And now the latest installment of John Gillander’s continuingExtra Dimensional. Recently Mr. Gillanders was featured on the weird and irreverent Paratopia, a podcast which takes a controversial look at high strangeness and the paranormal. Check it out here.
When I found her she was huddled on a bed in the basement bedroom, laughing and crying simultaneously – it was quite a peculiar spectacle. They hadn’t held anything back with her, and I should have seen it coming. She was addicted to order, which is why she made such a formidable counterpart. There are holes missing from my brain, she helped fill in the gaps while my mind constantly drifted skyward. We made perfect sense in that quintessential odd couple kind of way. But letting go in the manner necessary to enjoy a hallucinogenic frenzy was probably beyond her current capabilities. I should have known this. If you resist the wave, it beats you into the rocks, and they’d been beating her for a while now. She was sick to her stomach, and one of those people that has problems letting go enough to vomit, so it tormented her internally. But there was more going on. There’d been a level of communiqué afoot. As she stared in the basement mirror something from within forced her to contemplate her self perception, and acknowledge her own distorted self image. Read more…
Friday September 3, 2010 7pm at Elliott Bay Book Company Ralph Metzner will speak about the good old days of experimentation way back in the 1960′s.
Ralph Metzner, veteran (with Ram Dass and Timothy Leary, among others) of the experimentation with mind-altering substances at Harvard, speaks about his experiences in those early days, as chronicled in his new book, Birth of a Psychedelic Culture: Conversations about the Harvard Experiments, Leary, Millbrook and the Sixties (Synergetic Press). Ram Dass and Gary Bravo are co-authors. Co-founder of the Green Earth Foundation, Ralph Metzner also practices psychotherapy and is professor emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies. His many books include Alchemical Divination and MindSpace and TimeStream.
Peaking Lights are on tour but alas I will have to settle for this fascinating film as they are not traveling to my mizrable and goshforsaken burg. Perhaps you are a luckier sort. Check out the whole “Sound Builders” series though it’s pretty nice…
7/27/10 – The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz, CA w/ Pocahaunted + Mi Ami
7/28/10 – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco, CA, w/ Pocahaunted + Mi Ami+ Late Young
7/29/10 – Muddy Water’s Cafe, Santa Barbara, CA w/ Pocahaunted + Mi Ami
7/30/10 – The Bootleg Theater, LA, w/ Pocahaunted + Mi Ami
8/2/10 – Echo Curio, LA w/Ged Gengras, Sun Araw, Metal Rouge, Robedoor
8/3/10 – Tin Can House, San Diego, CA – w/Metal Rouge
And now another spirited rant from Mr. John Gillanders, here’s his latest installment of “Extra Dimensional”…
If you were to think of our species as united cosmically as one being, which is something that most of our religions and prominent neuronauts have been telling us since the beginning of what we perceive as time – plotlines begin to emerge that don’t necessarily involve self destruction. In not listening to these viewpoints, we’ve separated ourselves from our own eternal nature and the essence of time. We’re kind of like an idiot savant that can program the shit out of a computer but couldn’t get a date if his life depended on it. Another way of putting it is that we’re becoming increasingly and dangerously unbalanced as an individual; a work-a-holic who’s career success has blinded him to the fact that his personal life is in shambles. This unbalance has produced some hilarious and mind blowingly horrific enchantments, but we need to diversify our science now more than ever. Pleasure rather than violence. Cooperation rather than competition. Self love rather than self hatred. Biology rather than synthetics. DMT rather than prozac. Read more…
Moon Duo are currently on the road to celebrate their Woodsist release "Escape" on Feb 16.
Check 'em out tonight on DJ Rick's KDVS show on Feb 15, 10PM PST (http://www.kdvs.org/).
FEBRUARY 2010 WEST COAST TOUR DATES
2/11 • Hemlock Tavern, San Francisco, CA (w/ Nothing People, Epikurs Euforie)
2/12 • Synchronicity Space, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Pocahaunted, Psychic Handbook)
2/13 • Showcave, Los Angeles, CA (w/ Psychic Handbook, Former Ghosts, Popdrone)
2/15 • KDVS Radio, Davis, CA
2/16 • Brookedale Lodge, Santa Cruz, CA (w/ The Entrance Band, Lights)
2/18 • Rendezvous, Seattle, WA (w/ Du Hexen Hase, Midday Veil)
2/19 • ANZA Club, Vancouver, BC (w/ Stellar OM Source, Pacific City Nightlife Vision Band)
2/20 • East End, Portland, OR (w/ The Urinals, Leaders, Eat Skull)
They'll be in Seattle this thursday in the Jewelbox Theater at the Rendezvous 2322 2nd ave.
along with the terrifying sounds of Du Hexen Hase and ethereal vibes of Midday Veil.
“Well you know John, the drug war is just an excuse to throw minorities in prison.”
The above is something my uncle, who’s a successful corporate attorney, told me after I was arrested for possession of LSD over a decade ago. It was precisely this advice that persuaded my Dad, who at first vowed zero assistance to cough up the $3500 or so dollars it took to hire a fancy lawyer to talk the charges down to the misdemeanor “attempted possession of LSD”. If it wasn’t for this money, which is little more than a demonstration to the courts that you’re not dirt poor, I might have struggled to have continued access to things like gainful employment and the ability to vote in our society.
The entire process of being thrown in jail and jumping through the endless hoops of the legal system (not to mention being financially drained) left me lower than I’d ever been previously or have sank to since. In short, they had broken my psychologically, which is what the system is designed to do. But in the process I learned a few things. For one, most drug charges are little more than a shakedown. If you can buy your way out of them, you’re probably not going to serve any serious jail time. Secondly, despite what organizations like NORML might tell you, you don’t have any fucking rights in matters like these unless you’re wealthy. It was a blatant case of illegal search and seizure, the cop’s story made zero sense, but you know how much money it would have taken to get that shit in front of a jury? Yeah, more than I had or my Dad was willing to spend. So really it’s just the cop’s word against yours and who do you think the Judge is going to believe?
All of last week’s Halloween festivities left me in the mood to write a horror blog this month, and in my mind, there’s nothing more abjectly terrifying than the drug war. The loosening of the federal government’s persecution of medicinal marijuana and the economic collapse (not to mention having a minority president who has openly admitted to smoking pot) have lead to an increasing dialogue about the legalization of the marijuana. Which is a step in the right direction for sure, but it’s important to understand that the war on drugs is more than just a war on people, it’s also a war on our spiritual development as a species.
Coming November 1st- A Portable Shrines Dia de los Muertos show w/ Blues Control, Little Claw and Brother Raven at the Funhouse. Blues Control (of Queens, NY) have been gifting the world with unique and amazing jams on reputable labels such as Holy Mountain, SiltBreeze and Sub Pop for some time now but I believe this rare appearance in the NW is their first journey to these parts. Don’t miss it, cousins.
Little Claw are one of Kim and Thurston’s fave bands (he just put out there 2nd album on Ecstatic Peace) and they leave a trail of fire in their wake wherever they go. Check out some of their new tunes HERE.
Little Claw in the light of day...
Brother Raven are a local Seattle duo who deserve your undivided attention. Their analog virtuosity will take you on an awesome voyage through the pineapple portal and into interstellar space. Dig up on that shit right HERE.
“Art is magick because art transforms consciousness”
Alan Moore
The above nugget of cosmic wisdom was culled from the documentary: The Mindscape of Alan Moore, which was released on DVD stateside in 2008 to little fanfare. When I just checked, there were exactly two holds placed on said movie at the public library, whereas comparatively the Watchmen DVD had nearly a thousand. Which is really too bad, and kind of a reflection on how we want the body of our art and not always the mind. To be honest, I ran out and saw Watchmen on opening weekend back in March and banished Mindscape to the bottom of my ever expanding Netflix cue before just getting around to finally checking it out last month.
If I were to recommend a cogent introduction to so called magickal thought, I’d suggest this to anyone far more than actually reading anything Aleister Crowley’s written (which I’m still yet to get much out of) – which is kind of the aberrant thing with magickal writing. Whereas, people like Austin Osman Spare and Crowley are often seen as the forefathers of western magickal thought, I’ve personally found it far more beneficial to read other’s interpretation of their work rather than hearing it directly from their own mouths. In fact, it was actually attempting to read Crowley that turned me off to all things magick for years.
The Slaves are currently on tour with Cloaks and will be playing ESCALATOR FEST Saturday 9/26 at the Vera Project.
