Skytree Collab | Aya Awakenings Panel | New Visionary Guitar Electronica | Hummingbird Hats | Summer Festival Calendar

“Altering perception alters the claims reality makes on you."
– Erik Davis

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

– Steve Jobs

It's that time of year again – when I cast myself out onto the open road and throw myself wholeheartedly into the blessing and crucible of festival season.  Part fishing expedition, part pilgrimage, I cherish this season for all of the new friends made and old friends revisited, the meditation of the highway, the sizzle and fervor of the festival weekend.

This year I'm not only playing music and live painting, but giving talks on entertainment as social action and leading open discussions on transformational sobriety at festivals across the country.  My summer tour calendar is below.  I hope to see you out there...in the meantime, enjoy the abundance of music, art, and ideas I have for you in this newsletter.  May they alter the claims reality makes on you.

Thank you so much for reading and listening!

Guest Appearance on Skytree's New Album

The opening track of crystalline bass wizard Skytree's new album Cirrus Sapiens features some glitchy guitar and ukulele courtesy of yours truly – along with samples from ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna talking about the curious part of our brain responsible for religious experiences.  Check out "God Detector," and the rest of this amazing album, here.  LostInSound.org gave it a great review you can read here.

Visionary Plant Medicines – Panel Discussion

Stream Online | Free Download

This February I was lucky enough to participate in a panel discussion on indigenous plant medicine traditions, modern entheogenic experiences, and the future of human consciousness with documentary directors Rak Razam (Aya Awakenings) and Mitch Schultz (DMT: The Spirit Molecule).  Stream or download our far-ranging conversation for free here.

In this video excerpt from the discussion, I explain how a DMT trip in 2008 taught me about mind, nature, and reality:

Watch in HD | Add to Youtube Playlist

New Visionary Guitar Electronica Live Sets

Stream Online | Pay-What-You-Want Download

Upbeat, cinematic, invigorating – great for a "getting things done" montage or a drive across the sunset. I was honored to be the first musical guest for Create Culture, a new First Wednesdays monthly by the Third Coast Visions art collective here in Austin at Lanai Rooftop Lounge.  About a dozen of us get together for live painting to DJs and the occasional live musical act in a slick upstairs open-air nightclub.

Stream Online | Pay-What-You-Want Download

Real bluesy and deep.  A performance at Wake the Dead Coffee House (San Marcos, TX) supporting Texas Wild Rice Festival – improvised to live visuals by Topher Sipes of ARTheism, featuring Ashleigh Stone on vocals & George Matthews on human beatbox.

Custom Painted Hats

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This hat and the one below were painted as a pair for a couple that loves hummingbirds.  Since my own recent hummingbird visitation on a hike in the gorgeous Texas hill country – and because it is the spirit animal of Sonic Bloom Festival, my longest-running annual festival engagement – these beautiful birds have been on my mind a lot of late.  

Metaphysically they represent love, joy, buoyancy...a kiss from the sky.  But my paleontologist friend once pointed out to me that they're always on a sugar high from all the nectar and extremely territorial – if they were the size of turkeys we would fear them.  Funny how that works.

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My Summer Festival Calendar

Every year I get better at picking only the juiciest, heartiest, most dialed-in transformational festivals to give my time, love, and energy.  These events are some of the finest boutique small festivals in the country.  Look them up if you're not familiar – good things are happening everywhere, these days!

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New Live Painting | Ken Adams on SolPurpose Conversations | Audio-Visual Psychedelia with Topher Sipes | Two New Concert Recordings

"Don’t think of night as the absence of day; think of it as a kind of freedom. Turned away from our sun, we see the dawning of far-flung galaxies. We are no longer sun-blind to the star-coated universe we inhabit."
– Diane Ackerman

So the summer begins.  The last few weeks in particular have been among the most transformational of my whole life to date...new home, new lease on love, new insights into Being...a fuller update is going to have to wait, cuz Duty Calls.  Or maybe I'll just let the art speak for itself.  :)

Enjoy these latest offerings.  I'm honored to share them with you.  As always, art prints are here, email me if you want something custom, like my page if you haven't already, and feel free to reach out to me at any time for any reason.  Thanks for reading!

