“When he was dying, and they had to rush him into another room because he was flatlining, Terry was singing.” That’s Billy Brett of Virginia industrial blues band Buck Gooter - he’s relating bandmate Terry Turtle’s last Earthly moments, rocking out as he crossed to the other side. For fifteen years, Buck Gooter has been one of the underground’s hardest working bands, releasing fourteen full-length albums and playing over seven-hundred shows. Buck Gooter is the story of two musicians who went from acquaintances to friends to family, creating a singular discography in the process, and not letting anything stand in the way. At the end of his life, Turtle charged Brett with continuing as Buck Gooter. It has always been in the Buck Gooter DNA to work through the impossible - on new album Head In A Birdcage, this includes death.

Turtle died on November 20, 2019, but worked on new material with Brett until he no longer could. While laid up in a hospital bed, Turtle assured Brett what he really wanted was “get out of this bed and rock with Buck Gooter.” He was pretty much in the hospital from August 30th, 2019 until the end of his life. It’s unknown when the cancer started, but Turtle was admitted after a constant shoulder pain became untenable. Upon performing a CAT scan, doctors let Turtle know that he had a broken neck, spurred by a large, malignant tumor that had eaten away his vertebrae. He wore a neck brace -- a “bird cage” -- until the day he died.

The hospital stay was brutal and the staff was indifferent - Turtle’s sole respite was honing new material. “Send me some beats so I don’t blow my brains out,” he said. Though Turtle was often hopped up on painkillers, when his attention rose out of the opioid fog, he wanted to create and record - his appearances on “Nailed To A Cross,” “Flinch For The Butterfly,” and “What We Do Is Pathological” were recorded while at the hospital.

Due to logistical difficulties, Head In A Bird Cage was created unconventionally. Take lead single “Nailed To A Cross,” a haunting, slow-burner with plodding beats, psychedelic guitar, Brett’s seething growl, and Turtle’s crooning baritone - Turtle insisted that Brett include it on the album, but couldn’t remember the guitar chords. Then Brett found an archived facebook live video where Turtle plays a rudimentary version of the song. “I'm like, ‘Fuck yeah!’” Brett says. “So we cut that into little pieces, dropped it on a grid on the computer. He had chosen the beat before, and then in the hospital, he sang ‘nailed to a cross,’ which is the chorus.”

Head In A Bird Cage functions as a testament to the band’s legacy and ethos - songs like the industrial nugget “What We Do Is Pathological” are up front. “What we do is pathological. That’s all you need to know,” yowls Brett on repeat, atop undulating synth, far-away metallic rhythm, and a Terry Turtle vocal sample. Brett calls this song a “manifesto.” Another song with “manifesto” lyrics is the sneering “Certain Times Of Day,” a song pulled from a tape of Turtle’s riffs -   “You don’t listen to me - music is answers, this music makes me hell,” Brett screams, nodding to Buck Gooter’s dogged determination and heart.

That Buck Gooter work ethic, restless touring, and steady output touched a lot of people. Prior to Turtle’s passing, Brett made an announcement via social media that Turtle was not doing great, asking for remembrances and letters. The outpouring was staggering. Those who bore witness to Turtle’s life wanted to pay tribute. Turtle also wanted to establish a memorial fund, which Brett began on Gofundme - once again, people participated, eventually culminating in thousands of dollars raised for various charities. There was also a two-day long tribute concert held in Brooklyn with proceeds benefiting the Terry Turtle memorial fund, as well as a new ongoing project - The Terry Turtle Archives, available through Bandcamp, and which highlights the musician’s visual art. Anyone who knew Turtle knew he was a talented illustrator with a penchant for capturing the colorful, psychedelic, and surreal - monsters, gods, and the natural world collided in his drawings as much as they did in his music. He was also notoriously generous, often giving out prints for free to friends, though always laminating and keeping the originals.  “For now, it's a blog,” Brett explains, “but maybe one day it'll expand into a more organized, massive vault.”

Turtle’s presence on Head In A Bird Cage is ubiquitous - so much so that it can be hard to believe he’s no longer alive - but in many ways he’s still here. “There's more to grab Terry samples from,” Brett says. “He wrote other songs that were never finished or released. Buck Gooter will always have Terry in it.” Head In A Bird Cage is far from an epitaph - it’s a metamorphosis, an exercise in persistence after a band member has graduated from their earthly body. It’s Turtle with a sheepish grin, putting an arm around you, reassuring the living that death is not the end.