Quarantino is America, or maybe America is Quarantino. At this point, they have disappeared into each other like the illusion that they both are, and both desperately want you to believe. They are magicians each in their own way in search of a more impressionable class of rube. 

How will we explain this to people 20 or 30 years from now? How will we convey the visceral terror of knowing that you and everyone around you existed as potential walking viral landmine that could go off at any minute, slowly taking out an untold amount of people with you, beginning with those closest to you. It was a heavy trip. No one was ready for it, and we certainly didn’t get better at it as time went on. 

As of this writing - the COVID 19 pandemic is still raging. Almost 1000 people are dying every day in the United States for largely stupid reasons, mainly because there was an utterly shocking amount of people who couldn’t do each other the simple courtesy of wearing a mask over their mouth or believing in the basic tenants of science. The federal response to this pandemic will go down as one of the worst failures of government in the entire history of the republic.  More broadly - it might be safe to say we totally failed each other as a society. 

I started work on this record at the very beginning of the California lockdown in late March 2020 and finished it around August. Each song covers whatever was eating up the news cycle at the time i was working on it, which was like drinking from a fire hose of bad news every single day. During the Trump years, the only thing you could be resolutely assured of is that the worst day was always tomorrow, and by 2020, we were teetering on the verge of collapse. 

No one yet knows how this will end. We are about 2 months away from the most important election in the nation’s history. Maybe we will finally begin the long march back to some sense of decency and normality. Maybe we won’t. Suffice to say - people are on edge. 

For my own part, making this music was my way of trying not to fall down the well during all of this. These songs are like Polaroid pictures. A snapshot of what it felt like on the inside at the time, at least to me. I am grateful to a great many people who helped make this possible, in particular Milo and Suzanne, who were surprisingly patient with having nowhere to escape the sound of this being made. 

I’ll leave you with the words of the magician Penn Jillette that have been a north star for me for years, and hang just over the monitor in my studio: 

“The only secret of magic is that I’m willing 
to work harder on it than you think it’s worth.” 

Stay safe out there. All we have is each other, and if you keep the right company- that will always be enough. 

Buck AE Down 
Los Angeles - September 2020  

​

Released September 1, 2020 

Written, arranged, performed, produced, and mastered by 
Buck AE Down at Lanai Soundworks Studios, Pasadena, California: Spring - Summer 2020 

Package design by  buckdowndesigns.com 

 

Buck Down proudly uses and endorses Vigier Guitars (www.vigierguitars.com) 

Executive Producers: Jim Petersen, Jr., Eros Biox, Paul Schreer, Gold Dust, John Eric Hoffmann and Terry Jacobson 

Additional vocals by Mollie Jane Greenspan 
Additional guitar on Get it Together by Eli Pafumi 
Additional drums on The Cold of Distant Suns by David Raven

Additional vocal on Rip City Dub by Roothub 

This album was made possible by the generous donations of: Ricardo Aguilera, Talina Melendez, Xifer Fortier, Stephanie Oliveira, Tabitha Hewitt, Russell Biart, Alexandra Jacobs, Jennifer Moore, Dominic Tinio, Kyle Reed, Art Tucker, Rachael Devlin, Matt Shaw, Charlie Dolman, Jonathan Segel, Lindsay Benner, Walter Lautenbach, James Bunkelman, Mark Pankratz, Paul Schreer, Gina N. Ace, Tyler Jachetta, Rand Fitzpatrick, Dylan McNeill, Christopher Cone, Chris Tocchini, Ben Thompson, Michael N Sane, Terry Jacobson 

 

Merci beaucoup to Patrice Vigier, and the whole Vigier Family for their wonderful instruments and 13 years (!) of support. 

Extra special thanks to YOU. For all the little things you do that no one sees. For all that you mean to the people who love you. For all that you’ve done to try and make the world a better place in some small way. You are loved and you are seen. Be kind to yourself, and keep on keeping on. We’re all rooting for you, so never give up on your stupid, stupid dreams. 

All songs © &℗ 2020 All The Way Down Music (ASCAP) except Walls (Circus) by Tom Petty © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc