Such a perfect day. Steve, Xavier and some other Frenchmen see me off at the station. The train pulls out for Bohemia... The phallic death-star of Alexander Platz fading into the vanquished skyline amid high-wire trapeze freight yard electri-umbilical chords, smoke hazing the boarding zoned-out units, we move now into Rite Saxony and beyond. huge clouds of birds migrated south against a pastel wind- whipped sky. the beauty of gutted retrofitting Prenzl' Berg now behind me. Moving thru the pines Light-Fucking-Mind-years ahead and behind All I've ever dreamed and stitched sewed sowed - so... seems like finality has imbued, beseiged bequethed my craft for eternity roughly translated I am on the path and gradually becoming the path itself.

A train's a train all the more at night, I say. my cell is dark, lit only by the little halfway light. it's a good anaemic glow that gets only ten feet out the window as the hovels and gutted cinder-block whatevers march by in a black clear cold-cocked silence. Dead still. gliden. heaven. no motor rumble. sitting pretty. quiet. why ? coast & stop. move some. glide. Simultaneous conjunctions coagulate to form scenes, networking labels courting you, and me disaster... grikes! in what garden are your planets man? have you no business in charted territory? blistered possission felt its way to me... do I renounce all I know to improve a simply printed ghost living between myself and what I disappear to see?!! thank god for miracles. like failure and imperfections. In fact, failure is all I have to be proud of... hailing meteoric-rise-to-the-bottom I down periscope and a scalding single malt whiskey on the back of my scarlet throat, rivulets of cold sweat sopping into the layers of clothing. it's another cornfield morning. and the silence is making my ears ring. The smell of leaf and earth rise from the damp ground, It's a wavy sea of transmissio but I have so many magic words and protective gestures that no harm may befall my dog, although I lost my busking hat and walkman with Laura Nyro tapes last night; "It's certainly not a thing you can hold" is the last thing I remember from last night and where's disco viking when you need 'em? I pull out one of the green spotty apples Basil gave me for the trip & consider the options. submission to that which is neither literate or comprehensible is usually a good start. besides, uneven teeth & crooked smiles fan my desire. there's only one way to go Heaven Hunter... I travelled a lot thru confusion, forgetting what I did to get there, dodging knobots everywhere (craming for tests that never occurred to them) and eventually hooked up with her. always looking for signs my wreckage spied her from a smoke-veiled room she walked past on the way to the john. first thing she said was "I thought of you out of no-where". what a space case. in lime green alchemilla and pink valerian;

sublimely abrupt knitwork - and you haven't even seen her in decline... the place is an old creaky farmstead with plum & apricot trees all round and a great old stone dove-cote. Dining room walls are covered by medieval Venetian painters. the Mirrors are streaked like the blonde in her hair she's an actress a painter, a con. a sham on a tram at the top of her game All the way, but of course, all the way! She called me her crazy treasure. we talked of nothing but my love for her. No politics, art, or small talk. stritly Vegas. I was so gone, I told her she had the most beautiful eyes I'd ever seen, then proceeded to ask her what color they were. her erogenous time-zone not wrong but hasty flash-tart-loving berry shy, shipwreckless and anchor-istically unmoved, waggytaled, shaggy blaggy, leash't & ton lashed, heavily laden bound over. and to then fro dipping and heaving luxuriantly in the night whistley wind an mister bones eye liner Ocean going gone... we send signals we do! ship-to-ship flags all aflutter on deck. clear the way! down the trail, massage maid and Woof-woof,... now free... my palate is cleaned of all wrong chewing (to say the Beeast). pick-up! Ba, humbuck! The folds in the draperies were hieroglyphs which intoned the emerald tablets. we feigned seance on the grounds we were too close for comfort, deigning rather to bowl with her Ithican lovers motorbike helmet until two noble wrought iron fireplace pokers came in to play, and tee-ed up on half a hundred beer & wine bottles in a perfect mandalic constellation, pulling out dialogue from favourite songs plays sitcoms commercials and poems which invariably ended with the punch line: "... then I shall blast you out of the stars!" My mind became an etch-a-sketch freshly turned and shaken in the long dark night of the soul, Trismegistus himself reached out and saved me as I momentarily passed out pulling down the drapes next to me. Had it not been for The Thrice Greatest I surely would have come to serious harm on the sea of dagger-sharp glass covering the living room floor. At least I had the presence of mind to stuff a handful of cds in my bag at some point. New 12 Noon. a parting of the ways. I really don't have the stomach for so much walking, but exploring is the only activity that my addiction will accept these days in lieu of a high and mighty. why has Europe kept me from the States for so many years? Why haven't I written anything in weeks. I've lived more than a day without plying the trade in train station, marketplace or street. forgot to go to work. I've decided long ago there's nothing wrong with knowing when you can't face people... separation of time & face can do monstrous or marvellous things in the hollows of space. a man is staring out the window, under gods. fretting chords peal from my neck. the songs just come and go. Blind & slow like all prophecy: it munched my brain. I've managed by the skin of my teeth to avoid everything but to lo and behold. between dark funk schizoid episodes, galvanised occsionally by soaring lucid moments - when it's all worth it, when there's never been a wrong turn, where there's pure love transcendence and peace of mind. where everything is just - as it should be, it's then you know you can never go back to what you used to be. even if you wanted to. novelty in full effect. as measuring during examination changes the outcome itself...: Man's Extraction of Electricity from Nature and its Destruction During It's Use, Is One of the Chief Causes of the Shortening of the Life of Man. The post-digital age beholds spiritual technology.

Welcome to part two of the astral years chronicle, draginSpring; my 2nd and final solo album. Like Astral Years, dS was recorded on virtually all formats in rehearsal spaces kitchens front rooms soundchecks bedrooms and even recording studios... what we've ended up with here is a collection of songs each with its own gravity and atmosphere, like a group of singles ( 1/8,9 2/11 3/12 4/5 6/7 13/10). I would like to thank Richard Allen at Delerium for making them available to you. It's been a long tripped-out endeavour and quite complicated at times but because of your interest & support, dS and Astral Years have made it out. I would also like to thank Nicole von Graevenitz, my love and shining light, without you God only knows. A couple of things I'd like to mention is I wanna play USA sept/2000. If you would like to hear me, or know bands to get with, places or help, please drop me a line! at:draginSpring@hotmail.com Custom patterned Astral Wear available along with other odd bits from me at: Jeff Tarlton, Zionkirchstr. 24, Berlin 10119, Germany. "The elctronic album" I've been developing over the lst 10 years should be completed around 2001, but before that possible, a docu/drama cd of V.I.P. street hits to highlight cover tunes from my illustrious career, as voted by you, the public.

cd art concept by Design Fiend Inc., photos: C. Mysien. Mastered at Calyx Berlin by Bo Kondren. "No Secrets" written by D.J. Hull (copyright protect 1999). All other songs written by Jefferson Tarleton and published by Delerium/Westbury Music. Use headphones for this cd; look with your ears listen with your heart.