1. There are annual cicadas, which appear every year, and periodical cicadas, such as the ones emerging in the northeast United States, which appear in 13- and 17-year life cycles. Seventeen year and 13 year cicada broods sync up every 221 years. Periodical cicadas are only found in eastern North America, though there are cicadas in many parts of the world.

2. Periodical cicadas emerging every 13 or 17 years, emerge according to prime numbers of years. This makes it difficult for predators to synchronize with with their patterns. Annual cicadas fall victim to a specialized predatory wasp, but periodical cicadas so far have avoided such predators.

3. Periodical cicadas that emerge in years before they are supposed to emerge are called stragglers. These are the hipsters of the cicada world, coming out before it is cool.

4. Adult cicadas spend their time in trees looking for a mate. Males sing, females respond by flicking their wings, mating begins, and the cycle of life begins again.

5. Cicadas begin mating in earnest after only a few weeks of life above ground. Not all cicadas get a chance to mate, however. Some are stuck in their shells, and others have trouble sprouting wings. Many others are devoured by predators.

6. Most 17 Year Cicadas have red eyes, but they can also have white, gray, blue, yellow, or multi-colored eyes. Cicadas have two, obvious, large, compound eyes, and three ocelli. Ocelli are three jewel-like eyes situated between the two main, compound eyes of a cicada.

   

7. At the end of their life cycle, each female cicada will lay hundreds of eggs into a tree branch. Soon, the eggs hatch into nymphs the size of a grain of rice. The cicada nymph crawls out to the edge of the branch, and lets go in order to free-fall to the ground. Instinct drives them to seek refuge underground, where they burrow and disappear from sight for a very long time.

8. Cicadas live very full lives while underground. They dig tunnels, build cells, and feed on roots. The long period of time spent doing these things prepares them for their eventual emergence to the eyes and ears of all. Not all that exciting from a human perspective, but it must be fun for them.

   

9. Many animals enjoy munching on cicadas. Squirrels will eat them like corn on the cob. Fish go crazy for them too—you can use them as bait, or use lures that mimic them.

10. Cicadas don’t eat solid foods, but rather drink tree fluids. We’re guessing it’s tasty like beer. It also makes them pee. Some people call this “cicada rain.”

11. Cicadas are among the greatest ruckus-making insects known to man, and a swarm of them can produce sounds up to 120 decibels. That’s louder than a rock concert, and comparable to the noise from a chainsaw.

    

12. Insects are a highly nutritious form of protein. Cicadas can be grilled, boiled, fried, and peppered. Why not consider cicada tacos?

13. Adults are typically 2.4 to 3.3 cm (0.9 to 1.3 in), depending on species, slightly smaller than the annual cicada species found in the same regions of the United States. Mature females are slightly larger than males.

14. Only male cicadas make the sound they’re famous for, though females makes their own sound in response to males. Males make different calls for different reasons, and each species has a unique sound. You can actually trick a male cicada into calling for a female by simply snapping your fingers.

15. Cicadas need to be warm to sing and fly around, but they’re cold blooded. Their dark skin absorbs the heat of the sun, which helps to warm them up.

16. Both males and females can mate multiple times, although most females seem to mate just once. After mating, the female cuts V-shaped slits in the bark of young twigs and lays about 20 eggs in each, for a total of 600 or more eggs. After about six to 10 weeks, the eggs hatch and the newborn nymphs drop to the ground, where they burrow and begin another 13- or 17-year cycle.

17. The sixty days of a cicada’s life are brief—like the sixty years of a man’s life. The creature which spends so long in preparation for life accomplishes much living once he has begun. Could a man live a year as thoroughly as the cicada lives a single day?

For more cicada facts, visit Cicada Mania, or enjoy this video. Listen on Bandcamp.

Cicadas hub · Royal Ruckus · Discography

By Joshua Gibbs and Jamey Bennett

The average man knows little of cicadas, thinks rarely of cicadas. And yet on the rare occasion he hears the word “cicada,” his mind invariably drifts off into those few truths about the insects which he was taught in grade school: the cicada lives underground for seventeen years, emerges briefly, dies. A certain kind of man cannot recall such claims without immediately thinking of himself, staring into the distance, and wondering if he is truly a man, or if he is, in fact, a cicada.

