'm such a lucky guy

I'm in it ‘til I die

*

Hard Liquor

(Ft. Zach Fowler, Jesse Lee, Howi Spangler)

Hard liquor got me getting drunk quicker

No mixer tryin to fuck up my liver

I’ll drink a handle post some dumb shit on twitter

Can’t stop cause I ain’t no quitter, listen up and I’ll paint you a picture,

Alcoholics talk about clarity and it’s clear to me that it’s plain to see

Every drink I take is a drink I make numb down surrounding reality

Honestly, it’s hard to be, another mother fucker trying to chase a dream

So I chase my dream with some jimmy bean ‘til I’m babbling like a possessed fiend

This liquor has got me running my mouth

All of my opinions are coming out

On top of the bar and I'm ready to shout

You clowns wanna know what I'm really about

Booze is a crutch and I ain’t healing I’m going to end up going to meetings

But until then I’m a keeping on beating demons away with liquid meaning

How I’m dealing with my feelings is drinking up liquor ‘til I’m reeling

Laying in bed with a spinning ceiling, praying to the God of porcelain kneeling

Pull out the bottle please pour out a shot or three

Give me the bottle keep the shots and be my company

We’re getting drunk tonight, it ain’t gonna make shit right

But it can't get worse and I’ve done my verse so fuck it man, let’s get tight

Hard liquor got me gettin drunk quicker

No mixer tryin to fuck up my liver

I’ll drink a handle post some dumb shit on twitter

Can’t stop cause I ain’t no quitter, listen up and I’ll paint you a picture,

(Zach Fowler Verse)

Coronas and Crown

You line ‘em up we put ‘em down

Put it all on Hardesty I heard he’s buying rounds

Make it a double cause tonight I’m causing trouble

Catch me by the bar connecting pieces of the puzzle

Oogee Lee & SDV

Bumpin Uglies Plus Howi

Sometime around three this bar is begging us to leave

So tomorrow I repent from a lack of common sense

But in my defense I was drinking Rumplemintz

(Jesse Lee Verse)

I crack a bottle get drunk and I hit McDonald’s

My head will wobble from shots and sippin’ Cabo

A vintage wine with legs like runway models

Full throttle no sorrows my motto is quit tomorrow

I can drink with the best and I’m not braggin

With pants sagging no laughin just Van Dammin

This booze covers all the baggage I’m draggin

Took me twelve steps to get in then I torched that fuckin’ wagon

Ask Brandon

Hard liquor got me gettin drunk quicker

No mixer tryin to fuck up my liver

I’ll drink a handle post some dumb shit on twitter

Can’t stop cause I ain’t no quitter, listen up and I’ll paint you a picture,

(Howi Spangler)

See all the ladies I’ve dated they’ve demonstrated they hate it

When I get frustrated and faded thinkin bout how I ain't made it

I found a whiskey that loves me tolerates a curmudgeon

My followers on my socials see me hollerin Fuck it

I’m a man with a passion for theatrics and drama

I tweet at four in the morning ain’t got no time for the commas

These millennials love that heavy shit guess it’s my compelling wit

Bring ‘em to the fellowship and crush another day drinkin

I’m drinkin Espolon out the liquor bong

Chugging margaritas from dusk ‘til dawn

Mr. Wrong with them sake bombs

Feels like I'm livin in a drinkin song

Find me in the club with a gallon flask

Drunk off my ass punks actin’ crass

Next morning catch me at mass

Pullin keg stands off the communion cask

I am a menace that is void of all repentance

Drinkin anything fermented while I’m slurin all my sentences

Defending this is top of an extensive list

Entitled fucks I don't give, fuck how you live, I’m a keep it going ‘til your boys demented

Hard liquor got me gettin drunk quicker

No mixer tryin to fuck up my liver

I’ll drink a handle post some dumb shit on twitter

Can’t stop cause I ain’t no quitter, listen up and I’ll paint you a picture

*

Budtender

(Ft. Gary Dread)

21st century prospectors

They are the 21st century bootleggers but

The gold in their hills has an emerald hue

Ganja farmer he has got a market now too

They got their cash in stacks in a storage unit

Stash in sacks sold by opportunists

If sticky green nugs are your type of vice

They'll sell you elevation at a reasonable price

I’m talking about the

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

They got the Pineapple Express for anxiety

And the White Rhino helps with your A.D.D.

