Created By: Jonathan Dysart (DJJD)
Original Creation Year: 2004
Year of Re-master: 2010
Song Listing
Side A
Side B
Side C
14. Gothic: Lavish Green
Side D
Origin of the Album
Around this time, I was basically a “lead foot” in regards to driving. I was traveling a lot for work, having to drive to other client sites for certain tasks or major projects. The worst of the traveling was when I had to work on a client up near Naperville, IL (a suburb of Chicago). I would have to drive Sunday night for 3½ to 4 hours up to Naperville, and book myself in a hotel. I would stay in a hotel for the whole week, until I left Friday night and drove back home. There was I time I had to do that for 4 months straight. Ahh!
Anxious to get back home quickly to have some sort of personal life, I would “push the petal to the metal”, sometimes cruising around 100 mph [I don't do that anymore!]. One of the signature songs that would play on the radio, especially around the Joliet area, was “Highway to Hell” by “AC/DC”. That would pump me up, while I flew through Joliet like Mad Max.
Because of my reoccurring pattern for impersonating Steve McQueen, I did get caught by the cops at an above normal rate – six tickets in the span of four years. Upon getting my state government travel tax called a ticket, I had the song “I Can’t Drive 55” by Sammy Hagar dashing through my head.
Concept and Theme of the Album
When trying to develop a new idea for DJJD Volume 6, these memories of traveling hell came up. Even though my business traveling was declining at that time, those wounds of the road were still fresh. So, I started the project with those two songs mentioned above. I was thinking of adding other highway songs, like “On the Road Again”, but I was not into country songs that much – I wanted some rock.
I had writer’s block on that idea of all highway rock, so I decided to just add catchy songs that a person would sing in the car while driving. Songs like “Coconut”, “Bang the Drum”, and “Shambala” were introduced. The first half of the album was an attempt at this idea. The second half of the album became more songs that were consistent with night driving.
I was not really satisfied with the first half of the album at my first attempt. During the remastering of this album, I decided to try and “kick up” the energy of it by replacing some songs with others. I’m satisfied with the remastered version of DJJD Volume 6. My fond memories were playing this album while driving home from my Branson, Missouri vacation trip. So, in that case, I believe I did good.
Concept and the Album Cover
My first idea for an album cover was to get a picture of an empty highway, but I dropped that idea. That type of picture was used later for the back cover of the remastered album. Scanning through the internet to find any ideas, I discovered this concert promotion poster for “Rockin’ Down the Highway”. It had all the elements of the general theme of the album: driving down the highway, rock n’ roll, concert ticket (where the concert was my album), and a guitar swinging in the breeze by the driver. I decided to download it, do some minor manipulations, and simply paste the DJJD Volume 6 title on the inside of the ticket. It was a very fast and simple album cover creation. For the remastered version, I made the colors of the album cover bolder and change the title on the ticket. For a concert poster, it was perfect as an album cover.
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