The life cycle of a cicada appeals to a man.

When I was a child, I was taught that cicadas slept for all those seventeen years. Sadly, not every naturalist is still convinced of this, though poets yet carry a torch for the truth. To sleep for seventeen years, to wake briefly, soon to die…how sweet would life seem if it had been anticipated in dreams for so long?

The poet is neither convinced that nature has commanded the cicada to spend so long underground. The poet knows the cicada has chosen to stay underground all these years, and that he might emerge from the earth when he pleases. The cicada has said, “It is better this way,” though his residency with the dead, in Hades, is not obligatory and not tenured. The cicada is free and stays underground by choice. It is purely coincidental that seventeen years is the given term of these cicadas.

Someday, these cicadas will have their Che Guevara, their Óscar Romero, their Picasso…and he will sleep for thirty-six years, or fifty-nine, or ninety-one years. We suspect the creature who makes company with Hades himself for seventeen years might be capable of doing so interminably. Have we numbered every cicada emerging from the ground? Have we truly kept track of their departures, their arrivals? Have we only said they sleep “seventeen years” because we tired of putting hash marks on the cell walls? “No one will count longer than this.” Who can say? The death and lust rattle you hear this summer’s eve might be a millennium in the making.

The life cycle of a cicada appeals to a man.

The man wants to believe that he, too, might only have been sleeping up until now, and that the emergence from the death of sleep this very morning might be the inauguration of a brief, golden age. “Will I now truly live? Has it always been a slumber and am I only now waking?” The man wants to believe this is true. He has long been underground, and no matter his activity, he recasts all his labor as nothing more than a patient biding of time. A man interprets patience into the long haul of his already-lived life. “I was always waiting.” A man longs to see the light of day as though he were a cicada, fingers emerging from the dirt, and then hoisting himself out. A man longs to see the world as a kind of egg from which he hatches after a beginning-less gestation period.

“It will all end soon,” says the cicada man, although the cicada man is forever caught between the contradiction of a thing beginning and a thing ending. Is this the seventeen year slumber or the two months of waking? The question cannot be answered, and every bottle of wine might be the last before death; and every bottle of wine might be opened, poured, and break on the tongue as a revelation—not the end, but the beginning of the end. After a thousand years of sleep, what kind of death is possible for the cicada? The cicada is the resurrection creature. The chasm between life and death narrows to crossing points suddenly, unpredictably.

While science has said the cicada wakes only to procreate, the poet knows the cicada wakes simply to live. Is a life of sixty days less meaningful than a life of sixty years? Meaning is not discerned in quantity; a moment in the soul is without end. The man who imagines the cicada emerging only to procreate falsely intuits sudden verve, anxiety and desperation in the cicada. How could such be true of a creature with the patience to wait forever? The sixty days of a cicada’s life are the sixty years of a man’s life. The creature which spends so long in preparation for life accomplishes much living once he has begun. A man needs sixty years to accomplish so little because he prepares for nothing. He is thrown into life and he does not know what it is about. The man longs to live a year as thoroughly as the cicada lives a single day.

The cicada reviews its life many times as it begins to die. Death comes as a surprise to the cicada, just as it comes as a surprise to a man. The cicada has not counted on going to sleep again, so soon, but his eyelids are heavy and the day is late. From the cool shade of the branches of a tree, Thanatos comes to the cicada in the same solemnity with which he approaches a man. The weightless, spiritual scythe of Thanatos passes through the cicada’s legs and then his arms and then his head, and then the cicada body enters his eternal stillness as the dry machine-like fruit which clusters about the limbs of a summer tree. His soul returns to the earth, and he knows sleep again. He will emerge again when it suits the Spirit. Like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, like the Shulamite, the cicada will rise and go about the city and present himself to the King. And the King will be overwhelmed.

Seventeen Cicada Notables

Listen on Bandcamp.

