"For the first time in human evolution, the individual life is long enough, and the cultural transformation swift enough, that the individual mind is now a constituent player in the global transformation of human culture."– William Irwin Thompson
"I would argue that the presence of human civilization on this planet is the strongest evidence we have that matter and organizational processes are about to make some kind of a leap to a new order of being. What history is, is the 25,000 year transition zone. Before you enter the zone, you're an animal. After you leave the zone, you're a god."
– Terence McKenna
An Aria for ABIA: live at Austin Airport
Ode To A Paradigm Shift, Part Five:
Resonance, Connection, Reincarnation
From the latest installment in my serial essay on the changing nature of self and reality in our age of transition:
"I know many people for whom the memory of future events are occurring more and more frequently in dreams. These experiences of foreign places, people, and events are initially ignored; unfamiliar, we have no reason to remember them until a year or two later, when we’re sitting there and suddenly the pieces fit, and we’re hanging out with people we didn’t know a year ago, in a place we hadn’t visited a year ago, and of course we had no reason to recognize this as the memory of something that had yet to occur – but there it is nonetheless." Read more...
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"I would argue that the presence of human civilization on this planet is the strongest evidence we have that matter and organizational processes are about to make some kind of a leap to a new order of being. What history is, is the 25,000 year transition zone. Before you enter the zone, you're an animal. After you leave the zone, you're a god."
– Terence McKenna
This week: I have not one, but two new live recordings for you, made before I left on this summer's epic tour. Also, some fresh concert footage; a couple of new painted hats; a cool collaboration from Impulse Festival; and a new essay that goes deeper than ever into last spring's ayahuasca-inspired transpersonal revelations. Enjoy!
Austin, Texas: The one place I have ever been with FOUR live music stages in its airport! Unless you're arriving or departing there on August 3rd, you'll miss my next gig in the terminal – but I recorded the last one, and smuggled it out through the security checkpoint so you could have it for free (or support my tomfoolery with a tour-enabling donation).
There's something ethereal-chrome-military-vacation about the airport that makes it a bizarre place to perform – not to mention the fact that I'm technically there on government contract and was warned I might be "too weird" for the daytime clientele of Ray Benson's Roadhouse Bar & Grill. (Cue laugh track!)
Luckily, they were wrong. As I was packing up after the show, a man come up to me and shook my hand. "I grew up here,' he said, "but now I live in L.A. I come back as much as I can, and THIS is why."
So enjoy the intricate fingerstyle guitar and melismatic melodies...scroll down for weirder, instrumental fare.
The first of six live concert footage videos from my show at the airport. I'll be releasing a new one every week on my youtube channel until they're all online for the world to see...this first one is a "cyberacoustic" guitar loopscape I improvised to the theme of "air travel." If you get this blog by email and the video doesn't show up, you can watch it here.
After the sweetest coercion from my roommates to throw them a private concert, I finally plugged in all of my gear at a surreal hour one balmy spring night and improvised a twenty-minute instrumental appetizer set to ride out our sleep-deprived strangeness. Trancier and more hypnotic than my usual fare – and best for late-night listening, obviously...
(Thanks to visual alchemist Chaeli Cardenas for the dope watercolor frog cover art!)
Resonance, Connection, Reincarnation
From the latest installment in my serial essay on the changing nature of self and reality in our age of transition:
"I know many people for whom the memory of future events are occurring more and more frequently in dreams. These experiences of foreign places, people, and events are initially ignored; unfamiliar, we have no reason to remember them until a year or two later, when we’re sitting there and suddenly the pieces fit, and we’re hanging out with people we didn’t know a year ago, in a place we hadn’t visited a year ago, and of course we had no reason to recognize this as the memory of something that had yet to occur – but there it is nonetheless." Read more...
Impulse Festival Collaboration
Untitled On-Site Live Art Gallery Collaboration, 2012.06.16 – 17
w/ Andy Reed, Stephen Wells, Christian Jaxtheimer, Emily Kell,
Sarah Tracy,
Maddie Moore, AllieSun Azura, Chance Losher, Rae Vena,
Chapin Mathews,
Andrew Wagner, & Thomas Robbertson-Forrest
...or at least I think so. This tiny piece – only about 20" from top to bottom – got passed around all weekend, so my list of collaborators is an educated guess. Some of those artists may not have been involved; but we were all there soaking up each other's creative juices all weekend, so it's safe to say there was a tacit collaboration, regardless.
In pieces like this, my niche is to augment and amplify everyone's work with fine details – only to remain invisible. I was one of the last to work on this, so have fun seeing if you can tell my hand apart from everyone else's!
New Custom-Painted Lids
My friend Justin Ulrich, a.k.a. psytrance DJ The Psychosis Generator, wanted a hat with his new logo to rock while doing his DJ sets. I took the 2D example he gave me and turned it into some kind of extraterrestrial marine invertebrate. :)
After my recent Bassnectar- and Pretty Lights-themed hat commissions, I've started getting more music-related requests. I never imagined I'd be painting a Disco Biscuits hat, but here it is, and I like it.
New Shows Announced!
Tonight I'll be playing at Flagstaff Brewing Company with my friends, timeless American troubadour Luke Redfield, desert mystic/guitar wizard Brave Julius, & live painter Chaeli Cardenas – kindred spirits with whom I just dusted up at three great shows along Colorado's Front Range.
If you know anyone in the area, invite them out for a free evening of superb avant-acoustic music...otherwise, maybe I can catch you at one of these!
If you know anyone in the area, invite them out for a free evening of superb avant-acoustic music...otherwise, maybe I can catch you at one of these!
As always, my deepest gratitude for your time and attention. Stay in touch and have a fabulous day!
