why does my blog have this name?

'Slip Inside This House' is the first track on the second 13th Floor Elevators album 'Easter Everywhere'. It's an 8 minute long ode to psychedelic drugs, based around a hypnotizing riff and lyrics full of dense philosophical poetry that sounds cleary inspired by Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. The feeling that this song gives me is very similar to the feeling of a peak in a psychedelic experience, the feeling of a grand philosophical breakthrough that's on the edge of exploding and revealing itself.  In other words this song is a total trip, yet it dosn't rely on dated sound effects. Forget White Rabbit - this is the true anthem of mind expansion, certainly music to 'feed your head' with. 

Primal Scream covered this song, which is also worth hearing but no one can beat Roky Erickson's frenzied vocal delivery. 

It's an awesome song. And you should hear it for yourself:

Bedoin tribes ascending
From the egg into the flower,
Alpha information sending
State within the heaven shower
From disciples the unending
Subtleties of river power
They slip inside this house as they pass by

If your limbs begin dissolving
In the water that you tread
All surroundings are evolving
In the stream that clears your head
Find yourself a caravan
Like Noah must have led
And slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

True conception, knowing why
Brings even more than meets the eye
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

In this dark we call creation
We can be and feel and know
From an effort, comfort station
That's surviving on the go
There's infinite survival in
The high baptismal glow.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Live where your heart can be given
And your life starts to unfold
In the forms you envision
In this dream that's ages old
On the river layer is the only sayer
You receive all you can hold
Like you've been told.

Every day's another dawning
Give the morning winds a chance
Always catch your thunder yawning
Lift your mind into the dance
Sweep the shadows from your awning
Shrink the fourfold circumstance
That lies outside this house don't pass it by.

Higher worlds that you uncover
Light the path you want to roam
You compare there and discover
You won't need a shell of foam
Twice born gypsies care and keep
The nowhere of their former home
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

You think you can't, you wish you could
I know you can, I wish you would
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

Four and twenty birds of Maya
Baked into an atom you
Polarized into existence
Magnet heart from red to blue
To such extent the realm of dark
Within the picture it seems true
But slip inside this house and then decide.

All your lightning waits inside you
Travel it along your spine
Seven stars receive your visit
Seven seals remain divine
Seven churches filled with spirit,
Treasure from the angels' mine
Slip inside this house as you pass by.
Slip inside this house as you pass by.

The space you make has your own laws
No longer human gods are cause
The center of this house will never die.

There is no season when you are grown
You are always risen from the seeds you've sown
There is no reason to rise alone
Other stories given have sages of their own.

Draw from the well of unchanging
Its union nourishes on
In the right re-arranging
Till the last confusion is gone
Water-brothers trust in the ultimust
Of the always singing song they pass along.

One-eyed men aren't really reigning
They just march in place until
Two-eyed men with mystery training
Finally feel the power fill
Three-eyed men are not complaining.
They can yo-yo where they will
They slip inside this house as they pass by.
Don't pass it by.

into the white

this is what i'm thinking about: 

this is who I would hang out with if I could:

this is some socialist propaganda I thought was clever: 

this is just plain awesome: 

this is the practice space I wish my band had:

this is what I do on weekends: 

this is something that might have been made by aliens:

journey to the end of the night

What an amazing book! Celine hates the world and he makes a very fine fine case for doing the same. But the best part about this book isn't the nihilistic message but Celine's radical prose, filled with intensity, anger, and wit. Writers like William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski owe their existense to this guy. Apparently Sartre loved it to and would quote passages from it out loud at Parisian Cafes. 

lets get excited shall we?

here i am lying in a field;

an operating room, a dissection table,

the grass is green wet and slimey

"your brains have been stolen"

says the debauched millionaire

i ignore and 

in the distance i hear motorcycles of self destruction 

while Napoleons voice creeps throughout the skies 

time passes and passes and passes 

but is ultimately worthless like my skin 

my skin and bones and brains 

my internal organs 

all hauled up

and thrown into the river 

floating through sewers 

i meet prehistoric humans, aggravated fishermen,

and caverns of mindlessness 

all illuminated and thrown into space

catching a newspaper

my eyes are glued

to stories of drug-whore doctors 

and asylums of freedom 

someday, i think, just someday,

i'll get to sleep

it's all i really want 

new animal collective album!

Animals Collective have proven that in today's stale and obsessively rational musical industry that it's still possible to make music that's freaky yet emotionally resonant. 'Freak-folk' is the common tag used to describe them and it's probably the best anyone can ever think of. Their music is often both tribal and primitive while textured and electronic at the same time. What's cool about Animal Collective is that they've achieved minor popularity while playing some of the weirdest music on the planet. 

Every Animal Collective album is different, offering something unique and interesting. My personal favorite is Feels, but a lot of people seem to really like Strawberry Jam, which seems to be more accessible and song oriented. Much of Feels relies on the ambience created by seas of effects-driven guitars and electronics instead of actual songs. Here Comes The Indian is another masterpiece, but it's fairly inaccessible and really abstract the first few listens. Sun Tongs is mainly acoustic but features some of their best moments. 

Merriweather Post Pavillion is the name of the new Animal Collective and it's been getting rave reviews. I have yet to hear the whole thing but the few songs i've been able to experience have been pretty amazing. It seems as if they're further embracing electronic minimalism ala Terry Riley and i'm digging how it sounds. 

 

Also, that album cover is something else! I could stare at for hours. 

Abstract Expressionism and the fight against communism

when one views a painting of jackson pollock the last thing that comes to mind is that there was a right wing agenda behind the piece of art. in fact pollock is far from the kind of American J. Edgar Hoover would like to know. however during the Cold War our government was so determined to fight communism that they decided even the art world needed to be cleansed of left-wing radicalism. 

to make a long story short the CIA backed organization Congress for Cultural Freedom decided that because abstract expressionism was devoid of any political value (sure it was wild, but it wouldn't turn anyone into a communist like much of the social-realism found in visual art) it would be an excellent form of art to promote. 

you're probably thinking "ugh, more paranoid conspiracy crap from a left wing moron." 

however-

i'm not going to cite sources because i'm lazy (not helping any stereotypes here....), but i urge you to do some of your own research on this and find out that this is indeed true and not another paranoid conspiracy theory. in fact, this is just too plain weird to be made up. 

here's tuli kuferberg of the fugs, one of my heroes, giving us his take on the subject:

so there you go. Jackson Pollock wasn't a rebel, he was just another pawn used by the military-industrial complex to brainwash us.