Cicadas hub · Royal Ruckus · Discography

This corner of Brews Beards is the music shelf: the catalog, a real home for The Summer of the Cicadas as it turns ten, and what’s lined up for 2027. Listen on Bandcamp, or use these smart links for Come On and Wake Up!, Royalty Check, Unexpected Joy, and World’s Okayest Rapper. If you want to underwrite a track or buy us a beer, there’s Buy Me a Coffee. The podcast lives here too: Brews, Beards, & Shipwrecks.

Around the neighborhood: Instagram and Facebook @royalruckusofficial, X @royalruckus, and YouTube youtube.com/c/RoyalRuckus—music videos and a lot of the Brews Beards clips live there too.

The Royal Ruckus logo was originally designed by Vinyl Jones. The current version is a redo by Nick Walker.

Start here:

• Summer of the Cicadas: 10 Years

• Discography

• New in 2027

The Summer of the Cicadas (10-Year Remaster)

Date to come

A remaster of our 2017 double album, ten years on. The date’s still open, and we’ll post it here when it’s set.

The Wisdom of Fred (Vol. 3)

Friday, March 19, 2027

The Wisdom of Fred is the third record in the Mister Rogers–inspired series. Vol. 1 was Come On and Wake Up! (Jan 2023). Vol. 2 was Let’s Be Together Today (Sep 2025). The series started from a joke lyric—”the Mr. Rogers of the Rap Game”—and grew into a project about kindness, aimed at honoring Fred Rogers without trading on his image or show branding. Friday singles in December, January, and February lead up to the album.

Grateful Dads

Friday, June 18, 2027 (Father’s Day weekend)

An EP for Father’s Day weekend, after Vol. 3 and a bridge single. Track list when it’s public.

The Electrolights

Fall 2027

A side project: about five pop songs with Peter Daily (The Royal Band; Pigeon John’s band). Working title: The Light Shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness Shall Not Overcome It. Date to come.

Early years (Bakersfield → Nashville)

• Microphone—May 1998—LP—Bandcamp

• Love Us Or Leave Us—April 1999—LP—Bandcamp

• Oldies Hits for 2000!!—1999—Flatline beat project, LP—Bandcamp

• The Happy Bug!—1999—Chunjay solo EP—Bandcamp

• Sweatin’ to the Oldies—2000—best-of with rarities, LP—Bandcamp

• Not What You Expect—January 2000—EP—Bandcamp

• “Cafe Marata”—single, Sphere of Hip-Hop Records (listed 2000 on our projects page); also appears on Sphere of Hip-Hop Compilation #1 (Deezer lists 1999)—Deezer compilation · Bandcamp

• “A Las Chicas”—2000—appearance on Coalition: The Hip Hop Alliance (Forefront)—Jesusfreakhideout compilation page · Bandcamp

• Pocket Lint & Spare Change—2001—EP—Bandcamp

• Royal Ruckus and the Wonderful, Wonderful World of Chocolate—2002—best-of with new material, LP—Bandcamp

• Self-Titled—November 2002—Flicker Records, LP—Apple Music · Bandcamp

• Break-Ups & Break-Downs—April 2003—Chunjay solo, limited LP—Bandcamp

Mid years

• Pocket Lint & Spare Change—Deluxe Edition—August 2008 / Apple 2008-11-20—LP—Apple Music · Bandcamp

• “The Great Beard Rebellion”—2010—single—Bandcamp

• Rumors of Our Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated—March 2011—LP—Apple Music · Bandcamp

• Seventeen Candles (a.k.a. 17 Candles)—November 2015—rarities and demos, LP (17 tracks; proceeds originally for a friend with a brain tumor)—Bandcamp

• “Concrete Art Gallery” (featuring Yoda)—August 22, 2016—single—Bandcamp

• “October Unprocessed 2016”—September 11, 2016—single / commissioned theme (healthy-eating)—Bandcamp

• “The Waitress Song” / “Resolution”—October 2016—single (Invisible Library)—Apple Music · YouTube · Bandcamp

• Lonely Christmas—December 2016—EP—Apple Music · Bandcamp

• “In the Trap of the Mountain”—December 9, 2016—appearance on Invisible Library’s No Sleep Till Christmas—Bandcamp compilation

