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Ahhh, I liked him best as a villain.
Even though he later changed his position on the West Memphis Three's guilt, it was his terrific maniacal rants as the (most dynamic) 'star' of Paradise Lost and Revelations that I used to DJ and sample lots many years ago. This unedited chunk (2:12) of prime Byers is a delicious piece of dialogue, and if it whets your appetite, and you haven't yet seen the documentary it's stolen from then this is your prompt to pick it up and give it a look (and its sequel). "To me, this place as I stand, is like Hell on Earth."
If there is anything that I am very sympathetic to, it would be space
mysticism. In elementary school I would devour any book I came across
dealing with the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster,
ancient aliens, Atlantis, etc. In the fourth grade my best friend
Per-Johan and I vowed to spend our 30s in Tibet searching for the Yeti,
convinced they were part of a tribe that would have access to the
mothership. (We lost touch at some point but every day I wake up
expecting him to knock on my door ready to go. Per Johan, if you read
this - only two years left!) In my teens I discovered the music of
Hawkwind and Coil, and have been on a steady diet of cosmic sound ever
since.
I came across theebradmiller.blogspot.com
a couple of weeks ago, specifically to the page dedicated to Psychic TV
Live at Fondation Raelienne, making me wonder what was up with those wacky Raelians , haven't really thought about them since they said they were
cloning people a few years ago. Bouncing around Google I discovered that
within a week they would be celebrating their New Year in Strawberry
Fields, Central Park, so I reached out to some friends and made plans to
meet there. If you need some background on the Raelians you can find it
here, this post is going to go on a bit too long already....
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny Friday afternoon. I rolled into Strawberry
Fields to find Greg and Alexandra waiting for me on the grass a short
distance from the where the Raelians were having their celebration. Greg
said that I had just missed a ritual using tuning forks and it looked
pretty wild. They were now meditating with a gatekeeper standing guard.
Anytime anyone would come up to ask a question he would politely shoo
them away. Curiosity got the better of me so I approached him and asked
him what was going on. He whispered that I should come back in a few
minutes and I would know when. Eventually everyone stirred and I
thought, ok, this is the time.
I approached the crowd while there was a rite going on that seemed
like a baptism. A Raelian named Kelvin came up to me and we chatted a
bit, he explained that it was the "Transmission of the Cellular Plan,"
essentially the baptism into the Raelian faith where my DNA would be
sucked into the priestess, processed in her internal computer and
transmitted to an alien satellite. VALIS? I have no idea what came over
me but I had to do this. I had to take part in the Raelians most sacred
ceremony. Eventually it was my turn. I stood before a priestess named
Sylvie, she was from Montreal. Her assistant was next to her holding a
bowl of water. Sylvie made me agree to some specifics, as in that I
came there on my own free will, there is no "God", and their main cult
leader Claude Vorilhon was the last prophet. Ok, well, yeah, I came
there on my own, God to me is indescribable and every religion thinks
their main guy is the last one, it would be kind of weird if they didn't say that so I'm cool with
that, so yeah. Sure.
She dipped her hands in the water and placed them on my forehead and
neck. A feeling of calm came over my body, a warm wave of everything
being right in the world. It felt amazing to be alive, in the a field in
Central Park, having my DNA sent to outer space...
Scientists and Experts have been doing some serious thinking at the Large Hadron Collider (aka That Thing That's Going to Create the Black Hole into Which We Will All be Sucked). First they thought about the Higgs bosun particle (aka the "God Particle," and that's what the physicists themselves call it, I am not making that up). Higgs bosun is a theoretical sub-atomic particle that physicists think may be the one thing that gives all other particles their mass. After they thought up Higgs bosun, the Scientists and Experts brought in Dr. Lily Asquith, who is a particle physicist specializing in sonification, the conversion of scientific data into sound. Dr. Asquith thought about what kinds of energy might be emitted if a Higgs bosun particle (which might exist!) were to be created during collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (and if creating it did not cause the Earth to be sucked into itself), and then she made the so-far-theoretical data into sounds: The Music of the Spheres!