Shatter and the butter for your dab rig

The fire puts you under with the first hit

Can't bank any of their cash fearing a government interaction

They won't condone the business but they'll still accept its taxes

Federal oppression in the works but the fact is

They're about to lose a war fought over herbs and waxes

I’m talking about the

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

(Gary Dread)

Roll up in the spot to get the best from the west

Then I take a good draw and hold deep in a my chest

No bush only Kush to alleviate the stress

Budtender links me up so I feel forever blessed

Herbal remedy, remedy are the remedy for me

Uplifts my soul and gives me better energy

Just the remedy, remedy are the remedy for me

Free up the herbs to balance my sanity...yea

I’m talking about the

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

Bud tenders at the dispensary

Making a living selling your remedy

*

The Waiting Game

I need to turn my head off

Before it overloads

Playing every angle out

Is no good for my soul

I wish I could let go

And watch as it unfolds

But greatness cannot happen

Without some form of control

So I hold the rope, yea

I hold the rope, I hold the rope, yea

Today I'm going to stay in bed

And sleep away the day

I've got nothing to offer

And it'll always be that way

I feel every rejection

Like a knife into the heart

That which gives me purpose

Tears me back apart

I need to turn my head off

Before it overloads

Playing every angle out

Is no good for my soul

I wish I could let go

And watch as it unfolds

But greatness cannot happen

Without some form of control

So I hold the rope, yea

I hold the rope, I hold the rope, yea

This feeling is a cancer

That eats up my resolve

A man feels the most worthy

Working on problems he can solve

I need to turn my head off

Before it overloads

Playing every angle out

Is no good for my soul

I wish I could let go

And watch as it unfolds

But greatness cannot happen

Without some form of control

The waiting game is cruel

With an unclear set of rules

Many come to play

But the ones who win are few

So I hold the rope, I hold the rope

*

All In Stride

(Ft Passafire & Tropidelic)

Without the clouds in the sky

We wouldn't care about the sun when it shines

The bad helps to define the good

The splinter is the cost of the wood

So take it all in stride

Take it all in stride

I ain’t been sober in a month cause I'm losing my conviction

At the end of a tunnel filled with all my bad decisions

I’m learning bad luck is the only kind I got

I've been burned, I've been fucked, it’s so much harder than I thought

If I’d just been born in Cali I'd already be a star

But I'm from the mid-Atlantic playing reggae in a bar

And I’ve been climbing up this hill so god damned long

The boy who wrote the lyrics ain’t the man singing the songs

Without the clouds in the sky

We wouldn't care about the sun when it shines

The bad helps to define the good

The splinter is the cost of the wood

So take it all in stride

Take it all in stride

And every single night

I turn out the light

Close my eyes and the demons show their face

And remind me that I'm about to conclude another day

Short of where I want to be and with no clue how to get there

And failure is a scent that I'm destined to always wear

Please God if you exist, help me cause it ain’t fair

I'm shouldering a burden and it's more than I can bare

Take it all in stride

Don’t doubt the sun is behind the clouds

No matter what you think it outta be about

Go tell the one you can’t be without

That you want to take time to know her better

Don’t doubt the clouds are temporary

Holding on to something that you wish you had plenty

But it’s bolted down to the concrete floor

You say you want less but I’m giving you more

Anyway I could say what you want me to say

I could recycle all the bullshit and become a cliché

I could take back all of my music and make everyone pay

I could do this, really do this, in a serious way

I wouldn’t waste my time

Looking at the sky

When everything I love

Is down here on the ground, would you listen to the sound bumping ugly

Without the clouds in the sky

We wouldn't care about the sun when it shines

The bad helps to define the good

The splinter is the cost of the wood

So take it all in stride

Take it all in stride

*

Officer O’Herlihy

Police state, they're tightening the noose

Police state, their agendas in the news

Police state, they're mongering our fear

Police state, it's all downhill from here

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em cause this ships going down