• The Summer of the Cicadas (Bonuses & Extras)—December 25, 2016—companion release (currently Resolution Third Man booth version)—Bandcamp

The cicada record

• The Summer of the Cicadas—February 10, 2017—double LP, 30 tracks (Invisible Library)—Bandcamp · Apple Music · Spotify · YouTube: Waitress Song · These Things Remind · Lost Boys

After the emergence

• World’s Okayest Rapper—Bandcamp April 10, 2018; Apple/Spotify April 20, 2018—7-song EP with CookBook (LA Symphony); guests include Pigeon John, MC RedCloud, Eligh—song.link · Bandcamp · Apple Music · YouTube · This White Life

• Royalty Check—January 21, 2019—EP, produced by DJ Sean P (group turned 21 that day)—song.link · Bandcamp · Apple Music · YouTube: Say the Word · Jump Around · Back N Effect

• Unexpected Joy—August 15, 2019—EP, 8 Bandcamp rows (incl. instrumental bonus); guests KJ-52, Knowdaverbs, Krum, DJ Sean P, ThatKidCourageous—song.link · Bandcamp · Apple Music · YouTube: I’m Yours Forever

Commissions / side work

• Expert Opinions (Single)—Omega Forensic Engineering—September 17, 2022—three versions (main, instrumental, a cappella); music DJ Sean P, lyrics/vocals Jamey Bennett—Bandcamp

Mr. Bennett’s Neighborhood and recent

• “Recording in Progress” (feat. DJ Sean P, Cookbook & Matthew A. Thomas)—November 19, 2022—single—Apple Music · YouTube · Bandcamp

• Come On and Wake Up! (Mr. Bennett’s Neighborhood Vol. 1)—January 21, 2023—Bandcamp has 10 tracks (8 core + 2 bonuses: Recording in Progress Video Version, Beautiful Day Instrumental); streaming editions checked have 8—album.link · Bandcamp · Apple Music · YouTube: Recording in Progress

• The Life Cycle of Man and Cicada—December 3, 2023—mixtape; Bandcamp 8 rows (incl. essay narration + long bonus); Apple 7—Bandcamp · Apple Music

• Officer C, Yo We Gotta Put You On!—Bandcamp October 5, 2024 (Maxi-Single, exclusive there first); Apple October 12, 2024—6 tracks incl. Harder Than You Think (Public Enemy cover), remix, instrumentals—Bandcamp · Apple Music · artist note: Buy Me a Coffee

• “Wonder Why” (feat. DJ Sean P, Fred Lynch & Soup the Chemist)—July 31, 2025—single—Apple Music · Bandcamp

• “Let’s Make the Most of This Beautiful Day (Mitch-a-Palooza)” (feat. Cookbook & Flynn Adam)—August 14, 2025—single—Apple Music · YouTube · Bandcamp (Vol. 2 track)

• Let’s Be Together Today (Mr. Bennett’s Neighborhood Vol. 2)—September 17, 2025—8 tracks—Bandcamp · Apple Music

Videos

Let’s Make the Most of This Beautiful Day and the rest of the shelf on youtube.com/c/RoyalRuckus

Full Bandcamp shelf: royalruckus.bandcamp.com/music

Illustration by Pam (new work).

Thirty tracks. Two discs. A love story that goes badly—and the work of finding a life on the other side of it.

On February 10, 2017, Mike and I released The Summer of the Cicadas through Invisible Library Records. The tenth anniversary is February 10, 2027. This is your way into the record: the songs, the stories, the artwork, and the things that grew around it.

New here? Start with a song. Know the record already? There’s more to hear.

Start with the record

Listen on Bandcamp · Apple Music · Official YouTube album · Spotify · The Waitress Song · These Things Remind · Cicadas revisit on YouTube (BBS Ep. 75)

Fans helped fund this double LP on Kickstarter. Most of the vocals and the mix happened at TWLVS in Fort Worth with DJ Sean P; KRUM coached and helped produce the vocals. Much of the collaboration ran through Dropbox between Austin and South Florida.

The guests include Pigeon John, Eligh, Bonafide, ManChild, CookBook, Joey the Jerk, Spoken Nerd, Jeremiah Dirt, and Krum. But there is a story holding the guest list together.