What does the God Particle sound like? You can listen to it here, in an article from BBC News, but mostly it sounds like the parts of Fabio's shows where I walk away and do something else for a while. Yet many ancient religions incorporate specific holy sounds and tones, and one of the software engineers who is working with Dr. Asquith says that the Scientists and Experts who have listened to the song of the Higgs bosun have had "something akin to a religious experience." Indeed, whenever I think of what they're doing at the Large Hadron Collider, I say a little prayer.
I interviewed the vocalist from Swedish black metal band WATAIN a couple of weeks ago in anticipation of their new release, "Lawless Darkness". I have found Watain intriguing, as they seem more genuine in their belief in what is behind black metal (that force or being many refer to as satan), and have seen them live a couple of times. The second time I saw them, the stench was so bad I had to listen from the other side of a wall- not the way I prefer to listen to a show if you know anything about me, but I was not willing to let the smell of death stay on my clothes for the 2-plus hour drive home. The foul odor was part of their presentation, I was curious about that and some of the other aspects of the band.
The interview was done early in the morning (for me- E was in Sweden), and the audio on our connection was not great. I felt only a small part of it that I aired (archive here) would be understandable or clear enough for radio, so below is the interview transcribed. Here is a track from the new record, "Lawless Darkness", this is entitled "Four Thrones" (mp3).
DK: Joining me is E from the band Watain, thanks for talking to us here at WFMU! You have a new record out called Lawless Darkness released by Season of Mist. Can you discuss the title and the main subjects in the record?
E: The main subject of Lawless Darkness is the breaking of patterns and the breaking of laws that chain the heart to the true self. It is about true liberation in that sense. And Lawless Darkness is about the liberation of the inner self that is, the flame of the devil, the one who opposes order of things-the one that is the liberator of the self. Lawless Darkness is what the liberated soul
experiences- it is the result- the achievement of the breaking of said laws.
DK: Would you say it’s a goal, or an end point, something to get to?
E: Yeah, it is a type of salvation, so to speak - to use a more familiar term. Lawless Darkness is in a sense - liberation meaning the breaking of laws - achieving liberation by breaking laws. And by Lawless Darkness I mean on both a spiritual and physical level. There are laws within yourself, unconscious, subconsciously, and there are laws externally in the world. Lawless Darkness is about breaking and going beyond those.
DK: In light of you saying that, do you find that certain audiences who may be more restricted where they live, may be more open to your music?
E: It might be so, at least, they are more open to the message of our music- I think they can perhaps relate to that message and what we're trying to convey, but then again, I don’t imagine that the majority of our listeners actually attempt to understand what it is we mean. I don’t think we have a larger fanbase in countries that are rougher, so to say, but I think they might be more dedicated or into what we have to say.
Big news today, as Hank Williams was awarded the Pullitzer Prize! In 2010! Like, 57 years after he died! It is kind of inexplicable, except that the award comes from the same organization that gives prizes to that Big Gray Pack o' Lies, the New York Times, on a semi-regular basis. Anyway, congratulations to one of WFMU's favorite dead singer-songwriters!
From a devout Episcopalian to Samuel Boutwell: You're too young, sport. There are words you are too young to say and understand, strings of inspirational pabulum you are too young to belt out extemporaneously, obvious signs of coaching you are too young to discern, ulterior motives in which your daddy is engaged of which you are too young to be aware and deeper meanings behind the messages to which you are too young (and naive) to relate. But you're still very entertaining.
Samuel Boutwell: the next Marjoe. Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox now. Amen.
In about 1960 or so, Wayne Raney, a veteran harmonica player from Wolf Bayou, Arkansas, took a look around and concluded that the world was in pretty pathetic condition. Rather than simply sit back and complain, however, Raney proceeded to write a song detailing his plan for getting things back on the right track. The record came out on Nashville's Starday label.