The American nightmare has a new sheriff in town

And he’s got an itchy finger when he grips the trigger

Holding illegal searches to bump his quarterly figures

He calls it security but I call it a cage

Addicted to power using his badge to stage

Performances to vent all of his pent up rage

On the same people taxed to furnish his wage

But can you blame the wolf for taking bites at the sheep

When the herd sold him tools needed to sharpen his teeth

The packs been creeping up on us while we sleep

The only way we're ever gonna get a little relief

Is if we take a stand, scream out fuck the man

If only just to remind him of the right that we can

Cause freedoms like a muscle, when not exercised its lost

So don't buy what they're selling without examining the cost

Police state, they're tightening the noose

Police state, their agendas in the news

Police state, they're mongering our fear

Police state, it's all downhill from here

Don't judge the man, judge the institution

A sinner’s brother could be looking for absolution

Take it case by case to avoid confusion

Cause every job’s a different form of prostitution

We're all pawns in the game that our governments play

We're all sheep for the words that the media say

So educate yourself, read between the lines

An innocent smile could mask a criminal mind

Cause it ain’t checks and balances

Its checks and accountants in this structure surrounding us, we're fucked cause we're powerless

We bought our liberty with blood, spilled by our forefather’s aggression

A sad confession, we didn’t learn our lesson cause we sold it to the banks for the illusion of protection

Police state, they're tightening the noose

Police state, their agendas in the news

Police state, they're mongering our fear

Police state, it's all downhill from here

*

Radio

(Ft. Tropidelic)

I don't write songs for the radio

I write songs for the stereos

So turn it up until the speakers blow

We're getting faded at the reggae show

Now here we go

Gimme a kick drum stacked with an 808

With that rub a dub bass and the bubble and skank

Roland got me echoing filling the space

You can season it to taste cause when it hits you in the face

It's an addiction, and you aint ever quitting

10 years in with a hundred songs written

10 years in to a genre we don't fit in

10 years in and there ain't no one more legit, man

I'm focused on my bars

You’re focused on your pretty boy shit and becoming pop stars

You got your PR teams

While we're just four mother fuckers and a pint of what's cheap

My lyrics are the product of the struggle that I bleed

You’re lyrically regurgitating what you’ve seen succeed

Rebel music has become Babylon I could babble on but I'll just reload and I will battle on, oh

I don't write songs for the radio

I write songs for the stereos

So turn it up until the speakers blow

We're getting faded at the reggae show

Now here we go

Ft. James Strips

You started out hoping you could pay the rent

You worked hard writing songs in the basement

Hangin out with vagrants is always how your days were spent

And your homies all told you stay patient

It’s been few years now, still can't predict

If you will ever tell your mama that you made it

But your counterparts only have half the heart

But livin life real large doin fake shit

So you got a manager then an agent

Made a plan and learned all the basics

Built a brand, demand and persuasion

Now your dream's become occupation

And although at you’re at the table eating steak and shrimp

All you seem to feel is forsaken

Not happy slappin on the label to be doing what you’re able

Even though it brings home the bacon

Ft. Matt Roads

Put me on the radio and turn me soft

Cuz I wanna hear my voice when I turn it off

When I become a pretender I'll remember the cost

While I'm busy getting sniffy in my loft with a supermodel

Different strokes for different folks

Some like being legit but without being broke, hard to do both

Guess I'm content just doing everything I can

Staying loyal to the band and the man that I am

Under produced but overly motivated

Substance abuse is keeping me agitated

Bad life decisions are how I am educated

But I’m authentic and that cannot be debated

Whispers in my ears coming from crooks and thieves

They are the worker bees of the industry

Trying to tear me apart to build me up

On top of its foundation and I have had enough

I ain't in it for the money, I'm in it for my sanity

Cause writing is the only place that I find any clarity

It's therapy, something that’s always been there for me

You’re fucking with my craft and you best be treading carefully

I'll be remembered for my lyrics and the fire that I sing em with

I'm tired of the hypocrites and liars they're all full of shit

I'll burn this fucker down before I change what I am

I might die a poor poet but I’ll live a free man

I don't write songs for the radio

I write songs for the stereos

So turn it up until the speakers blow

We're getting faded at the reggae show

Now here we go

*

Show Must Go On

Take my worldly possessions take the shirt off my back

Slide a knife into my gut just to watch me react

Every wound inflicted hurts a little bit less

Every mile that I walk is a mile that I obsess

On how, where, when, but never why

I succeed at a game without any rules

In a hope I can justify the things I've been through

I know this ain’t the last bump and it sure ain’t the first

But every pothole hit I’ll turn into to a verse

Because the show, the show must, the show, the show must, the show, the show must go on

