Retrofuturism

Meet Me in the Strange has been called a "retrofuturist novel." That is, it looks back and embraces much of the style, music, and attitudes of  '70s era glam rock. (And yes I was there, listening to Bowie, T Rex, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, Eno, New York Dolls.) It also looks to an alternate future - when the world (especially for two wild teenagers) is mutating into something strange, unpredictable and amazing.

Can a person be haunted by ghosts from the future? Why not? Can we send our minds (and eyes and ears) back to a time when things were better (or at least much cooler?) I say: absolutely. A very smart (and somewhat sad) person once said, "The past is where they keep all the good stuff." Music, books, art, movies, snazzy-looking clothes, heroes. This is partly cheap nostalgia. But here in the present we can look back at the past and recognize the really good things that will last.

What's ahead? One thing is for sure: new experiences. So Meet Me in the Strange exists in a weird limbo: forward and backward, there and not-here-yet, maybe and if only.

Dagon and the Hand-Jive

Listen:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/9c8shhf4b69v5u7/Dagon_and_the_Hand_Jive.mp3?dl=0

You got a crazy little finger, a crazy little thumb.
You got a crazy little organ, think I'm gonna get me some.
Everybody get religion. Everybody get a stick.
Everybody get some fish eggs and beat 'em till they're thick.

Hand-jive Dagon do the slime
digits working overtime
Come on all you Philistines
it's time to make the scene.

Sharkskin suit and cheaters too.
You got a mirror shine on a cloven shoe.
Up all night in the Temple of Cool,
worldwide champ of pocket pool.

Hand-jive Dagon do the slime
digits working overtime
Come on all you Philistines
it's time to make the scene.

Voltage Hymn

Listen:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/fq5asc4nh88fruz/Voltage_Hymn.mp3?dl=0

Rise perfect voltage, pow'r and light
whose majesty is unconfined.
Indwell this luminary night
the shining darkness of the mind.

Your inward speaking wakes the dead
and by its tongue they understand
the excellence of words unsaid
the silence that you can command.

Pure generation - turbines turn
in deepest earth where few may go.
These mortal coils forever burn.
This is the truth we all must know.

Copper and iron make the life
that flowing current - liquid love.
mated as man and fated wife
like waters fall endless from above.

When we are risen, turned to light
then we shall see as those once blind
transformed as day is turned to night
filled with the brilliance of your mind.

Delirium

When I get sick, when the fever spikes, my thoughts get scrambled. The flu hit on Friday and by Monday, I was hot, achy, and delirious. The whole time, I was reading Brian Jones: The Making Of The Rolling Stones. Highly recommended (the book, not the flu.) Brian founded and named the band, and taught Mick and Keith how to be rock stars. It's not a happy story - but full of exotica, sixties high flash fashion, beautiful girls and journeys into weirdness. Fave episode: Brian travels to Morocco to record a crazed all-night ritual to conjure up the Great God Pan. A sacrificial goat, endless drumming and dancing. I was feverish through the whole thing (the book, not the ritual.) Do me a favor - find it - I think it's all true - and see if what I remember is actually there.

Sen-Sen

Is it candy, or is it poison? Or both? Tiny, black, and mysteriously vile, Sen-Sen seems to be something spies would hide in a false tooth to bite down on when captured. But in fact it's claimed to give "breathtaking refreshment" which "masks the odors of smoke, food or drink." The taste? Dead flowers, formaldehyde, licorice and cheap hotel soap. For over a hundred years old ladies have carried tiny foil pouches of Sen-Sen. I first experienced the noxious burning flavor as a little kid, digging for gum in my Grandma's purse. I suppose I never really recovered.

The Lost Thirteen

These are the bands I've performed with. All of them either did live shows or recorded, or both. Most are long, long forgotten:
Health and Beauty
Mongo Fury
Ju-Ju School
Screaming Vinyl
Caravan of Fear
Those Wild Swedish Mongoloids
Flat Planet
Quadroon
Nemo's Omen
The Fabulous Rectotem
The Behemoth Brothers
Invisible Stain Removers
Tape, vinyl, digital, memory: all dissolving into the past.

HALLELUJAH DAGON

Well-worn musical icon of countless Christmas rites, “The Hallelujah Chorus” is Handel’s most famous piece. But he celebrated the slimy fish-god Dagon with as much verve, and far more wit. The same month that he completed Messiah (September 1741), Handel had started Samson. As he went to Dublin for Messiah’s premier, he was just finishing up his next oratorio, which begins with a chorus of crazed Philistines writhing and wailing at their pagan altar.

“Awake the trumpet’s lofty sound!
The joyful sacred festival comes round
when Dagon king of all earth is crown’d.
The solemn hymn and cheerful song:
be Dagon praised by ev’ry tongue.
In notes of triumph, notes of praise
so high great Dagon’s name we’ll raise.”

The music could be right out of “For Unto us a Child is Born.” But it’s a hymn of praise to Lovecraft’s favorite squamous deity instead of Jesus. Half man, half fish, and all eldritch, Dagon rises roaring from his deep-sea bed while the baby Jesus lies cooing sweetly in his cradle.

Samson, the dreadlocked Israelite muscleman, had made his name killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of dismembered donkey. But no asinine mandible could protect him from the charms of Dalila.

Like the Rastas who take him as their mightiest exemplar, Samson had joined the secret society of the Nazarites, devoting himself to slaughter and God by vowing never to drink wine or beer, touch a corpse or cut his hair. Wild sex, however, was another matter. And The Book of Judges details his various conquests and one night stands. Whores and hussies, virgins and pagan votaries feel the irresistible urge when he flexes his muscle of love. Dalila’s relationship with the throbbing hunk of Nazarite manhood is far more complex. She may fall for his bulging biceps, but when offered cold cash by Philistine kings, she turns betrayer.

With his eyes torn out, captive in their temple, Samson endures the taunts of the Philistines as they pray to their vile fish-god in a last drunken chorus:

“Great Dagon has subdued our foe
who brought their boasted hero low.
Sound out his pow’r in notes divine
praise him with mirth, high cheer and wine.”

Yes, there is a somber resolution. Samson dies as he pulls down the Philistine temple, off-stage. But like Paradise Lost, where Satan gets all the best lines, in this one, Dagon gets the best music.