Jimi and the Altstätters

Nothing about this record is real. 

Dementia is a trip.

My husband and I live with his 86 year old grandma who has stage 4 dementia. She prefers to be called Mimi. Some days she's pretty with it and other days we try to distract her struggling memory with ice cream, listening to the radio, walks, and chatting about the weather.

​She often comes up with the most wild things out of nowhere, some based in reality and others, complete figments of her imagination. Like Jimi and the Altstätters. 

Out of the blue the other day, one of our neighbors houses became "The Altstätters". And those pesky ​Altstätters like to steal her yellow flowers. 

When someone has dementia, it's best to roll with their delusions. 

So, we agree with her that it's terrible that the Altstätters steal her flowers and help her to bed hoping a nap would distract her worried mind. But, later that day she started asking about a Jimi. 

Who the hell is Jimi?

There's never been a Jimi in her life. Jimi isn't even a German name. Germans pronounce the letter 'J' with a 'Y' sound but she wasn't, she was saying it the english way. How did she come up with that? We tried to get more information from her about who this Jimi was but, she said she didn't know. We left her room and my husband kept saying in between laughing that "there is no Jimi!" 

Reflecting on the day we kept saying Jimi and the Altstätters. Jimi and the Altstätters. Jimi and the ​Altstätters.

Jimi and the Altstätters, that sounds like a band name. 

So I made a quick album cover of Mimi's new favorite band. And, of course it had to feature a ballad for all those stolen flowers.