The song, We Need A Lot More Jesus (And A Lot Less Rock And Roll), was a catalog of modern ills that came with a decidedly religious recipe for correction. Writer Colin Escott called it "gloriously anthemic" and I really can't add much to that.
It's almost too bad the song came out when it did, though; had it been written a decade later, Raney almost certainly would have worked up a verse condemning the hippie movement.
So here are the 11 versions I've unearthed. Are there are others? Almost certainly there are. If you know any I'm missing, feel free leave a comment so I can continue the quest.
No doubt, several of these recordings were made in completely in earnest, while others were made with tongue in cheek. All of them are enjoyable, though.
Nate Gibson & The Gashouse Gang (1:58) Nate's version, released in 2007 on his All The Way Home CD, is the most recent one here. Gibson is a budding musicologist and the author of a forthcoming book that will likely be a mandatory addition to your library: The Starday Story - The House That Country Music Built, which University Press Of Mississippi will publish a little later this year.
I'd been listening to 'old-timey' music for about seven years when I came across a song called "Run Old Jeremiah", credited to 'Austin Coleman with Joe Washington Brown and Group'. My first exposure to this 'Ring Shout' recorded by John and Alan Lomax was on the 'American Primitive Vol. 1 Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36) 'compilation, one of the first releases on John Fahey's Revenant label back in 1997. And yeah, most of the selections on that compilation are, as advertised, 'Raw'. But 'Raw' doesn't begin to describe this Austin Coleman track of frenzied shouting and propulsive drumming that sounds like a guy clacking a pair of wooden branches on the portable recording equipment and the Lomax brothers' heads while a congregation of like-minded screamers howl in the background. While I'm not one for hyperbole (immediately preceding sentence aside), this song is fucking amazing: makes you wish--among other things--the Lomaxes had lugged around film equipment, too.
'Ring shouts' were religious songs based on West-African drumming patterns; while sung, performers would shuffle around in single-file clapping out complex counter rhythms. It was common during slavery, and the Lomax Brother's 1934 recording of Coleman and Brown's "Run, Old Jeremiah" during a stop in Jennings, Louisiana is possibly the oldest and most authentic recorded example.
(Unfortunately, there are only two other known tracks recorded by Austin Coleman/Joe Washington Brown & Group. Their entire output is included on Document Records' excellent "Negro Religious Field Recordings 1934-1942")
Here's a nice album that a friend of mine found somewhere or other, knowing that it would be much to my liking. And he was right (and thank you very much, Stu!).
There's no indication of when this album was recorded, or where this Temple is or was located. I don't think I can add anything to what is written on the back cover, so I'll refer the reader to those notes, linked below.
This Thursday Elizabeth Clare Prophet (aka Guru Ma), the former leader of the bizarre new age doomsday cult Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) aka The Summit Lighthouse, died at the age of 70 in a nursing home in Bozeman, Montana, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease since 1998. The Summit Lighthouse was started in 1958 by Mark Prophet in Washington, D.C. He later married Elizabeth, they moved it to Colorado, and she took over the leadership after Mark's death in 1973. Under the name Church Universal and Triumphant they eventually moved to California in 1976, and finally to Montana in 1986, where they bought a 12,000-acre ranch just north of Yellowstone Park. Being convinced that the end of the world was near, they built a 756-person underground bomb shelter in a pristine alpine meadow and stocked up on firearms. When everyone assembled in the bomb shelters on the date of the predicted apocalypse on March 15, 1990, nothing happened, and eventually CUT members started to lose faith in the prophetic abilities of Elizabeth Prophet, and left the church in droves.
Deaths come in pairs, and sometimes it seems that News of
the Dead does, too. In the past week there have been two stories
about the remains of Civil War soldiers in this area.