Disc one—The Life Cycle of Periodical Cicadas, tracks 1–15—tells a love story that goes badly. The good times matter. So does the unraveling. “Girl, We Got A Good Thing Going” and “These Things Remind” catch different ends of that relationship trajectory, with the latter looking back from disc two.

Disc two—Rebirth: The Lone Gunmen, tracks 16–30—is the aftermath: living with the dissolution of that relationship, finding healing and peace, moving forward, and finding community. There are detours. It’s still Royal Ruckus.

Another way into the record: the DJ Sean P mixtape

The Life Cycle of Man and Cicada deserves a place beside the double LP, not a footnote underneath the leftovers.

Released December 3, 2023, it’s a mixtape by DJ Sean P, revisiting some of the best songs from Cicadas. It opens with “Punch up from the Bottom,” then takes a different route through “Never…,” “Still…,” “Departures,” “Burn It to the Ground,” and “Lost Boys.” The essay Joshua Gibbs and I wrote is there too, as an epilogue.

This is a real DJ mix, not simply a list of songs you could have put on shuffle. Start with the complete Bandcamp edition, which also includes the long bonus “Cicada Got a One Track Mind.”

Listen to the mixtape on Bandcamp · Apple Music

Thirty songs, one page at a time

Pick a song for its story, lyrics, credits, and listening links. For a straight-through listen, the official YouTube album above has all thirty tracks.

Disc one: The Life Cycle of Periodical Cicadas

1. The Waitress Song

2. She’s Dangerous

3. Never Known a Love Like This

4. Coconuts

5. We Are the Music Makers

6. Girl, We Got A Good Thing Going

7. Wounded by Love

8. This Should Be Enough

9. Rhymer’s Block

10. Resolution

11. Summer’s Last Call

12. Moment of Zen

13. Time for Us

14. Making Nice

15. Coulda Swore I Saw You

Disc two: Rebirth: The Lone Gunmen

1. The Pressure is On (Showdown)

2. Burn It to the Ground

3. Still… (Reflections, Part 1)

4. These Things Remind

5. Boca Girls

6. The Lone Gunmen

7. Rap Is Not Music, Son

8. Love Slave

9. Lost Boys

10. How Does It Feel

11. When Soundwaves Play

12. Never… (Reflections, Part 2)

13. Jacked up on These Girls

14. Departures

15. More of the Same (Epilogue)

Album guide and credits · Music videos

The cicadas, and the cicada man

Joshua Gibbs and I wrote “The Life Cycle of Man and Cicada”, an essay about waiting underground, waking up, and wondering whether you’ve really begun to live. It belongs with the music.

Seventeen Cicada Notables takes a closer look at the very loud insect behind the metaphor. The essay is a poem’s way of looking at an insect; don’t mistake every sentence for an entomology lesson.

Interviews, reviews, and radio

Interviews, reviews, radio appearances, and other coverage offer a few more ways into the music. Look for individual posts over time in the Royal Ruckus section.

More from the Cicadas world

There is also The Summer of the Cicadas (Bonuses & Extras), released December 25, 2016. The current Bandcamp edition has one track: “Resolution (The Third Man Record Booth Version).” It’s a separate companion release, not another thirty-track album—and not the DJ Sean P mixtape.

Keep exploring: Monique Sarkessian and the artwork, the band story, the thank-yous, and the shows from 2016–2019.

What’s next

The current 2027 plan is the place to check for changes:

• The Summer of the Cicadas—10-Year Remaster: date to come. The anniversary is fixed; the remaster date isn’t.

• The Wisdom of Fred (Vol. 3): Friday, March 19, 2027, with Friday singles in December, January, and February leading up to it.

• Grateful Dads: an EP for Friday, June 18, 2027, Father’s Day weekend, following Vol. 3 and a bridge single. Track list when it’s public.

• The Electrolights: fall 2027, date to come—a side project with Peter Daily (The Royal Band; Pigeon John’s band).

For now, press play. The cicadas have waited long enough.

Royal Ruckus · Discography · New in 2027

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