Thanks once again go to Adam Svenson for the interviewing. Take it away Adam-
The Slaves exist at a juncture of the past and the future. This Portland two-piece
conjure up a cough syrup collusion between sweet crooning AM radio vocals and hazy
keyboards and slow time signatures. There is a beauty and darkness in their sound
that reflects their love of 50′s pop and modern noise and Goth musical moves, and a
record of theirs would not be out of place in the 4AD catalogue or placed during
the end credits of a harrowing foreign film. Sit back and let your mind wash down
the twilight river pouring forth from the Slaves.
Who are The Slaves and where do you come from?
The Slaves are Birch Cooper and Barbara Kinzle and we’re both from the Northwest.
I (Birch) grew up in Alaska, until I moved to the “greater Portland area” (AKA
Forest Grove) where Barbara and I went to high school together. After that Barbara
went to Portland and I went to Olympia. I’ve lived in Portland now for about 2
years.
You used to be an improv / noise band before morphing into a more structured
format…is there still a element of improvisation when you record and play live?
Improvisation is an important part of our music. We do have structures to our
songs, but they are really reliant on the energy of the moment, which is the main
thing that I like about improvisation.
Was the progression from a free-form approach to song-based pretty natural?
Yeah, ever since “The Slaves” really came into being, we’ve mixed the two, and
that’s what has come most naturally to us. We really started structuring our music
when we had the idea to try and blend “drone” and “noise” with “50′s rock/pop”.
Do the songs come out of improvisations or is the structure there before recording
them?
Well, we don’t really think of recordings as the ultimate way for a song to exist,
we think of them as being equal to a live song. Our songs come out of
improvisation, and then we develop structures from that, but the songs tend to keep
on changing after we record them.
If someone described your sound using the words “Twin Peaks” and “4AD”, would you
walk away, shaking your head with disgust?
We definitely consider David Lynch an influence. Juliee Cruise and Angelo
Badalamenti, too. I think that this answer is going to bleed into the next
question.
How about “cough syrup” and “Suicide (the band)”?
We love Suicide and we love This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins. I’m not crazy about
the Suicide comparison, though, if only because I feel like the commonalities
between our music are the result of us deciding to mix certain elements that are
also mixed in Suicide, rather than trying to follow in Suicides footsteps. I do
think that it’s pretty honest to say that we are aware of those bands, though, and
we have been affected by them.
Song to the Siren was kind of a gateway for us. We first heard it in “Lost Highway”
and were blown away, enough so that we decided to cover it, and i think that the
song has had a lasting impact on our band. Also, Alan Vegas collaboration with
Pansonic and Bruce Springsteens cover of “Dream Baby Dream” are important ones.
I think a lot of our sound comes from Barbara’s child hood love of new age music,
in combination with all the other stuff. 50′s rock, surf rock (especially Beach
Boys), free noise, composed noise, goth, industrial music, drone music, black
metal, contemporary pop/hip hop, amazing pop, 90′s rap, Neil Young “Trans”.
After getting really into noise music, I got really into pop music. I was very
interested in extreme music, and I think that The Slaves have always strove for
the extreme qualities of pop music. The helplessness and the power…
Actually, I like the “cough syrup” comparison the best. When we play I often try
to imagine that we are moving incredibly fast and incredibly slow at the same time,
in kind of a frozen moment of speed. I’ve never actually tripped on cough syrup
though….
You have a self-released CD out…any new releases coming out soon?
We are just completing our new release called “Grey Angel”! We’re putting it out
ourselves on tape and CDR. We’re really excited about it.. it’s definitely the
best sounding recordings that I’ve ever done.
Would you consider your music psychedelic?
What a question! I think that all music is psychedelic on a basic level. But I
would say that we try to hone in on the deep dark parts of human experience, and
for me that is a very psychedelic space.
Luminaries of the Frisco psych scene known by earth dwellers as the LUMERIANS just sent us a new unreleased track called Burning Mirrors. Check it out HERE. It will burn your MIND! (in a good way). They’re playing one week from now at ESCALATOR Fest -Friday 9/25 at the Lo-Fi Performance Gallery! Check out the site it is newly updated…
With the Fest coming up fast I just wanted to take the opportunity to give a holler out to all the friends and cool folks who have lent us a hand in a million different ways and come out to the shows, making the happenings happen. It’s always a pleasant soo-prize. Hope to see you all next weekend, it’s going to be AMAZING, an event not to be missed… (also thanks to the unimpeachable Arthur Blog for the plug last week)