"The Soul of Night"

Buy 11"x17" Poster Prints | Like/Share on FB

24"x32" – paint markers on masonite panel

Painted at:

• LANAI Rooftop Lounge 2014.03.05 for Fractālà, Ram-Z, Pharo, Blunt Force

• Head for the Hills Music, Arts, and Brew Festival 2014.03.07 for Gobi, Dimitri's Ascent

• Studio 2014.03.22, 04.09, 04.10, 04.12

In honor of H.R. Giger, may he rest in peace. Also inspired by Mardis Gras, Jumping Spiders, Lingerie, Fabergé Eggs, Christmas Ornaments, and the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. What more can I say?  

SolPurpose Podcast with special guest Ken Adams

Read More / Free Download

“It’s important that we pay attention. We only have this attention for a very short time in this human frame, and what we put our attention onto is where the most magic and power is. It’s where the most freedom is. Really the ONLY place there’s any freedom is where you put your attention. And it’s time for us to turn our attention to preserving the planet, to loving one another, to sharing what there is…there’s plenty to go around.” 

– Ken Adams

For anyone new to this blog, I'm the editor-in-chief of SolPurpose – a creative nexus for visionaries covering the amazing art and ideas, festivals, music, and healthy life practices of transformational culture.

In the latest episode of our podcast, I speak with Ken Adams – experimental filmmaker, longtime friend and collaborator with psychedelic philosopher Terence McKenna, and director of Imaginatrix: The Terence McKenna Experience, a masterful new work of psychedelic cinema. Ken’s greatest gifts to the community, though, may be his peaceful and compassionate demeanor and the perspective cultivated over years at the front lines of conscious evolution.

For a great conversation on the history of the psychedelic revolution, aging as a spiritual path, and the importance of elders in evolutionary community, you can download our chat for free right here.

Live Digital Psychedelia:

Michael Garfield + Topher Sipes = A/V Medicine Journey

Watch in HD | Like/Share on FB | Download the Music

Simulated DMT Trip performed in light and sound...

Here's the full 22 minute cyberguitar performance I did at the Austin Scottish Rite Theater, the oldest theater west of the Mississippi River, back on February 6th – a collaboration with my friend, digital animator Topher Sipes, following the screening of my friend Rak Razam's film Aya Awakenings.

Topher "danced with light" along to my loosely scripted guitar looping improvisation using the Boss RC-300 Loopstation. (Looping enthusiasts will probably appreciate my application of the three sets of independent transport controls for counterpoint and sample hits, especially toward the end of the performance as things pick up pace.)

Enjoy! Shares and feedback always appreciated.

Two New Live Concert Recordings

2014.02.06 – Scottish Rite Theatre (Austin, TX)

Download it Here

The audio from the video above...since this was an intermission performance between the screening of Rak Razam's ayahuasca documentary Aya Awakenings and a panel discussion about the film, Topher and I tried to make it as jungle triptastic as possible.  Those of you who have any experience with the Vine of Souls are more likely to appreciate how this piece rears its jeweled and streaming head for full-on medicinal overwhelm over an accelerating 22 minutes...programmatic music tracing the opening movements of a transcendental inner symphony.

Download "Dream Snakes" for free.

2014.02.15 – Tantra Coffee House (Austin, TX)

Download it Here

Violinda Lola and I went totally nuts in the climactic moments of this concert we performed together for a Texas Wild Rice Festival fundraiser at Tantra Coffee House in San Marcos, Texas.  I used to have doubts about my ability to launch a crowd to their feet in dance, but this show obliterated them – by the end of the 45 minutes, over 200 people were spilling out of the café's side yard and into the streets, adults and children dancing, people packed up at the front of house, a gorgeous and intense celebration of life I was honored to facilitate.  Super great energy!

Download the whole thing for free until May 28th, and "Do The Aquarena" free after that.

