This song is about the Urban Legend of the Gates of Hell in Clifton. The gates of hell is a series of tunnels said to lead you to the inner depths of hell if the right (or wrong) path is chosen. There is said to be a guardian of the Gates of Hell, who's Name is Red Eyed Mike.
Out of all of New Jersey Folklore it was the Gates of Hell spoke to me the most. That may be because of it's proximity to a pre teen with out a car or maybe because there was a factor trespassing that came into play. Regardless I knew the Gates of Hell was located underneath a train track in Clifton. As a kid I would walk the abandoned tracks in nutley towards Clifton, years later discovering these were different train lines but I was always looking. I had discovered a series of tunnels in my town which was referred to as the lost world and it became my version of the gates of hell. My friends and I would crawl into the tunnels looking for cryptic graffiti, things like that.
On the occasion that I finally went to the gates of hell for the first time I was probably 12 years old, some older cousins and their friends took me. We were planing on doing a walk through video, but we did not make it all the way in. We traveled through about 10 minutes of a tunnel at night, with water up to our shins and consistent sound of a beating heart we made it to this big room. I'll never forget that room, the tunnel opens up into a circular room with multiple forks. It was at that point we turned around. Since I have been back a handful of times, never really going too far in again. But every time I watch walk through videos and I see people enter this room, I think to myself, what's next?
Great, thrashing, melodic indie rock from this Illinois group that juxtaposes sugary vocal hooks with barbed guitars. Bandcamp New & Notable May 28, 2022
Toronto rivals San Francisco as the North American capital of jangle pop as evidenced by this new record of sunny jams from the Motorists. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 16, 2024