The “It” Kings and Tantric Love Music

Posted by admin on May 7th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

In the Summer of 2004, Trey Ananastsio, lead singer and guitar player of Phish promised Charlie Rose that he would NEVER get back together with his musical soul mates.  A famous last word, “Never” can sometimes come back and bite us in the ass…but nevertheless I understood where he was coming from, and didn’t believe him.  

I also had a feeling that some of the reasons, (not all)  he was giving Charlie for the

bands “final” break-up were dancing around the truth.

I know that family had a part in it, and definitely being tired out, perhaps bored, not their best anymore had a big part in it as well…but I also think that drugs played the biggest role in their post hiatus demise.  

Why do so many musicians turn to drugs?  

There are so many reasons, but I am going to talk about one that maybe doesn’t usually get talked about so much.  (I could be wrong…but I’ve never heard it spoken of that much)  

I have had the priveledge of seeing some of the finest musicians in the world in concert.  Last october I saw Keith Jarret, Gary Peacock, and Jack De Johnette play at Carnegie Hall…I have seen Larry Corryel, Christian McBride…I have seen Joe Lovano, Paul Motion, Bill Frissel…at my college I had the priveledge of seeing some of the best classical musicians in the world…

All these concerts were amazing.  Truly extraordinary musical experiences that I will remember forever no doubt.  None of them compare to Phish concerts.  

And, I feel totally ridiculous saying that.  I feel like a huge hippy doofus admitting that actually…but it’s true…at least for me.  And the musicianship of the four members of Phish is not even close to the same ballpark as the afore mentioned musicians.  However, in my opinion…they are masters of “It” moments.  They are the “It” kings if you will and are able to sustain “It” for incredible amounts of time.  They are the Tantric Gods of Music.  

All joking aside…my experiences with Phish have teetered far beyond the edge of Wittgenstein’s idea of the “sublime.”  They have taken me (without the aid of psychedelic drugs) past the boundary line of feeling myself as a separate entity from the music and have tossed me into a whirlwind of ecstatic and indescribable bliss.  Being at a great phish concert (they aren’t always great) is very much like being on a 2 and a half hour roller coaster ride that only stops for the 20 minutes set break halfway through.  They take you “there,”…they make “It” happen and keep “It” sustained for endless periods of time.  

Now  if I feel this way as an audience member…i can only imagine how it must feel to be the people doing it.  If I feel this way listening to Phish, what euphoria, what bliss must Trey, Mike, Fish, and Page be experiencing on a nightly basis?  I read an interview with Page once where he says that everynight he has an average of 1-2 “peak” moments but many times has way more.  If those peak moments are anything like the peak moments I have experienced…that’s an IMMENSE amount of euphoric energy to contain in one body.  And the crux is that the come down must be as intense.  

When I was five years old…I literally started looking forward to my birthday two months in advance.  I could barely sleep the night before my birthday and when my “party” was over…you could probably say that I entered a mild state of temporary depression. 

Coming down from a concert where you are the players, the creators, the purveyors of sometimes, insurmountable joy, day in, day out, year in, year out must be somewhat equivalent to being addicted to narcotics and dealing with the up and the come down of that addiction.  In addition to that…when you have fans who know how “high” you’ve been able to take the music…and come see you, expecting that high…that’s quite a large amount of pressure to “produce.”  Thousands of people, riding on you every night to pull magical out of your ass…  

It makes sense to me why so many musicians turn to drugs…feeding their addiction to peak moments…and doing whatever it takes to avoid the come down.  

We forget that our first act as human beings, our first breath, is a microcosm of the nature of life.  We inhale and expand, taking oxygen into our lungs and then we exhale and contract, releasing carbon dioxide into the air.  We take what we need from the oxygen to survive, and with the expulsion of carbon dioxide, we remove what is not needed and harmful to the body.  

The universe actually breaths in the same way, although on a much greater scale.  Life is very much like a huge breath, and on a smaller level, a series of millions of both little and big breaths.  Contraction feels scary…if we let go of our breath to the point where if feels like we hardly have any air left to breath out…it feels very much like we are drowning.  ”The come down” of life experiences…like the end of my 5 year old birthday can feel very similar.  We forget that we are simply doing nature.  We are exhaling.  We have taken in what we need…and if we held it or sustained it…it would be harmful to us.

Moab Utah, Oceans in Colorado, and Aliens from Zuron

Posted by admin on May 1st, 2009 | 7 Comments »

Last saturday my girlfriend, my dog and I ventured into the Moab desert in Utah to check out some of the sweet sandstone formations.  Apparently, according to the information that we received upon entering the “Arches National Park” these incredible rock formations were formed when an ocean used to live on top of Colorado and Utah, and as a result of the ocean evaporating, and fault lines merging, rain and snow carving, and sand and salt not getting along so well, these amazing sandstone formations were formed and are continuing to be molded, shaped and carved over the years.  

Personally, I think that every night, when the national park closes, and the park rangers go home, a select breed of sandstone carving aliens from the planet “Zuron” arrive in their space ships and set up for their daily art class…using the sandstone as clay for their artistic endeavors.  

I know I sound sarcastic, but this is actually how the Moab Desert was REALLY formed.  

I mean…come on…an OCEAN on top of COLORADO?

In all seriousness, most likely an ocean did live on top of Colorado and begin the chain of events that led to these amazing rock formations, but my point is not about geology…or archiology…(whatever field studies rocks.) 

Human beings are the only species, (that we know of) that give two shits about understanding “Why”.  Only humans ask the question “why” or “how” did that rock fall on top of that rock and look like only God could have placed it so mysteriously and purposely.  And I know that some of the reason is because of the fact that we are “conscious” and have “brains” we want to “know” and “understand” things…and that’s great.  I mean if it wasn’t for our desire to understand “why” or “how” then we would most likely be WAY behind as a society in regards to most of the luxuries we experience today…i.e., medicine, science, technology, entertainment, internet, blogs, home cooking appliances etc. etc. etc. 

But I also think that this impulse to want to know “why” and want to understand everything comes from the fact that we are terrified of dying…

We are so terrified of not understanding something, of being awed in mystery, that our immediate desire when we see something we don’t understand is to try to figure out how to understand it.  The first thing I said while driving through the Moab desert was “how the fuck did this stuff happen?”  To sit in mystery is so foreign and uncomfortable to most because it either subconsciously or consciously reminds us of the fact that we are going to die and that life itself is an utter and complete mystery, whether we want to believe it or not.  

What is responsible for beating my heart right now?  A doctor could tell me how my heart beats and why it beats and the muscles that make it beat but a doctor can NEVER tell me the ultimate mystery of what Life Force, and why that Life Force is beating my heart.

Human beings will never really “know” anything actually.  And it is our height of folly and arrogance to think that we ever will.  All we can know, and all we think we can understand is only through the eyes of our human window, our patterned experience and our narrow interpretation of the world.  We will never see the world through a Grizzly Bears eyes and nor should we ever pretend that we can.  

There is ONLY mystery…always and forever.  It’s the primal reality. There is only the free fall of this unknown moment…everything arising spontaneously and without volition even when we think that we know exactly what’s going to happen, or exactly what’s we’re going to say.  

We have no choice but to be driven to understand “why” or “how”…it’s a human habit and a human disposition that results in the furtherment and betterment of society (or sometimes the destruction of our natural world) but let us NEVER, for one minute, EVER believe that we ACTUALLY understand anything…or even come close to understanding…the incomprehensible, the unfathomable, the inexplainable, massive vastness that is this inherent mystery called Life.  

…And that is why I believe Aliens built the Moab Desert.