First there was the ceremonial burial of the remains of a
New York soldier who died at Antietam (Sept. 17, 1862—the bloodiest day of the
war, with over 23,000 killed). A tourist at the battlefield found some bone
fragments, uniform buttons, a belt buckle, and scraps of fabric about a year
ago; the buttons identified the remains as being that of a soldier from one of
the 24 New York regiments that fought that day. Government Scientists and
Experts had a go and decided the soldier was between 17 and 19 years old when
he died. That was about as much as they could figure out, so the bits and bones
were put into a box inside a “period-appropriate” pine coffin and sent to the
National Cemetery near Schuylerville. Civil War re-enactors stood guard over
the coffin until it was buried last week on the 147th anniversary of
the battle. The grave marker says it’s an unknown soldier who died at Antietam.
“We’re going to remember him as a hero,” says Donald E. Roy, the director of
New York’s Military Forces Honor Guard (and a civilian)—although, of course, no
one knows who the soldier was or what he really did.
Next was the story of John F. Wescott Jr., who was fooling
around with findagrave.com and discovered that his great,
great, great grandpa, Capt. Andrew W. Davis of the 8th Infantry Regiment
of New Jersey, was buried in an unmarked grave in Newark. Last Saturday the
Wescotts got together and installed a marker from the Veterans Administration
over the Captain, who died from the wound he got when he was shot in the leg at
Gettysburg.
These two dead Civil War soldiers caught my attention
because at the time I was reading This
Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin
Faust. Of course I was aware that the Civil War changed the way death was
regarded in the U.S.—it furthered the development and use of embalming, for one
thing. But Faust’s book explains how far-reaching the changes were. The
slaughter brought about the Federal Government’s first foray into arranging its
citizens’ personal lives, caused people to reject their religious beliefs, and
resulted in both widespread sentimentality and cynicism. It launched a
tentative move towards women’s rights, created big advances in the field of
statistics, and made James Russell Lowell write bad poetry (and lots of people
write atrocious songs). It caused people to fret about identifying and
returning the remains of their dead—just like the box of bone bits in New York
and the Captain’s grave in New Jersey. It’s a terrific book, well-researched
and well-written, and I recommend it to you.
Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.
Here is a very catchy song by WinterBand about the modern scourge of women talking in Church. The self-description reads "WinterBand is a father and son Christian rock/blues/metal band. We are Apostolic Pentecostal Acts 2:38 Christians." Take that, ZZ Top!
And if you wonder who the other two guys playing with Father and Son Winter are, here is another quote from their YouTube description: "Special thanks to Bobo on bass, Hayseed on guitar and especially the Dept of Corrections for allowing them to do this as part of work release."
This is a shortened web version of Mark Jasper's documentary The Mark of the Beast about outsider musician Pneumershonic, grabbed from YouTube.
You can read more about Pneumershonic and download his album Frequencies of the Beast, in this earlier post of mine. If you want to obtain the DVD with the whole documentary, your best bet would be to contact Matt Jasper via the MySpace page.
I was feeling a little glum one day a few weeks ago, and I started moaning (via email) to DJ Kelly about how when I die nobody's gonna come to my funeral, etc. etc. boo-hoo-hoo, and this is what she replied:
Your fucking funeral would be so humongous that I shudder to think about how annoying it would be if you died. I would organize the memorial service, of course, and do my best to keep out spotlight-seeking mother-in-laws. There would be every WFMU person there, including some you hate, and rabid fans hoping to claw their names into your coffin. Your death would inspire copy-cat suicides by at least two Listeners. The mayor of your tiny Upstate town would declare a special moment of silence at the dog park, and Baxter would get a special little pallbearer’s outfit and sit on top of your coffin during the procession through town, howling in pain. I would go to the NY Times with a gun and force someone there to write an entire full-page obituary about you and your legacy, if only in order to make you turn over in your grave. Afterward, I would visit you at your gravesite on top of some sunny little hill on a peaceful slope somewhere in Westchester. And your headstone would be engraved with "May God Bless," with a picture of your face that you would never recognize. Don't die or I'll kill you.
