You can listen to and purchase (this is recommended!) the all-new remixed and remastered the seasons cd, an electronic/orchestral symphony for the new century at Bandcamp!
I’ve told the story before, but here it is again:
some years back, i was homeless in los angeles and I lucked out, briefly, when a friend offered me her apartment for a few weeks while she was traveling. my life had gone painfully awry. i was broke, living day to day, in a near-suicidal state of depression, no hope in sight.
so i did what i had done so many times before: i went down below to where the music is. whatever storms raged above the surface could not touch me down there. i can only assume other artists know of which i speak, or anyone who has perhaps submerged him/herself in meditation, or prayer, or focused labor, which, now that i think about it, comprise the sum total of my creative process. i had planned a four-song cycle, each about fifteen minutes long.
In the days that followed, these are the songs that flowed through, as i journeyed across a terrain of emotional devastation and spiritual desolation. as the pieces took shape, my spirit began to lift. it seemed as if i were channeling the music from someplace else, with the help of tiny deities, sprites and nymphs. the pieces defined a story, that of this very accidental journey, which had taken me out of my comfortable oakland home of ten years and plunged me into a world of uncertainty and
occasional danger.
some distance, now, from the original composing of the seasons i must say that my understanding of the dire situation in which i found myself and the subsequent resolution and release through the act of creation abides, stronger than ever. i rightly intuited, as i neared its completion, that the arc of the seasons followed campbell’s archetypal hero’s journey in a most wonderful way. i would ascribe the elements of the story thusly: summer of ‘68 ~ the call & crossing the threshold autumnal sun ~ the road of trials, meeting with the goddess
& diving into the abyss winter blue ~ death, rebirth, transformation & atonement the forever spring ~ the magic flight, the crossing of the
return threshold & freedom to live. may this music be an accompaniment to your own secret journey.
I went to a record release party recently, a record release as in an actual LP vinyl album, comprised of recordings made December 1, 1967 and January 28, 1968, of the band Haymarket Riot performing at the First Unitarian Church of Kensington, California, a small township just north of Berkeley.
I was handed a gatefold album cover and opened it and was very pleasantly surprised to see the poster I did for the show on the inside, based on a bottle of jug red wine. I was seventeen at the time. I have no idea why they asked me to do the poster: I don’t recall ever calling myself an artist, even though I was always making pictures or playing guitar and trying to write songs, but I don’t think I talked about it much. We were all kids at Berkeley High.
Then I looked on the back cover and there was an unattributed black-and-white drawing and I thought that looked like something I would have done. I looked closer and saw the legend,”BY THE VANISHING AVOCADO” and then I knew it was mine. I did not do the lettering for the date & time & address! I left those spots open.
I did add the phrase, “A Rebirth of Wonder,” from a Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “I Am Waiting.” That would have eventually tipped me off I’m fairly certain, if I had left off the vanishing avocado!
I did the music. XavierXreivax did the lovely video. Not what I was expecting at all, but I love it’s subtle power and simplicity more every time I watch it. Thanks Xavier!
This song was on the cd, “Pop Down The Years (electronic music for the mind and body)” and is available here.
A new piece for chamber orchestra and electronics, intended to be the first of a cycle of pieces wherein the theme is water. In this case, the Pacific Ocean and many of its beautiful creatures. Written, arranged, and produced by yours truly.
I’m too tired to write much more about the piece right now (Friday midnight), but I will tomorrow or Sunday.
I will add a link where you can buy the song shortly. For now, enjoy.
I will be discussing this and the other songs from Deus Sex Machina shortly. In the meantime, enjoy this video I created by appropriating the wonderful 1934 cartoon Bimbo’s Initiation by Max Fleischer. I think they go incredibly well together.