Moving with purpose I'm a man on a mission

Putting miles on the road despite the broken transmissions

I'll never forget all the help I've received, see there's honor in dreamers despite it missing from thieves

And I will not be denied

So take my guitars, they’re just copper and wood

Steal all of my pedals my tone was never that good

I'll take it all in stride, you'd have to lobotomize

The mind of this voice for the source of its pride

Because the show, the show must, the show, the show must, the show, the show must, the show, the show must, the show, the show must, the show, the show must, go on, on, on, on, on, on

the show, the show must…

the show must go on!

*

Apathy

Left and right will both be wrong, when all our fossil fuels are gone

And problem solving is done with bombs, Society will crumble

When famine rears her ugly head

Cause we choose money over bread

We will be envious of the dead

It may already be too late

In the late seventeenth century world's changing

People harnessed steam for boats and trains and

We invented the factory this time in history would change industry permanently

And us along with it more jobs meant working man benefited

And though we might be a bit ashamed to admit it that time in history made us blindly committed to

Faster and bigger and cheaper and better we needed it now with no care how we got there

It started off slow but it picked up momentum, and as the snake got bigger it developed venom

Oil became a currency and we pursued it earnestly

Science advanced while we raped the earth concurrently

Profit over sense, money over people

Yeah we turned into a virus with no equal

Left and right will both be wrong

When all our fossil fuels are gone

And problem solving is done with bombs

Society will crumble

When famine rears her ugly head

Cause we choose money over bread

We'll be envious of the dead

It may already be too late

Fast forward and we're focused on semantics

Politicians wasting all our time with their antics

Pointing fingers over source of causation

Incredibly we're still having the wrong conversation

Times wasting, and I ain’t I got an answer, I just can't believe that we're denying the cancer

Storms are stronger, droughts go longer, a decade streak of years hotter than the former

People getting staph from swimming in the Chesapeake

Beijing air code red for about a week

Feels like we are staring down a gun

And common sense says that we should turn around and run

But we're looking down the barrel focused on the brand of bullet

Trigger gets squeezed we might as well have been the one to pull it

Clocks ticking and when the end begins, Apathy will go down as our mortal sin

Left and right will both be wrong, when all our fossil fuels are gone

And problem solving is done with bombs, Society will crumble

When famine rears her ugly head

Cause we choose money over bread

We'll be envious of the dead

It may already be too late

*

Optimism In F#

I've been feeling like the victim

Crying over a broken system

Wishing I could trade my cards in for a new hand

Money’s tight and time is a commodity

A little bad luck and I'll cross the line to poverty

My cars dying and debts are compounding

Swimming the line of treading water and drowning

But hey

It's all going to be fine

I put worries out my mind

I always must remind myself

The struggle is divine

Society draws lines

But they're not how I'm defined

Relax and give it time

It's all going to be fine

Truth is I'm prone to depression

But a life spent coping has taught me a lesson

Happiness can't be bought or given

Despite what is missing it's a life worth living

A billion cells all working together as one

Create the warmth that you feel when you step into the sun

Our existence is a complete phenomenon

So whatever you’re stressing pales in comparison

Live a life following where your heart leads you

Not mimicking charades displayed on social media

Forget the values society feeds you

There's no right or wrong, there’s just whatever completes you

And hey

It's all going to be fine

I put worries out my mind

I always must remind myself

The struggle is divine

Society draws lines

But they're not how I'm defined

Relax and give it time

It's all going to be fine

“Yea, that’s the one”

BEAST FROM THE EAST (2018)

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