I just want to point out that I do not "hate" anyone at WFMU. Certainly not. Thanks for reading my funeral plans, and may God bless.
A few years ago WFMU's Sinners Crossroads host Kevin Nutt sent me the gift of a DVD with footage shot by Steve Grauberger of late electric gospel guitar great Bishop Perry Tillis, performing live in 1995 at the Savior Lord Jesus Pentacostal Lord Jesus Church down in Samson, Alabama. Assuming Kevin sent it knowing my penchant for raucous noise, I found it safe to say viewing this thing possibly holds its own up against your basic Throbbing Gristle/Whitehouse/SPK clips out there in terms of documenting some heavy and somewhat disorienting electric testifying. Where to even begin: the distortion, the broken snare, Tillis' steadfast choogle blending in to the vocal sheets of noise. Maybe it's just a case of the audio gain being high on the camera itself, but I'd like to think that in the room itself, this was one hell of a holy racket. See for yourself below as I've edited together and uploaded a few chunks to share. Supposedly a Tillis documentary by Tyler Bell is in the works, and we should also mention that Mississippi Records has recently put out an LP collection called In Times Like These culled from 72 hours of very raw cassette tapes, which also, as they say, is not for the faint of heart.
Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones covers the hymn Onward, Christian Soldiers. This clip is taken from the 1967 film Privilege by Peter Watkins, a pseudo-documentary set in near-future (i.e., the 70s) Britain, about a pop star whose career is controlled and manipulated by Church and State.
When I started getting into oddio, my friend Benari sent me a link to the 365 Days Project. From there I found April Winchell. And FMU after that. And now I are riting for them! (And since I'm sucking up, thanks to Derek at Here It Wow for getting me here) April is where I first listened Little Markie and Little Marcy and cringed to Tiny Tot Calvin sing A Cowboy for Jesus. April is the person that first introduced me to the phrase "CAUTION CHILDREN SINGING". So let me thank her with not one christian child singing but a whole bunch of recently converted Korean christian children singing America The Beautiful with there adorable reversals of "r" and "l".
This comes off an album called Billy James Hargis' Korean Guys and Dolls. I can find no real discrenable reason for this title. Produced in 1970, It bears no relation whatsoever to to the stage show/movie. In fact, there's not a single show tune on the album. It's 60% hymns, 15% traditional Korean folks songs an 15% Americana.
Quick Quiz! Here's the track list for side two in no particular order. What I'm looking for is the last song on the album. Bonus points if you get everything in the right order
How Great Thou Art America The Beautiful Blessed Assurance My Jesus Thou Wilt Battle Hymn of the Republic He Hideth My Soul Down in the Valley In the Garden
I'm so tempted to post the answer tomorrow but that seems horribly unfair. The answer is
Austin artist and Poodle co-creator Ethan Persoff recently had a lively face to face with John Ashcroft when he infiltrated a thoughtful, measured event titled "Can OBAMA ... KEEP AMERICA Safe? An Evening With John Ashcroft". His tale is well worth the read, especially for this moment:
I decide to double my bet. I lean up. "Mr Ashcroft, I'm sorry and I know this is tacky. Thank you so much for the photo. But can I also have an autograph?" My arms outstretched with a paper and pen, John ejaculates, "I can do one better. Why don't I just sit down."
Who is this John Ashcroft, you ask? Well, besides being Bush's Attorney General he is also well known as the voice behind America's unofficial anthem "Let the Eagle Soar"* (listen to Bryce's luscious cover version). But before that, a young Missouri State Auditor teamed up with fellow state politician Max Bacon to form the gospel duo Ashcroft & Bacon.
Here are the songs from their vanity pressing "Truth, Volume One". More photos and liner notes available here.
* Oh yeah, and he's a hateful war monger who abhors civil liberties, champions an ever useless war on drugs, and approves of torture. Let's not forget that.
