Nothing comes to the faithless firsthand.

I want to talk very briefly about one of my favorite albums of all time, sort of in prep for what we'll be publishing tomorrow.

The album is Rainbows from Atoms and the band is Lungfish. It was released in the summer of 1993 on Dischord Records. And it broke our collective mind.

At that time, Lungfish used to rehearse in a space adjacent to a studio run by a few friends in an old warehouse in Baltimore. Many a night I spent just hanging out on the steps in the stairwell outside the studio space listening to them rehearse. But nothing prepared the ears for what was to come when they debuted the songs from Rainbows from Atoms in Baltimore.

It was at a hole-in-the-wall called The Rev just off North Ave at Maryland Ave. The songs were mesmerizing and the packed crowd just swayed in unison like some kind of colony of amoebae. At one point, a PA speaker literally caught on fire and frontman Daniel Higgs raised his voice, stood at the front of the small stage, and sang loudly enough to be heard over the whole band. I hate to use the word magical, but it was, well, magical.

The album begins with an anthem and then goes into a series of sketches and character descriptions of the kinds of personalities that you would have met in Baltimore in the early 90s. Interspersed are visions of the beginning of time, conversations over coffee, and heads-up warnings from the streets of Baltimore. It was a world filled with fears and a world filled with possibilities. No one was famous. Everyone was vulnerable. Plenty of folks never made it out.

Learned to count by match light
Nourished by a simple plastic bag
The material of ghost shoes
Sought like saffron
And pounded so small
That bird neck landing
And the tears of its wings landing
Learned to read by a ration of light
Nothing comes to the faithless firsthand
Yet all we crave won't save us
On the other side
Don't let your left hand know
What your right hand is doing
Don't let your right hand know
What your left hand is going through

Baltimore has changed since 1993. But somethings don't change. It's still a city of people who are doing more-than-surviving under the surreal spell that has always seemed to entrance the city. It is a place vibrant with an insane kind of light. But its also a city where you still shouldn't let your right hand know what your left hand is going through.