New Meadowlark Painting & Live Cyberguitar Recording Series

"Happiness and freedom may ultimately depend less on maintaining particular states of mind than on cultivating the appropriate attitude toward whatever states of mind arise out of the elegant chaos of life."

– Erik Davis

"There is no strength outside of balance."

– Marcus Ambrester

In recent news:  We just announced Sonic Bloom Festival's 2014 Live Art Lineup and it's amazing.

My $10 print sale is over on May 15th and I deeply appreciate all the support so far!

I published a great talk on SolPurpose with author James Jesso about psilocybin psychotherapy.

My art and music got shoutouts from Trendhunter, Mechanical Dummy, and Emergence Earth.

And I'm juuuust about to announce my summer festival lineup...the arrangements are taking a little longer than usual but it's shaping up to be a beautiful season.  Meanwhile, I have more new art and music than I know what to do with, so here you go!

Thanks so much for spending some time with my love's labor.  I hope it gets you there.

"You've Got A Song In Your Heart"

Buy 11"x17" Poster Prints | Like/Share on FB

24"x32" – paint markers on masonite

Original Painting Available (email me if interested)

Painted live at The Parish (Austin, Texas) for:

2014.02.08 - Desert Dwellers, Futexture, CactusBath

2014.02.22 - New Car Caviar, Loose Leaf, Henry + The Invisibles

2014.03.30 - Kalya Scintilla, Space Jesus, DRRTYWULVZ

2014.04.02 - Zach Deputy, Henry + The Invisibles

2014.04.10 - The Malah, Jamie Janover + Resunator

My first live painting of 2014 is of a bird very dear to me, the Western Meadowlark. They live all over the United States (the state bird of Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, AND Wyoming) and have one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.

When I was going to college at the University of Kansas my friends and would go camping at the lake west of town and these birds singing from fence posts were the soundtrack to sunset for more beautiful experiences than I can count. They are what peace sounds like, to me. My partner and I decided when we get married we're going to do it in one of those meadows by the lake, and I'm so looking forward to the meadowlarks that day...

Announcing Tunnels of Gates
A New Series of Live Recordings

After five years of exploring the frontiers of guitar looping electronica, I'm finally comfortable sharing the majority of my improvised sets – each with a different character, reflecting the spirit of a place and time, venue and audience.  Like wine, each release in this new series is a unique vintage – everything about each show makes a difference in how these sets turn out, and every one of them explores a different musical territory.  

Tunnels of Gates is inspired by the Japanese tradition of placing hundreds of decorative gates in a row on temple paths – a meditation on time and change that (for me) evokes the transcendental voyage described described from near-death experiences and rendered masterfully by the climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

My music is intended as a soundtrack to these transformational times, an attempt to communicate and celebrate the metamorphic intensity of life in the early 21st Century.  Every constantly shifting guitar soundscape is a musical tunnel of gates – taken together, they are a hyperspace trip through the evolution of my ideas and experiences as an artist.

It's the Year of the Horse, y'all.  Grab ahold and enjoy the ride!  Here are the first two sets:

2014.01.01 – Reunion Party (Austin, TX)
Download it Here

Heart opening, hopeful, dreamy and romantic sunrise set from New Year's Day...it was an awesome honor to set the tone for this year, and with the help of Jared Buchsbaum on various wind instruments we caught some real longing and expansion.  Download "Dawn Run Through The Grasses" for free.

2014.02.04 – Triple Crown (San Marcos, TX)
Download it Here

Flowing riverine grooves open my first show improvised alongside live visuals by Topher Sipes – an evening that got bluesy, then straight up shamanic (video here), culminating in an apocalyptically intense extraterrestrial meltdown with violinist Linda Lola.  Download "Devotion" for free.

I'll post another live set every Tuesday until I run out of shows worth sharing – stay tuned by following Facebook and Twitter for a bunch of other news, art, and ideas that I can't possibly squeeze into these newsletters.

Feel free to reach out to me any time with your questions or feedback, and have a beautiful day!